Yesterday i bought a Japanese vinyl replica sleeve of The Doors. I wonder why all cds doesn't come like this:

I think that is cool, but is the name of the group on the outside end of the sleeve like on a jewel case? so you can see the artist's name when the discs are put in a cd rack.

elroy

Absolutly.
Mixed by The Doors & Bruce Botnick for their 40th Anniversary. With all the lyrics in Japanese and English.
Very cool indeed. Even the price : 12,50 €

if I can see what I'm looking for that is in the rack, then im sold on the concept.

elroy

Those CD covers are just too expensive to manufacture these days, I suppose.

I have a couple of them, one a Barbara Hendricks recital, and another some Jazz I can´t recall, and the handling is really great. They look a lot better than those inocuous plastic jewell boxes, too.

Greed, gr$$d ,gr$$d.
In the old days record companies spend much more money to make a LP. Nowadays they spend ten times less to make a cd, and still complain about it. Imo, if they create a more appealing cd cover like this Japanese edition, maybe people would be more open to spend a little more money...instead of today crap cd plastic covers. I'm sick of plastic.

Love this concept, Alvarro. Beautifully executed piece of artwork.

Indeed, it takes a few extra pennies to do- and that cuts into profits.

A shame, as it's such an improvement on the appeal, and the whole visceral experience.

...talking about concepts on the importance of album art; album art can be beautiful, whatever the recording medium.

Two guys, Justin and Colin have created the site Hardformat to celebrate design on everything from tapes and records to new releases. They have a gorgeous gallery of stuff, link below.
I like what they have to say on their about page:

"It seems like everybody’s talking about the end of physical music media. Who knows whether they’re right or not, but Hard Format is a little place we’ve set up to celebrate our love of brilliant music-related design. That means we’re going to focus on records, CDs, cassettes and their like. However, Hard Format isn’t intended to become a dusty museum devoted exclusively to past glories, though there’ll certainly be some of that, we also want to highlight the brilliant new design work being produced right now."

Here's Hard Format page:

http://www.hardformat.org/

The hard format site- neato!

Mini LP's as these are called are big time in Japan. My son who was stationed there said most of the classic rock he saw was packaged that way.

it's an interesting idea, but i still prefer the traditional Jewel Case. much more durable and hard-wearing, IMO...

Sorry to disagree. I have vinyl with more than 20 years and my father with more than 40 years and they are in perfect shape... I hate plastic.

Alot of companies are going Green with totally paper case no plastic. I have bought about 10.

That's one of the reasons i don't like plastic.

I really like the mini-LP format for CD's. I've bought only Japanese versions, and the mastering is excellent. The CD's themselves often have the covers reproduced on them. I like them so much that I've replaced the jewel case versions of CD's of my favorite artists with mini-LP versions when available. I'm a big fan of LP covers, and particularly the more elaborate gate-fold covers.

Pluses of mini-LP CD's: Cool covers, cover art on the discs, and excellent mastering.
Minuses: expense.