{"id":601098,"date":"2026-08-22T10:22:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T10:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/601098\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T10:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T10:22:13","slug":"it-brings-me-joy-how-young-people-are-making-cds-cool-again-music-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/601098\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It brings me joy\u2019: how young people are making CDs cool again | Music industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

With more than 800 million people<\/a> subscribing to a music streaming service, wireless speakers have become a familiar sight in homes. But expect to get reacquainted with a different object to play music soon: the CD player, once consigned to obsolescence, is back.<\/p>\n

John Lewis report that searches for CD players are up 96% since July, possibly owing to students heading to university and buying the systems for their rooms. The \u00a379 Crosley Voyager<\/a>, and the \u00a3129 Pure Classic C-D6<\/a> are both sold out online, with the Voyager scheduled to return in October. Portable CD players are also popular.<\/p>\n

This tallies, of course, with sales of CDs themselves. A report<\/a> this year found that the growth of CD sales is up 16%, compared with vinyl\u2019s 2.4%. HMV reports that sales of CDs are up 10% year on year \u2013 thanks to artists often providing unique content on the format. \u201cK-pop has been a massive driver, with BTS the most obvious example of artists that have led the resurgence,\u201d says the managing director, Phil Halliday. \u201cBut it goes much wider than that. We\u2019re seeing very strong CD demand around artists like Olivia Rodrigo, Ariana Grande and Olivia Dean.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fact that a CD is so much cheaper that vinyl is a factor in their return. Photograph: Phynart Studio\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The fact that a vinyl record is about \u00a335, compared with \u00a312 for a CD, is no doubt a factor.<\/p>\n

Tom Morgan-Freelander, the deputy editor of the technology magazine Stuff, has noticed the change over the past two years. He puts it down to consumers wanting to move away from using their phone, a better audio quality, and limited disposable income. \u201cIt\u2019s: \u2018I don\u2019t want to spend money on a turntable and the speakers that go with it. I want to spend \u00a3150 on an all-in-one system that comes with the CD player,\u2019\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

In the CD aisle of an HMV in London on a weekday morning, people in their teens and twenties are browsing. Fourteen-year-old Milo Georgeaux-Healy has chosen two Dua Lipa albums as well as Brat by Charli xcx to play on an \u201cold boombox\u201d. \u201cI like them because they\u2019re cheaper,\u201d she says. \u201cThey\u2019re a lot more compact [than vinyl], and I find that they have better quality than your phone.\u201d Adel Alsehi, 27, is visiting from Riyadh. He has selected a Madonna greatest hits, a Kacey Musgraves album and Private Dancer by Tina Turner. \u201cIt gives me a different feeling,\u201d he says of CDs. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m listening to an artist\u2019s work. It brings me joy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sold-out Crosley Voyager CD player: better quality than streaming without shelling out for a high-end system. Photograph: John Lewis<\/p>\n

Richard Farnell runs Vinyl<\/a> Exchange in Manchester, where they also sell CDs. He says the people buying CDs are now younger, and cost is a big part of this. \u201cThe record labels started to up the price of vinyl and it became largely unaffordable for this demographic,\u201d he says. \u201cA copy of Oasis\u2019s Definitely Maybe on original UK \u201cDamont\u201d pressing can sell for between \u00a3150 and \u00a3250, depending upon condition. The standard vinyl reissue will be around \u00a325-\u00a330, but in our shop the CD version will only be \u00a34.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The CD revival is part of a wider fashion for retro tech. As well as the vinyl resurgence and cassettes becoming popular items to buy<\/a>, there\u2019s the vogue for wearing wired earphones<\/a> over AirPods. \u201cThe vinyl revival re-established our appetite for analogue, and now we\u2019re seeing that broader love for physical music drive a genuine surge in CD players,\u201d confirms Katrina Mills, the category buying lead for audio and imaging at John Lewis.<\/p>\n

Part of this is about optics. \u201cSomeone walking around with a portable CD player and wired headphones is signalling their sense of taste and cultural capital,\u201d says brand strategist Alexi Gunner. He has labelled this trend \u201cperformative audiophilia\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gunner argues that the return to the physical for music is a kind of rebellion. \u201cThe status quo is streaming platforms and wireless audio on identical iPhones,\u201d he says. \u201cAll this has taken away the haptic, sensorial quality of listening to music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Choosing an album rather than being directed by an algorithm has growing appeal for young music lovers. Photograph: Stephen Frost\/Alamy<\/p>\n

J\u2019Nae Phillips, who writes about Gen Z trends on her Substack Fashion Tingz<\/a>, agrees. \u201cWhen music is effectively infinite and frictionless, something is appealing about having to choose an album, put a disc in and listen to it from beginning to end,\u201d she says, and echoes Gunner\u2019s point: \u201cThere\u2019s a certain cultural cachet in showing that you\u2019re interested in music as an object and an experience, rather than simply consuming whatever happens to be recommended by an algorithm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arguably, the CD is the final revival available to young people \u2013 it\u2019s the last format for music before the MP3 arrived in the early 2000s. However, Gunner suggests there may be a different object waiting in the wings: the USB stick. Fred Again named his 2025 tour after the portable drive. \u201cIt\u2019s the most common format that a DJ will carry their music to a gig on,\u201d explains Gunner. \u201cIn the frame of performative audiophilia, you\u2019re showing that you\u2019re not just listening to music, you are possibly a DJ, you are a tastemaker \u2026 it\u2019s something that will become more popular.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With more than 800 million people subscribing to a music streaming service, wireless speakers have become a familiar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61,60,80],"class_list":["post-601098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}