anyone beside me notice that cut-out CD's have all but disappeared?

i can't remember the last time i saw a cut-out bin in any store.

the mall stores used to always have them.

renny

I remember in the late '80s buying my first cut-out CD, the self-titled album by GTR for $3.99. I thought it was pretty cool getting a CD so cheap.

Anytime I went into a music store, I always hit the cutout bin and the used section first. But I do agree that cutout CDs are pretty much a thing of the past.

I haven't seen them lately either.

The CD business is just not the same anymore.

Makes you wonder what they do now with all those CDs that don't sell.

A guy I know at a distro company told me that many of the things that used to get thrown in cut-out bins are sold to wholesale buyers that usually put them on Ebay, Amazon and other online selling sites.

He also mentioned that compainies in the "Everything's a dollar" style will often buy titles for pennies to sell. He said this is more rare of a situfation, but does happen.

When I was in high school and college (late '60s and early '70s), I would make weekly visits to all of the area discount stores to browse through the cutout bins. I found some real gems -- Nazz Nazz on red vinyl for 33 cents, Blow Up Soundtrack for 44 cents. Around the mid '70s, distributors began to realize what they had, and the real nuggets never made it to the stores. I guess the same thing happened to CDs. I miss those weekly trips -- finding a new copy of The Beach Boys Friends album for 88 cents would make my day.

When you do find a bargain bin, most of the titles usually turn out to be budget releases.

J&R has several bins of cut-outs mixed with used CDs, priced from 99 cents to $2.99. If you're prepared to scan through tons of crap, you can occasionally find something worth buying. A couple weeks ago I dug up a Michael Stanley enhanced CD.