Longboxes Are History. Are Jewel Boxes Next?

Paper or plastic?

The question is not just for supermarkets anymore. Increasingly, it’s an issue in record stores, where the dominance of plastic “jewel box” CD cases is being challenged by a variety of paperboard containers. three years after the longbox--the cumbersome, wasteful cardboard CD packaging that was used only so retailers could use the bins left over from the vinyl LP days--was sent into extinction, there’s a growing campaign to do the same for the jewel box.

A dramatic illustration came recently, when the Warner Bros./Reprise Records group sent out five new releases. Four of them--Joni Mitchell’s “Hits” and “Misses” anthologies, Wilco’s “Being There” double album and “Friends in Danger” by Australian band Magic Dirt--are housed in paper.

They join such artists as Pearl Jam (with three straight plastic-less packages), Neil Young, Bonnie Raitt and Vic Chesnutt (whose new major-label debut, like his previous indie releases, uses paperboard) in eschewing the jewel box. The reasons are both environmental (the paperboard can be made of largely recycled materials) and aesthetic (the paper provides a larger and more versatile surface for artwork).

“It’s definitely a trend, and it’s very artist-driven,” says Reprise President Howie Klein, who endorses the movement despite the higher production costs. “It’s for them and the Earth.”

But does anyone else care? Not so far. Where artists were supported by the public and record companies to sink the longbox, the anti-jewel-box campaign has no such alliance behind it.

Record companies can live without the higher costs (as much as 30 cents each for standard containers) and problematic production logistics that stem from paperboard packaging, which is not the industry mass-production standard. The overall industry position is one of indifference. Neither the Recording Industry Assn. of America (representing the major record companies) nor the National Assn. of Record Merchandisers (the retailers) takes a position on the matter.

And fans--despite frequent complaints about jewel box breakage and aesthetics--generally seem to value the durability of the plastic shell.

“One thing to keep in mind is that non-jewel box packaging is not popular with consumers,” says Pete Howard, editor of the ICE CD newsletter. “The first round of [paperboard containers] was roundly booed by consumers five years ago. When U2’s first albums were reissued on CDs they were in paperboard, and Sting’s ‘Soul Cages’ was released that way--fans hated them. They dog-eared and tore and got finger smudges. Those were eventually phased out [in favor of jewel boxes].”

Paperboard packagers cite new developments that they say address those problems and put the product on at least equal footing. AGI, which developed the Digipak paperboard CD carrier, is rolling out a sturdier but slimmer version that will feature automated assembly, cutting the current cost of hand packaging.

But at this point, it remains the artists’ campaign.

“I don’t know that there’s any great momentum--I don’t hear it,” says Raitt’s manager, Jeffrey Hersh. “But we’re still very committed to it.”