Shuffling along with the rest of the sheep enduring the purgatory of Christmas shopping I found myself ushered into a well known music emporium. While the rest of the family headed severally for DVDs and Games I wandered around the CD aisles. In the sparsely populated 'Folk and Country' section I found a couple of CDs for the princely sum of £3.45 and decided to 'splash the cash'. As I was paying, I remarked to the assistant that the CDs I buy are getting cheaper by the month. "All old albums I suppose," he said with a knowing grin as he looked at the age of the person before him. "Well you'd better make the most of it," he cheerily quipped, "there won't be any CDs in a few months."
I enquired why he was sounding the death knell of something that clearly kept him in employment, albeit partially, with such enthusiasm. "Music will all be download soon. You might get old stuff for a while but everything will go online - you better get used to it. Besides, it will be better for me, all I do this time of year is constantly rearrange the CD racks because customers look at them and then put them back in the wrong place." Once again I asked why he was making such a prediction with, as far as I could see, thousands of people still buying CDs (admittedly not from the 'Folk and Country' rack). "They'll soon come round once the CDs stop," he replied. "People always come round to something new eventually."
So there you have it - straight from the shop assistant's mouth: Stop picking up CDs and putting them back in the wrong place. Buy all your music as downloads. And expect CDs to vanish in a few months. I wonderd quietly to myself if anyone had ever before prohesied the potential end of their own job with such enthusiasm. At least he didn't call me a dinosaur.
