As an early zoomer, especially growing up in the 2000s, CDs were the main way to listen to music, whether at home or in the car. I can remember listening to them on various devices (CD players, boomboxes, on a PC), and can remember getting CDs for birthday/Christmas presents as a kid (some of them rather embarrassing to say the least!)

Perhaps that’s why I’ve never really latched onto vinyl in the same way - my dad had a sizeable vinyl collection, but that lived in the attic out of the way, and I’ve always found vinyl to be a bit of a faff - records being massive dust magnets, the risk of damage due to handling and storage, and having to set up your equipment properly to make sure it sounds good. I do own some records (mainly ones I bought around 2013-15) but I had a limited budget back then and haven’t been compelled to start collecting vinyl again.

Like many people, I’ve been using streaming services (primarily Spotify) for the last few years which has served me quite well. However, I picked up a Denon DM41 from Richer Sounds early last year, and thought it would be neat to get some CDs to play in it, so I picked some up from Earworm Records in York.

Now, approximately a year and 225 CDs later, I’m reflecting on why I’ve become fond of them again.

Physical connection (but also versatility) #

It’s nice to physically own my music again - there is something nice about coming home from work, picking a CD from the shelf and putting it in the player that you don’t get with streaming. Liner notes are a lovely feature too, and I think especially since the vinyl revival, they’re becoming a bigger part of more recent releases too. However, I have made some 2020s concessions - I’ve set up a Plex server and can use Plexamp on the go to listen to my ripped CDs, and it even scrobbles directly to Last.fm.

Reducing my reliance on streaming #

I’ve been using Spotify for streaming for a long time now, and it definitely has its place - it’s a very convenient way to listen to music without much of a quality tradeoff. However, there are definite drawbacks to me:

• The 320kbps Spotify Premium codec does sound good but CDs are uncompressed - I can’t necessarily tell the difference a lot of the time but it’s still an advantage.
• Owning the actual media means I’m not beholden to the libraries of streaming sites - music on streaming sites gets added/released for various reasons but as I own the CDs, I can listen to them as much as I want (within reason of course!)
• Especially if you buy directly from the artist/label, artists and bands make a lot more money from CDs than they do with streaming.

Used CDs are cheap #

Perhaps because there are so many of them, or because people aren’t as interested in used CDs (at least right now), used CDs are excellent value. Except for some rarer CDs, I don’t think I’ve paid more than £5 for a used CD, and in some cases I’ve paid way less - one charity shop in Leeds for example was selling 5 CDs for £1.

Over the last year, I’ve filled a lot of time visiting charity shops and music stores and picking up some very interesting and cheap CDs, whether it be albums that I’ve heavily listened to and now own a physical copy, or albums that I’ve picked up on a whim and turned out to really enjoy.

CDs are robust so play fine even with scratches - my childhood abuse of CDs can attest to this - so you don’t need to be as careful with checking the condition of CDs. Out of the CDs I’ve bought used, I’ve had one out of around 150 that has been completely unplayable. I have a couple of CDs that have the infamous PDO disc rot - one of them plays fine (my copy of Orbital’s brown album), but the other has random audio glitching (my copy of the KLF’s White Room).

New releases are still cheap #

Perhaps because CDs are cheaper to produce than vinyl, new CD releases are cheaper than their equivalents on vinyl - for example, I just picked up the rerelease of Orbital’s Green Album on CD for £12.99, which is less than half the price of the vinyl equivalent. One thing that does bug me though is the use of digisleeves on newer releases - they’re often weird sizes, and don’t offer as much protection as a good old jewel case.

Reflection #

For whatever reason, it seems like CDs aren’t treated as favourably as their analogue counterparts in terms of nostalgia, but to me it’s still amazing that, considering how quickly technology has moved on in the last 40 years, the CD remains one of the best ways to listen to music digitally.

I’m certainly glad I gave CDs another shot, and I’ll be continuing to add to my collection - plenty of new releases are catching my eye, and while used CDs are so cheap, I’m sure I’ll be picking many more of those up.