Gen Z and Millennials are Buying CDs - Though Half Don't Have CD Players (vice.com)
- Reference: 0184504776
- News link: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/26/07/18/1948235/gen-z-and-millennials-are-buying-cds---though-half-dont-have-cd-players
- Source link: https://www.vice.com/en/article/gen-z-is-bringing-cds-back-but-theyre-missing-one-important-piece-of-the-puzzle/
> The CD has been recontextualized from a functional audio format into an affordable collectible. This behavior underscores that for younger generations, the act of buying physical music is as much about aesthetic ownership and direct financial support for the artist as it is listening to the music on the product itself
"Among artists who had a direct impact on the resurgence of CDs, K-Pop icons BTS' 10th studio album, ARIRANG, was a big seller," [2] Vice points out in their report on the new data . "However, Luminate also found that, beyond K-Pop's overall influence, CD sales still increased 6.7% year over year, even if the whole genre was removed from the equation, jumping 16% to 16.3 million units."
That's more than the growth of vinyl sales (2.4%) — but physical media in general seems to be making a comeback:
> Through the first half of the year, total physical album sales on vinyl, CDs, and cassettes reached 38.2 million units in the United States. This equates to a 7.8% increase.... [I]t seems that younger music fans have been driving a lot of the retro revival. The report shows that in 2026, 60% of Gen Z listeners said they most often listen to music from the 1990s and older. This is a massive increase from the 18 percent marker in 2021.
>
> The new report also revealed that the way music fans are buying physical media has shifted. Indie record stores have been the largest generator of physical album sales for some time, and they continue to be. However, big-box stores like Target and Walmart took significant strides in the first half of 2026. Collectively, their music sales made up about 30% of the market.
Thanks to Slashdot reader [3]fjo3 for sharing the article.
[1] https://luminatedata.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Midyear-REPORT-2026-0714-compressed.pdf
[2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/gen-z-is-bringing-cds-back-but-theyre-missing-one-important-piece-of-the-puzzle/
[3] https://www.slashdot.org/~fjo3
You don't need a "CD player" (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't have one either. I buy CDs to have physical media, and then transfer it to my computer and then to my phone.
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> "I don't have one either. I buy CDs to have physical media, and then transfer it to my computer and then to my phone."
Well, you have a "CD player" on your computer, then, essentially. I do the same thing. I have hundreds of CD's. New ones get ripped in Linux on my 5.25" half-height, internal BlueRay/DVD/CD SATA drive on my main home desktop, encoded/tagged, and then transferred to my digital collection that gets copied to every device I use (laptops, phone, car, work, etc).
I rarely listen to "streami
Re: (Score:3)
I think more people have physical CD players than CD drives in their computers these days. I think you're applying more logic from your own experience than most people deserve. The reality is a shitload of people buy it for the ownership "cred".
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Walmart?
Just did a search, indicated I wanted stuff that's in stock at my local Walmart, and they sell a whole bunch of ONN (their house electronics brand) CD radio combos. Two even have cassette players which I find interesting. Prices are about $30.
Next comeback... (Score:2)
AM radio, followed by shortwaves.
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Found the Trumper.
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> AM radio, followed by shortwaves.
Well yeah, but only because Disney couldn't find an audience anywhere else..
As a "collectable" ... (Score:3)
> The CD has been recontextualized from a functional audio format into an affordable collectible.
Don't play it too often, the laser will wear it out. ;-)
Archiving data (Score:2)
Please keep in mind that a flash drive is next to useless for long term storage. It will randomize over a surprisingly short time if it doesn't have power for data maintenance.
Your typical CD is better but still not good enough - under perfect conditions it will outlast you, but the way most people store them you might be really disappointed when you try to read it a decade from now. You're also going to run into the issue that even 20 years from now there may not be a consumer 'CD reader' available.
For m
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> "Your typical CD is better but still not good enough - under perfect conditions it will outlast you, but the way most people store them you might be really disappointed when you try to read it a decade from now. You're also going to run into the issue that even 20 years from now there may not be a consumer 'CD reader' available."
Maybe? I occasionally read one of my 20 or 30+ year old factory CD's and none of them have ever had any issue. No fancy storage, just in their original cases in a cabinet insi
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Writes age it, so the best method is to write once, then plug it in for a while every few years to let it do whatever automatic maintenance can or must be done. And honestly, I'm not sure whether that's baked into the hardware or if you need some software process to check the thing. Not my area of expertise.
In theory you can throw one in a drawer and it'll be fine a decade later... but you can't trust that it will be.
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> It will randomize over a surprisingly short time if it doesn't have power for data maintenance.
If you plug in a USB stick, you just power up the controller and the flash memory chip. You have to read everything and write everything to charge the cells back up again, there is no background refresh going on like in DRAM.
I hope... (Score:2)
...they all know about CD-Rot.
This makes Christmas and Birthdays easier (Score:1)
This makes Christmas and Birthdays easier. I’ll just give the grand kids/nephews/nieces my old CDs that are cooking in the garage. Vintage worn plastic cases for authenticity.
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> Want to come over and use my CD player? I have Monster Cable.
Would totally suck if the blue tooth adapter is not gold plated. :-)
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I think totally sucking definitely was part of what he had in mind. Fourplay is important.
