Absolutely, though only a handful of the last 500 albums I've picked up are available in the CD format. Are most artists still releasing CDs? If so, where are they sold?

(This is genuinely an honest question and I'd love to know the answer.)

Dude, come on. You know what a CD store is.

Okay - a little background - odd duck here - threw out my television and radio around 1999, sold the car in 2002. I walk to work and back, and to the grocer and the antique shop and used record shop at the top of my street. Other than that, I have next to zero contact with the general public. Ever.

From ~2000 to the present, I've made very few purchases, occasional 2nd hand cell phone upgrades and pro audio gear via Audiogon and similar vintage audio markets.

I employ a number of filters, proxies, and other simple but effective utilities to remove 99% of adverts from my web experience, (though few of the sites I frequent are ad-supported to begin with.)

The result of which is, I live in a comfortable cultural vacuum, devoid of contemporary fashion trends, modern street slang vernacular, classism, mass media, or commercial media of any kind.

It's been 15 years since I've been in a franchised storefront so I honestly don't know what they're like.

Now to return to the original question - Every article I've read has cited the impending end of the CD market. And I am quite serious when I state that I can't think of an artist who has made compact disc versions of their recordings available for sale in quite some time.

I've been around my city, and while there are used and new record shops in every village and township, none have a new release CD department and I've not seen or heard of a dedicated CD store in ages.

So I'll ask again - are these shops still around and who's albums are they selling... and to WHOM?

I like to go to a local shop called The CD Cellar. It's got a huge selection of used vinyl, CDs, and movies. Also, they really like to stock up on local music, and they have a few sections dedicated to new CDs and vinyl put out by local artists. They've also recently started stocking up on those fancy "180 gram" reissues, usually of rare and cult classic albums.