The Daily Valet. - 2/23/22, Wednesday

✔️ Is This a Real Revival?

February 23, 2022

Wednesday, February 23rd Edition

Cory Ohlendorf, Editor in Chief of Valet.

This newsletter now boasts “electronic skip protection.”

Cory Ohlendorf , Editor ⋯ @coryohlendorf

Today’s edition is presented by

Today’s Big Story

A CD Revival?

The silver discs are enjoying a cultural renaissance

For a 40-year-old format that peaked in Y2K, the CD has sparked an awful lot of debate lately. In mid-January, Rolling Stone published an endearing love letter to compact discs, provocatively headlined “Jewel-Box Heroes: Why the CD Revival Is Finally Here.” But the next week, musician and writer Damon Krukowski offered a rebuttal, simply titled “There Is No CD Revival.”

Of course, there is data to back up the claims. According to industry tracker MRC Data, CD sales rose last year for the first time since 2004. It wasn’t much—1%. But it’s an increase.

“CD sales have been on the decline for more than a decade and a half,” says Jason Lipshutz, Senior Director of Music with Billboard. “So the fact that they rose even slightly in 2021 is really interesting.” Especially as we’re 15 years into a vinyl resurgence. “Everybody’s buying more vinyl than they were a year five years ago,” says Lipshutz, maybe it’s now time for CDs.

Throughout the pandemic, one reliable community for buying and selling CDs has been Discogs. A spokesperson for the online marketplace told Pitchfork that CD sales via the site climbed to 3.7 million units last year, a nearly 9% increase, and are on pace to remain steady in 2022. The first year of the pandemic was even bigger. In 2020, Discogs CD sales leaped 37%, to 3.4 million units (vinyl jumped 41% to 12 million).

More than 80% of music is now consumed via streaming services. For a monthly fee, you have instant, unlimited access to nearly all the music recorded in the past century. But as this op-ed points out, we’ve largely forgotten about buying music and curating a personal library.

If you’re of a certain age, you remember the bulging binders of CDs and stacks of cases. It was a physical, visual manifestation of your musical tastes, but it could also be a pain in the ass to lug around and CDs were annoyingly sensitive to scratches. I'm with The Manual, who says this is almost assuredly not a return to boom times for the humble compact disc. Rather, what we see is the staying power of an anachronistic format that still retains some heft as a nostalgic, complementary attraction.

↦ A Preminition: In 2012, Tom Ewing wrote a spoof article for Pitchfork about a party in the future where kids revived the CD. The date of the fictional party? March 2021.

Chaos Around the Ukraine Conflict

Escalation, sanctions and political infighting

The East-West faceoff over Ukraine escalated dramatically Tuesday, with Russian lawmakers authorizing Putin to use military force outside his country and President Joe Biden and multiple world leaders responding by slapping sanctions on Russian oligarchs and banks.

According to the Associated Press, both leaders signaled that an even bigger confrontation could lie ahead. Putin has yet to unleash the force of the 150,000 troops massed on three sides of Ukraine, while Biden threatened even tougher sanctions would follow if the Russian leader did not withdraw his forces and engage in diplomatic efforts.

But that prospect remained dim by the end of the day, as Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken canceled plans to meet with the Russian foreign minister on Thursday, saying that it does not “make sense” to hold talks while Russian forces are on the move.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports the crisis is highlighting the growing divisions among Republicans on foreign policy that began with Trump's presidency and continues after adherents to his “America First” approach clash with the party's remaining hawks who for decades rallied the party around the idea of projecting a muscular U.S. presence abroad.

↦ Dig Deeper: How much could sanctions hurt Russia's economy? The Wall Street Journal crunches the numbers.

Partner

Get a technological edge in wealth building. This fresh approach could be the key to making smart money moves.

A Shorter, Quicker Academy Awards

The Oscars won’t air all categories on TV

To combat continually slumping ratings, the Oscars are undergoing a radical slimming down, with eight awards to be presented off-air during next month's telecast of the 94th Academy Awards.

The Academy recognizes nearly two dozen categories in total, but the show has been criticized—by anyone who has ever watched the broadcast, I'm guessing—for being too long.

