Popularity of CDs in your area

It's hard for me to really gauge directly how popular CDs are in San Diego compared to the rest of the world, but for the moment, there still technically are places you can buy them, they're just not as widespread as they were 15 years ago. Apparently, like that one InThe00s article noted, Best Buy and Target may be about to discontinue CDs. This is a pretty huge contrast to 2004, when I distinctly remember Costco carrying copies of Green Day's American Idiot, Houston's It's Already Written, and Nelly's Suit and Sweat albums.

Fortunately, today, there are certain stores I've discovered that still have buttloads of CDs, primarily used ones, offered at bargain prices. In more than a few instances, I've stumbled upon records that aren't even on the American iTunes or Amazon stores, like Belinda Carlisle's A Woman and a Man, PJ & Duncan's Top Katz, Steps' Step One (though Steptacular, Buzzz, and Tears on the Dancefloor are on the US iTunes), and even a couple installments of Bravo Hits, the German equivalent to Now That's What I Call Music.

If I had to guess, I'd think that today, the parts of the US where CDs are most popular would be rural locations, where not only is new technology is slower to catch on, but there aren't as many vinyl snobs as in the city. Also, older generations would probably be less resistant to letting go of physical music, as well as more uncomfortable with pirating or streaming new music. Urban areas are usually full of young adults, whereas suburbs and rural locations are filled more with middle-aged, elderly, and child residents, with the former two comprising the bulk of CDs' remaining audience.

CDs peaked at the turn of the millennium but have slowly declined in popularity since then, due to the rise of mp3 sites, both for purchasing and pirating music, as well as vinyl records and apparently now cassettes making comebacks. After almost two decades, it doesn't surprise me that CDs would eventually fade away from the mainstream.

Actually, Best Buy is an electronics supermarket, its biggest competitor being Fry's Electronics. I'm guessing Best Buy has not expanded its empire to Australia?

It’s seriously a shame piracy became such a calamity to the music industry that it’s pretty much almost entirely to blame for the stodgy, corporatized, homogenous mess we’re in today. It’s too hard for smaller labels and bands to succeed in a world in which only 1 in every 20 people will actually buy their music, which they put all their hard effort into. It’s because of music piracy that music has taken such a backseat to television in popularity this decade. I hate it.