‘Algorithms make everything predictable’: why the CD is making a comeback
As John Lewis reports a 96% rise in searches for CD players, music fans share their reasons for ditching streaming
Young people select and listen to CDs in a music shop in Munich. Photograph: Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo/Alamy
CDs appear to be
having a resurgence. John Lewis said searches for CD players are up 96% since July, while
another report on trends in music and film this year found that CD sales are up 16%.
With this in mind, we asked music fans why they favour discs over other formats, and if it is a new preference or a lifetime habit.
‘I have well over 10,000 CDs’
Andrew Wales says his wife is very considerate about his CD collection.
More of Wales’s CD collection.
Andrew Wales, 67, from London, owns “well over 10,000” CDs. “My wife’s very considerate,” he says over the phone. “There’s quite a few in this room where I’m speaking.” They have also spilt into the next bedroom and into the corridor.
“I don’t need Spotify,” says Wales. “The fact is, I like listening to music and I have always preferred owning it in a physical form. The [size of the] CD format allows me to own the number I own despite living in a two-bedroom flat and not a country mansion, so that’s another bonus.”
Much of the classical music Wales buys and listens to is available only on CD. “I bought my first CD in 1991 – John Scofield, Meant to Be – around the same time that I bought my first CD player. LPs were becoming increasingly shoddy, both in terms of pressing and presentation, and their limitations meant that often or not songs or tracks were included on the CD release, but not on LP. There are still cases where that happens today.”
That said, Wales also owns “about 2,000 LPs”, “a few hundred cassettes” and an increasing number of Blu-rays. “I’m not always wedded to a single format.”
‘After having a baby, our records were too bulky and inconvenient’
Gabriela Crowley with her daughter and her CD player.
Unlike Wales, Gabriela Crowley, 32, from San Jose, California, started listening to CDs only over the last year. “Growing up, my parents had a tonne of them,” she says. “My dad played them in the car and everywhere. And then he got an iPod. By the time I was like 18, everything had started to shift away from physical media.”
Her return to physical records started with the vinyl trend a few years ago. “I met my husband, who also had a large record collection, and we enjoyed that hobby together for a while. But after having a baby, we found we really weren’t listening to our records much any more – they were too bulky and inconvenient. My father-in-law gave us one of his old CD players and now we use that every day.”
A CD collection helps with the “paradox of choice” that streaming brings, she says. “Instead of being paralysed by the endless options, you become more intimately familiar with what you have. I find it a much more satisfying way to engage with music. Plus, no autoplay or AI-generated playlists are being forced on me.”
‘I buy CDs directly from the bands’
Neil Cumming has several hundred CDs from classical to folk, rock and blues.
“I bought my first CD in 1988 and have been collecting ever since,” says Neil Cumming, 53, from Gloucester. “I have several hundred of them. Everything from classical, folk, rock, blues …”
Cumming buys CDs mostly to support musicians. “I like a lot of small indie and folk bands, who are not making a lot of money. I buy CDs directly from them when I can, which means they get a bigger share of my money than they would if I streamed their music.
“And it means I own the CD for ever,” he says. “Streaming means you are basically renting the music, and it can disappear from the streaming sites. I enjoy the ritual of selecting a CD and putting it in the machine – it is a nicer experience than just pressing play on an app.”
Not that he’s anti-streaming. “It’s quite good for trying music before you buy CDs or finding new acts. But in the evening, with a mug of tea or a glass of whisky, I find the experience of a CD more satisfying.”
