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Back Catalogue CDs - why apologise for reviewing them
Posted by Rob Barnett on January 5, 2026, 8:11 pm
I joyously welcome RM's recent review of various Mahler 10s - ones that have been issued over the last few decades including also a BBC Music Magazine CD. Let's do more of this.
Of course the site's life blood is its coverage of recently issued CDs but we need to extend our coverage back in time. After all, CDs were being issued before MWI started (1983 onwards?) and there is a lively and fully viable market for secondhand classical CDs which continues to cycle and recycle music and performances.
CDs are no longer the fragile things that LPs used to be so let's feed a market where CDs lay some claims to permanence. Yes, I know about bronzing (Pearl etc) but CDs are robust things - or at least that has been my experience of them.
Thank you Ralph and also thank you for a grouped review. It can help that a group of like-themed CDs are dealt with in one place.
Re: Back Catalogue CDs - why apologise for reviewing them
Thank you, Rob; we have indeed been briefly discussing the desirability of more reviewing of the back catalogue which is why I have increasingly been posting reviews of things we have missed. We are still primarily about new releases but we think there is room for more retrospectives - and encourage fellow reviewers to include comparisons with the backlist.
Previous Message
I joyously welcome RM's recent review of various Mahler 10s - ones that have been issued over the last few decades including also a BBC Music Magazine CD. Let's do more of this.
Of course the site's life blood is its coverage of recently issued CDs but we need to extend our coverage back in time. After all, CDs were being issued before MWI started (1983 onwards?) and there is a lively and fully viable market for secondhand classical CDs which continues to cycle and recycle music and performances.
CDs are no longer the fragile things that LPs used to be so let's feed a market where CDs lay some claims to permanence. Yes, I know about bronzing (Pearl etc) but CDs are robust things - or at least that has been my experience of them.
Thank you Ralph and also thank you for a grouped review. It can help that a group of like-themed CDs are dealt with in one place.
Re: Back Catalogue CDs - why apologise for reviewing them
For what it's worth I have never found LPs more fragile than CDs. Heavier, more cumbersome and requiring more space, yes. Never having been (and at this stage never going to be) a homeowner and having lived and worked in four different countries and dozens of different cities over the decades has meant that my records have not been spared an unkind amount of rough and tumble, yet they still give me as much pleasure today as they ever did even though some of them are now more than seventy-five years old.
Furthermore on the issue of the back catalogue, a lot, maybe most, of my LPs, especially those from the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, America (north and south), Australia and Japan contain recordings and repertoire that still only exist on LP and very possibly never will exist on any other medium for all the hype about CDs. For any who doubt this just take a look at the late Michael Herman's excellent National Discography for East-Central Europe and the Balkans.
I am completely ignorant of the market as regards second-hand CDs. The only CDs that ever interested me were those of premiere recordings and although I stopped collecting LPs or CDs completely five years ago I am aware that there is still a very healthy international trade in second-hand classical LPs.
Previous Message
I joyously welcome RM's recent review of various Mahler 10s - ones that have been issued over the last few decades including also a BBC Music Magazine CD. Let's do more of this.
Of course the site's life blood is its coverage of recently issued CDs but we need to extend our coverage back in time. After all, CDs were being issued before MWI started (1983 onwards?) and there is a lively and fully viable market for secondhand classical CDs which continues to cycle and recycle music and performances.
CDs are no longer the fragile things that LPs used to be so let's feed a market where CDs lay some claims to permanence. Yes, I know about bronzing (Pearl etc) but CDs are robust things - or at least that has been my experience of them.
Thank you Ralph and also thank you for a grouped review. It can help that a group of like-themed CDs are dealt with in one place.
Re: Back Catalogue CDs - why apologise for reviewing them
Of course the site's life blood is its coverage of recently issued CDs but we need to extend our coverage back in time.
In the streaming era, I think coverage of the back catalog is more important than ever. That can be as simple as recommending available alternatives when reviewing a new recording, or brief repertoire surveys (which don't have to be as detailed as a Tony Duggan or Ralph Moore survey).
Re: Back Catalogue CDs - why apologise for reviewing them
We certainly do strongly encourage reviewers to make comparisons between new recordings and back catalogue issues, yes.
Previous Message
Previous Message
Of course the site's life blood is its coverage of recently issued CDs but we need to extend our coverage back in time.
In the streaming era, I think coverage of the back catalog is more important than ever. That can be as simple as recommending available alternatives when reviewing a new recording, or brief repertoire surveys (which don't have to be as detailed as a Tony Duggan or Ralph Moore survey).
Previous Message