According to Variety, the awards that will be handed out earlier in the ceremony are for documentary short, film editing, makeup and hairstyling, original score, production design, animated short, live action short and sound. The ceremony will start one hour before the on-camera portion begins in order to accommodate the changes.

Clips of the speeches will apparently be folded into the live televised broadcast, but the change is being met with a lot of criticism. Film critic William Bibbiani tweeted, “You can give away the awards off-camera … but only if you do the whole show in one static shot. Of an empty stage. Without sound. And none of the presenters can wear makeup or do their hair.” He makes a fair point.

↦ Meanwhile: Why do the Oscars love actors who play real people? Vox investigates.

Go Ahead and Call Yourself an Athlete

Good things happen when you do ...

This is good news for a grown man who's been mimicking Winter Olympic sports in his living room for the past two weeks. It's customary to laugh at adults who take their extracurricular sports too seriously, but the science says it does a body good.

After all, what is an athlete? The question is a surprisingly difficult one to answer. But the American Heart Association defines an athlete as “one who participates in a team or individual sport, places a high premium on excellence and achievement, and requires some form of systematic (and usually intense) training.” That could be anyone with a Peloton.

And experts have now linked this broader, more inclusive definition of the term “athlete” with increased “exercise motivation, exercise frequency and subjective well-being.”

As InsideHook puts it: athletes hold themselves to high weekly standards, in the realms of sleep quality, productivity, biometric data and goal-setting. Studies have confirmed that self-identifying athletes will follow training regimens consistent with their perceptions of themselves and the task at hand, which can often inject some much-needed organization into a workout scheme.

↦ FYI: Federal physical activity guidelines recommend that adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise each week.

In Other News

↦ Oil Prices Are Surging Toward $100 a Barrel. Here’s What That Means for You.

↦ Everything You Wanted to Know About the Metaverse—But Were Too Afraid to Ask

↦ Volcano-Ravaged Tonga Is Back Online After 5-Week Internet Outage

Other Things We’re Talking About Today

The Stem Player

These cozy sweats

Bruce Lee

Partner

Join the Short-Term Rental Revolution

Airbnb is giving real estate investing an edge again ... and reAlpha can help you get in on it

If you're at all interested in the stock market, you've no doubt heard about trendy investment portfolios filled with celebrity-endorsed SPACs and crypto. But these investments can also be unpredictable. Sure, you’ve got to be in it to win it, but diversification is key when building wealth, right? There are more and more opportunities emerging in the historic and relatively stable asset class of real estate—and reAlpha is adding a modern and potentially more lucrative twist.

* For illustrative purposes only

reAlpha combines real estate with modern technology and the business model of the future: Airbnb. Their goal is to enable aspiring investors to join the emerging short-term rental real estate market. The short-term rental market has now reached a staggering global $1.2 trillion valuation and is showing even greater growth potential when you consider the post-pandemic travel boom and the shift towards remote working.

Through advanced technology, reAlpha is revolutionizing this market and democratizing it through fractional ownership. They've shown that their AI-chosen Airbnb properties have the potential to beat long-term rental property revenue by 70%+ per property. Now, they're taking it a step further and allowing anyone to become a shareholder on the ground floor.

↦ Learn More: About reAlpha and their machine learning approach

Why Buy a Rolex?

Save yourself $5,000 and enter to win this one instead

There are few status symbols more coveted or revered than a Rolex watch. It's at once a luxurious indicator of a man's success and a useful timepiece durable enough to last a lifetime (or more).

Well, now's your chance to score one for yourself, for free. Yes, I'm serious. It's an Oyster Perpetual Datejust, complete with the signature Oyster bracelet and magnifying cyclops lens. We've partnered with a few of our favorite brands to give it away. It's a gorgeous timepiece and since I can't win it, you might as well.

↦ Enter Now: To win a Rolex Oyster Perpetual Datejust

Stylish Accessories Now Marked Down

Upgrade your gloves now and you'll be set for next winter too. The pintuck pleats and press stud fasteners on this pair ($175 / $105) will have you feeling like you're ready to get behind the wheel of a sports car (even if you're just going out to shovel snow).

↦ Want more? 6 stylish accessories now marked down