Why Music Fans Are Turning Back to the CD

The compact disc appears to be enjoying a revival. Retailer John Lewis reports that searches for CD players have risen 96% since July, and a separate report on music and film trends this year found CD sales up 16%.

To understand the shift, The Guardian asked music fans why they prefer discs to other formats, and whether the habit is new or lifelong. Their answers ranged from practical concerns to a desire for a more deliberate way of listening.

Andrew Wales, 67, from London, owns well over 10,000 CDs, which have spread from his living space into another bedroom and the corridor of his two-bedroom flat. He says he has always preferred owning music physically and does not need Spotify. He bought his first CD in 1991, when he felt LPs were becoming shoddy in pressing and presentation. Much of the classical music he buys is available only on CD, though he also owns about 2,000 LPs, a few hundred cassettes and a growing number of Blu-rays.

Others are newer converts. Gabriela Crowley, 32, from San Jose, California, began listening to CDs only in the past year. Her parents had many when she was a child, but physical media faded as she reached her late teens. She and her husband later collected vinyl, but after having a baby they found the records too bulky and inconvenient. Her father-in-law gave them an old CD player, which they now use daily. She says a limited collection eases the "paradox of choice" of streaming, and that she is spared autoplay and AI-generated playlists.

Supporting artists is a motivation for Neil Cumming, 53, from Gloucester, who has bought CDs since 1988 and owns several hundred. He favours small indie and folk acts and buys directly from them when possible, so they receive a larger share of his money than streaming would provide. He also notes that streaming amounts to renting music that can vanish from services. He still values streaming for sampling new acts, but prefers the ritual of choosing a disc, especially in the evening with tea or whisky.

For Asha Varadharajan, 65, from Toronto, the appeal lies in the arc of an album. She calls the format "the antithesis of scrolling" and has used the same CD player since 1999, which holds five discs and lets her play them in any order. She argues that streaming makes music ephemeral and that "algorithms make everything predictable, but everybody's taste is kind of random." She also likes that CDs are hard to damage, unlike records she feared scratching as a child.

Ed, 63, from London, bought his first CDs in 1986 and has never stopped, though his interest has waxed and waned. He once turned away from the format because it sounded too bright compared with vinyl. Over the past two years he has bought more, drawn by what he calls the "almost throwaway prices against the excessive costs of vinyl." He says discs give him something tactile and tangible, and that a good digital source is now as engaging as a good record player.