NowSpinning Mag showed larger (like a 7-inch single) CD-packaging now showing up in Japan and Korea. It was a first for me at least. No plastic!
I like it!
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Other than the unnecessary plastic wrapper of course.
Iām not sure a brown paper bag would sell many records. 
But at least they are trying rather than giving everything away to a few global streaming companies. Plus for that. Right now you canāt really sell something like a local performance - CD:s were an excellent format allowing flexible ways to sell/distribute.
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That would be great to spine browse index on the rack ā NOT ā 
The next move by the record companies will be things like this to make buying CDās hip again.
If you buy things by post, a CD is much less likely to get damaged compared to a LP.
Funny how things have changedā¦ when I started buying records in 1967/8, no LP came sealed in wrapā¦and you listened to em in a booth before deciding to buy or not.
Shock-horror these days, Iād guess.
Why would it be any harder to spine-browse than any LP or CD (12" singles excepted)?
It was still like that when I started buying them a few years later. I bought a copy of Tusk once and took it back because it had surface noise. I got a replacement and that was the same. When I took that back the guy in the shop - it was a Boots, back when they sold records - gave be a big pile to try in the shop until I found one I was happy with. It would have been harder with plastic wrapping.
I donāt spine browse my LPs only CDs.
I recently got the one below. Similar style 7 inch single sized.
No text on front or rear covers, and other bits are mostly in Japanese, but perhaps somebody may recognise it:
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What I miss from vinyl is not the scratches and warped records, not the sound, not even cleaning the stylus. Or todays prices which are certainly not going down.
It is having the physical format giving a closer connection to the artists and having more info even if it is just a plastic bag full of stuff. And it is more social when listening to music together with others. Try reading the text in a CD booklet.
I dont think streaming will go away - someone must feed the teenagers and cheapskates, its a large market But I think physical formats (sure, the vinyl-heads also count :-)) will stay at least for the type of artists you can stand listening to more than once. Many types of music, especially with the varied local markets in europe, like modern art-music doesnt work at all over streaming - a string quartet by Lachenmann doesnt even reach the minimum limits and do not earn anything at all from the streamers. Their money is just added to Taylor Swifts account. It is the top-200 that make money on streaming.
Or look at Bandcamp, audio cassettes are now on their top-menu.
Phil at NowSpinning Mag reported on a conversation with Rough Trade in the UK, last year they decided to stop stocking CD:s but they quickly reversed that decision and by the end of this year all their stores are having CD again and the sales are increasing, much is limited editions and so on but anything is more than nothing! CD:s are cheap to make unlike vinyl.
BTW, Rough Trade also told about the demographics. Buyers of physical media are mostly 15ā¦35s and evenly divided between men and women (partly Taylor Swift effect) followed by 55+ and then its only us grumpy old men.
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2021 50th Anniversary Ed, sez Discogs:
"ē®±ę ¹ć¢ćććć£ć¼ćć(=Hakone Aphrodite) 50th Anniversary edition
It comes in traditional Japanese āpaper sleeveā packaging but itās seven-inch square, not standard five-inch, CD-size.
Including a reprint of the obi strip, a photo booklet of unpublished photos, a Hakone Aphrodite programme reprint, a reproduction of the venue guide map, an Osaka performance poster, a Hakone Aphrodite ticket reprint and access to a special digital booklet, Recollection Hakone Aphrodite 1971."
I think it is very unlikely that I will add any full-price CDs to my collection now and I have no plans to buy secondhand ones either. I still buy vinyl and some Bandcamp downloads or LPs via the site. I also recently signed up to Qobuz, which hasnāt saved me money as I keep buying new releases I hear on there.
Yeah, and all the bits ānā bobs fall on the floor when I take it off the shelf. 
If anything needed a paper bag then itās this one!
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With you there, Jan!
I had the LP of āIn Search of Spaceā with the booklet. That ādisappearedā during my uni days. I eventually got another LPā¦.but without the booklet!
And my original - as in, bought on the day of release - LP of DSotM - with all the posters - also ādisappearedā, around the same time.
students? Bar stewards, all of them (apart from me, of course )