"The CD as it stands is dead", that's what Alain Levy of EMI told a packed room at London School of Business in October (Lomax's article says different but, we checked). John Nova Lomax of Houston Press is taking the time to eulogize it, examine why it's dying and take a cursory look at where the format is heading.

Lomax writes, "Looking back over the past 45 years, it is now plain that the move from vinyl to CD was not the bold step forward we were told it would be. CDs were not scratch-proof (as the labels had us believe early on), nor was the sound an improvement on vinyl -- indeed, most audiophiles argue that their sound is inferior. Jewel cases were ridiculously brittle -- they were rendered useless by a drop of four feet or so -- and they were hard to open, as were the huge and idiotic long-boxes CDs were packaged in well into the 1990s. Their visual appeal was almost always minimal and yet they took up what now seems like a lot of shelf space."

The truth is the CD, due to its fragility, has become a disposable item. One hipster quips in Lomax's article that she treats her music burned to CD with the same dismissive regard as she would treat any disposable lighter. As a culture, we're plenty fed up with disposable items which are sold to us as a "semi-durable" good. We know we'll be back to replace it far to early, and we feel ripped off when we find ourselves back in line again, holding a package full of the same empty promises we bought last time.