Why I’m listening to CDs again in 2024

For years, I neglected my CD collection. Most of the music I listened to was through streaming services like Spotify, and while I have a modest CD collection and a small record collection, I’ve been very digital-first, and not caring much about the quality of my music.

But lately, that’s been changing. Lots of people are returning to retro tech, and that made me think about my CDs, a beautiful format with fantastic audio quality, portability, and longevity. To hold a physical representation of my music in my hands, to display it, and to treasure it feels more meaningful than a Spotify subscription, so I’m happy to be revisiting my CDs again in 2024. Here are some of my main reasons for doing that.

Bands actually make money off CDs

If you love a band, buy their CD. Streaming pays artists less than pennies per stream, and only the biggest artists on streaming platforms will ever see a significant amount of money generated from streaming. Buying a band’s CD gives them an immediate $10 to $15, and you get unlimited access to that album now. It’s the most ethical way to listen to music.

Buying a CD off a band’s Bandcamp page or at the merch booth at one of their shows is a great way to show a band your support while getting to listen to their music whenever you want on a physical format. If it’s a small or local band, there’s also always the chance their music won’t be on a streaming service forever because of the cost of doing so. So making sure you have a band’s music in that format also ensures you won’t lose the ability to listen to it due to the volatility of the internet.

It’s nostalgic

I love a good nostalgia moment, and CDs are perfect for that. One part of it is the actual physical appearance of a CD, that holographic sheen that was so present in the early 2000s and slowly faded away with the increasing popularity of fully online music. Album art, both on the front of the case and on the disc itself, are both really special in that way too. There are artistic styles on CDs that have been somewhat lost to time, and I really appreciate looking back at those design choices.

It’s also nostalgic for the fact that most of my CDs are ones I bought as a pre-teen or teenager, so I get to revisit music from my youth as well. I didn’t have a full appreciation or understanding of CD-quality music back then, and while my taste in music may have changed a little bit, I still love listening to the music I loved back then on the format I used the most.

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Physical formats are basically forever

One really frustrating thing about streaming services is that artists and labels can decide to remove music from these services at any point, and you don’t always see it coming. This can either be due to licensing issues, or qualms they have with the streaming service itself. All of these problems are completely understandable, but it still hurts when a song or album you really love gets removed.

By contrast, the only thing that can take music away from you in CD format is if someone breaks or steals your CD. Otherwise, that thing is there to stay. It’s a physical representation of music, and it’s a piece of the artist’s catalog you can own to use how you want (within copyright laws).

You only have to pay for a CD once

Related to the above point, once you own a CD, you can listen to it all you want. You don’t have to pay for a subscription like you do with streaming, once you pay for it, you own it. Once you pay for a CD, you don’t have to worry about “making the most of it” or listening to it within a given period of time to get your money’s worth, and you can revisit it whenever you want, a month or a year or a decade down the line, without having to pay for anything else in between. It sounds weird to explain the concept of ownership of physical media, but that’s the world we live in today.

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Reading the inserts

One of my favorite parts of buying a CD is reading the insert. Whether it folds out into a poster or is a lyric book or a zine, it’s always such a fun surprise to see what the artist wanted to put in there.

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When I was a kid, during my first listen all the way through a new CD I used to take out the insert and learn the lyrics to every song on the album. I still think this is far superior to reading the lyrics on streaming platforms.

Ripping my CDs gives me more options

CDs are much more versatile than their use as a physical format to put into a CD player. Ripping a CD to your computer gives you the ability to listen to CD-quality lossless music on your computer or your phone whenever you want, without needing a CD drive to put a disc in. Ultimately, I’m able to choose how and when I want to listen to it within my own parameters — whether that’s in the car with the CD, on my phone with the ripped tracks using my favorite headphones, or with my computer plugged into speakers. CDs are so much more than just a physical format.

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