And no I didn't make a typo.
Something nice (Score:2)
There's something real nice about having a single, physical album and having to take the effort to put it in the player. There are hundreds of great CD players on eBay too. There's an investment in putting the CD in and experiencing an entire album. I think we're hardwired to understand that, and it can't be replaced by digital streaming, no matter how it's programmed.
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> There's something real nice about having a single, physical album and having to take the effort to put it in the player.
What a pity you can't get up half way through and flip it over to play the other side
Supporting the artists (Score:2)
I have a bunch of friends who go to shows and buy the CDs, just as other merchadising stuff, in order to support the artists. I, myself, have about a dozen on a shelf, but I actually listen to them on-line.
and I have an BOX full of DVD/CD drives! (Score:2)
and I have an BOX full of DVD/CD drives!
Most people don't need unlimited media (Score:2)
And many figure out that an intimate relationship with fewer songs is actually better.
Also fuck Spotify, what a gross corporation that commoditizes art and artists while making them fight for scraps.
I never gave up on physical media (Score:1)
I stream a lot of what I watch and listen to, but I never got rid of my physical media or the players. I'm old and a lot of what I like to watch isn't on streaming. I have three full 400 disk DVD players in my living room and a Blu Ray player. I still buy movies on blu ray. My media room has a blu ray player and a couple 400 disk changers as well. There are 12 DVD or Blu ray drives or recorders in the computers in the room I'm sitting in currently. I haven't used them much in some time, but they work and I
So glad i never abandoned most formats. (Score:1)
I've kept most formats, but abandoned tape in all formats.
I LP, CD, DVD, Blu-Ray and stream.
And rip.
Ripping replaced my tape deck. Make my own "mixtapes" only now they're playlists. I rip vinyl to MP3 like I use dto make tapes for my car or walkman.
Streaming is for Suckers, and for Convenience.
Physical is permanent (to some definition of "permanent")
I just bought my first paper manga in a while, after reading the digital. It's so good it's no shame to double-dip this one, get the author her 100 yen per
Someone should start making CD players (Score:4, Funny)
It's obvious we need new physical media that is cheaper than thumb drives. Someone invent a better solution for dirt cheap write-once media, there's a huge market for it as long as the data lasts.
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It's called a CD.
DVD players (Score:1)
I don't have a CD player either. I rip my CDs with a DVD player - duh!
Rip to a M-DISC for posterity (Score:2)
> I don't have a CD player either. I rip my CDs with a DVD player - duh!
DVD, OK boomer. We’ll use our Blue Ray player, and archive the rips to a M-DISC to preserve it for posterity. ;-)
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Not 100% sure about other countries, but in the US technically you don't have to ever play it or rip it from any disc. Owning the CD is proof you own a license to listen to the music on it. You can literally download or copy anyone else's copy.
This is because when you buy physical media, you are NOT purchasing the music, you are purchasing a license to listen to use the music for yourself. There doesn't have to be any music on the disc, but you do need a way to get it (you see this far more in software, lik
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Why should write-once media be cheaper? Flash memory is dirt cheap. Optical media are more expensive and developing some new write-once medium would have a good payoff to be worth it, that flash with write-lock switch doesn't have.
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Flash media doesn't last long. There have been studies on that. In theory, optical media can last centuries. I personally have pulled CDs I've burned in the late 1990s to pull some custom WAD files that a local group made on a modern Doom engine.
CDs are physical changes. Flash media, once the electrons have left the gate... game over.
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In theory even (burned) CDs/DVDs rot. I think pressed ones are a bit better.
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> In theory even (burned) CDs/DVDs rot. I think pressed ones are a bit better.
It depends on a lot of factors. pressed CD's put physical pits in the metal layer of the disk. Burned CD's use a laser to alter the dye in the data layer.
Cheaply made or defective pressed disks can allow air into the metal layer and cause oxidization of the aluminum. Apparently there's also an issue with some cardboard packaging as it can contain sulfur. Pressed disks should last you a lifetime if stored properly.
Burned CD's have a huge range. I've seen cheap generic ones go bad in less than 2 years. The
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I copied old data CDs to HDD before they rot and they were good as back in the days. Maybe they were just high quality or the modern drive were good at reading them, but I didn't have any problem yet. Still I see why they might degrade.
Re: Someone should start making CD players (Score:2)
Cheaper than a free USB stick? I realize that went haywire a lot with the AIpocalypse but I used to set the size for that at under 128GBs.
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Depends on the country.
In Germany the price is artificially inflated by "copyright fees" to pay to some RIAA like organizations, as every USB stick is obviously full with pirated material (and pirating is a jailable offence).
I should smuggle USB sticks from Asia and sell them on eBay in Germany ... 500% to 1000% earnings.
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IMHO, I'd like to see this as an excuse for some company to start making 10TB disks in a CD/DVD format. HVD was discussed, and some Chinese firm has 100TB on a single platter, so it can be done.
This only wouldn't just be a boon for music, but in a WORM format, perfect for backups, without needing to shell out $6-10k for a LTO tape drive.
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Maybe someone can start a business renting out CD players for a monthly or pay-per-use fee... to not overwhelm this new customer group with the burden of true ownership.