Photo: Artwork for Melinda Hagan’s CD! | By Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone | In 2021, CD sales increased for the first time in 17 years. That’s mostly because of Adele, whose 2021 album sold 898,000 of those shiny little discs. The last time CDs were this hot, Usher, Ashlee Simpson, and Hoobastank were the ones selling them. Now it’s Adele, BTS, and Taylor Swift. It’s part of an overall revival for physical media — vinyl is booming even bigger. But for those of us who love the humble compact disc, it’s a question worth pondering: Are we finally seeing the CD revival? Why are music fans falling back in love with the gadget that once promised “perfect sound forever”?
Compact discs were never about romance — they were about function. They just worked. They were less glamorous than vinyl, less cool, less tactile, less sexy, less magical. They didn’t have the aura that we fans crave. You didn’t necessarily get sentimental over your CDs, the way you fetishized your scratchy old vinyl, hearing your life story etched into the nicks and crackles. Your copy of Spice World or Life After Death sounded the same as everyone else’s.
But CDs work. They just do. You pop in the disc, press play, music booms out. They delivered the grooves so efficiently, they became the most popular format ever. If you’re looking to focus on something cool for an hour, without getting up to flip sides every 20 minutes, the compact disc has what you want, bigger and louder. It gives you room to get lost inside the music.
Ever since they arrived in the Eighties, experts complained about them. (So soulless! So cold!) But fans loved those spiffy discs, packing 70-plus minutes in one place. It was less fuss and muss than vinyl, a huge plus for casual fans who didn’t want to worry about styluses or tone-arm resonance. You could program your player to skip the duds. ( Astral Weeks is just better without “The Way Young Lovers Do,” don’t @ me.) You could blast hip-hop faves without the skits. You could customize your own version of any album. The Beatles’ Revolver? Glad you asked! Program it 9, 13, 7, 4, 14, 5, 3, 12, 10, 1, 8, 2, 11, 6, then back to repeat 9 and 14. Trust me, a whole new experience.
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This post originally appeared on Rolling Stone and was published January 19, 2022. It is published here with a referral to the original story.
Jewel-Box Heroes: Why the CD Revival Is Finally Here
