End of year figures show that more physical records were sold in Britain than in any year since 1990.
LPs are booming, but CDs are back. It seems that streaming has lost its flavour for Generation Z.
Quarter of a million vinyls were sold in the week before Christmas.
The US violinist has posted this message on…
The Dutch conductor, ousted after a six-year spell…
English National Opera has rolled out plans for…
Laura Samuel, Leader of the BBC Scottish Symphony…
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For me, CDs never went away! I have a large collection and I love buying cheap secondhand box sets from sellers like eBay, charity shops etc etc. You never know, if you hang around long enough, wax cylinders might make a comeback! Happy new year to all and enjoy/rediscover the joy of collecting physical product if that’s your thing. I’m off to polish my ear trumpet!
I actually have quite a collection of wax cylinders.
I just find it hard to listen to them in the car. Especially on hot days…
Nice one!
Shhhsh… don’t tell everybody!
I have bought many jazz box sets on eBay.
Very cheap and mint condition.
Christmas and birthday every day for me.
Me too. And it amazes me that people who built large collections would do away with them.I have had to downsize a lot in recent years, but I have things on CD that I have never found streaming. Same with DVDs, though I buy fewer than I used to — mostly things I cannot find online.
But YouTube is useful — lots of selections there I probably would not want to buy but appreciate for letting me have a chance to hear them the one time I want to, or, if I know it is something I will want to rehear, to compare versions and choose the one I prefer.
The easiest way to downsize is to rip your CDs and store them on hard drives, backed up in the Cloud (I use Google Drive).
So YOU’RE the dude that keeps buying those box sets out from under me! Just kidding, but I try to do the same thing. Lately, I’m on more of a surround sound tear, buying classic albums on Blu-Ray.
I remember when cd’s were becoming “the thing,” and a record store was selling the complete Ring Cycle for $1-5 dollars for each vinyl album. I bought all of the Ring for under $10.00 and I still have them, and the cd’s which I bought on sale when they were deemed out-dated. I even have an old Raya Garbasova album which I picked up in NYC in the 80s. The used record store owner commented that it had been a long time since he had had a request for her records. Treasures!
Don’t kid yourself, kiddo.
You’re a complete idiot. Grow up.
This is my favorite SD comment of 2023. Quintessential.
Thanks for drawing my attention ot that toppic. Short remark: “More here” does not refer to a link. I assume that the following news should have been linked: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-67828891
However, I think your conclusion that “CDs are back” is not supported by the article. It says “the decline in CD sales had begun to slowdown”.
I myself stick to CDs although I also use streaming. Streaming is good tool for me to get to know on music I do not know yet or to listen to new recordings. If I like what I hear and I want to listen to the recording again, I buy the CD.
When I think about it, there may be less rational than emotional reasons for this. But don’t rob me of the belief that this decision is rational. After all, it can be assumed that more money will reach the artists as a result.
Meal, I feel exactly the same. The music somehow sounds “better” when I own the cd.I know it’s psychological but I don’t care!
I never understood streaming rather than getting the CD. Yes, it’s “convenient” but as someone who grew up collecting LPs (which I still have) I just didn’t want to stream my collection and store it on a hard drive. I think my wife might prefer that to the gazillion CDs I have mind you……..
“More here”… sadly, no link
I grew up with vinyl records being the ultimate in HiFi. When I was 20 the CD came along and blew me away and then much, much later I decided that streaming was the way to go and I massively downsized my collection… I’m buying my old CDs again! I’ve realised, One: I don’t own the music and it can be taken away or changed and, Two: just CDs sound better.
I love CDs and have a huge collection, many dating back to the mid 1980s, when I worked in a music store and got a discount. I’ll only part with them when they wheel me into the Altersheim….
Recently acquired the Levine Ring on DG, original packing, for $12 at a junk shop. Ho-jo-to-ho!
I’ve never been a fan of streaming music as the sound quality is inferior and always suited pop music better than classical. My flat is full of CDs, Music DVDs and vinyl, so no worries here. It’s an interesting and hopeful sign if young people are turning away from streaming music in favour of real recordings before their hearing suffers beyond reparation.
Frankly, as a musicologist and connoisseur, I’d rather have the physical product than a stream. My hi-fi system still blows my wifi system away, the speakers are far superior and I have top notch systems in both. I find the detail coming from my hi-fi is far finer than anything I stream. I can pick instruments out in symphonic performance with the older system. I’d take a well engineered cd performance any day over the same performance as a stream. There is also something to be said to have an hold something tangible. I can always download it into a digital format on my phone.
Absolutely 100% right.
Maybe you need to upgrade your wifi system? Or perhaps integrate it with your hifi system. Then you can talk about the pros and cons of the format (not the system) as if you actually know something.
I myself never went the streaming route (although I do admit to listening to a fair amount of music via YouTube via my PC which has OK speakers). Most of our friends have gone entirely to streaming, so if we hear music at their house, that is how we hear it. Since they and not I chose the music, I cannot judge how rich the choices are for classical repertoire via streaming.
Perhaps the choices are marvelous, and I am missing out. At the risk of over generalizing, and again from a poor sample, for the most part these friends cannot (because they do not care) tell me who the performers are (orchestras, conductors or soloists) and when they can, the names are often not just unfamiliar but suspiciously fake sounding, echoes of those early budget LPs. And often the performances, while usually vivid sounding, are fine but not so great as to make me think I am always listening to A list performers (my A list, not the music industry’s).
Most of my listening is to older recordings, often vintage recordings, including those taken from 78s or pre stereo tapes, of which I have a substantial collection on CDs and LPs (and sometimes even those early 45 rpm from Victor). There are also cassette tapes I myself made of 78 rpm sides not to my knowledge released on LP or CD.
Sometimes it is to hear the piece, sometimes it is to hear the performers. Streaming services have as a rule not bothered themselves with these recordings.
Perhaps my lack of curiosity about steaming has deprived me of some great things. But from where I sit it sure seems to me that if I want to hear such things as the Stenhammer violin romances, the Fartein Valen violin concerto, or the violin playing of such fine but relatively unknown violinists as Valentin Zhuk, Vladimir Malinin or Andrei Korsakov, my best choices remain my own CD collection and not the vagaries of streaming services.
I never stopped buying CDs. Streaming is fine and has its virtues, but its also unreliable — one never knows when something will become unavailable because of lack of demand.
I’ll believe it when Harold Moore’s re-opens. I miss that place.
They never went away for me either, and they are ideal for classical music.
There are stories being circulated that “vinyl” sounds better because it is not digital. In fact most recordings have been digitally mastered since the 1980s. And not all vinyl is created equal.
BBC radio links have been digital (PCM – Pulse Code Modulation) since the 1970s.
Ignore advertising departments and audiophile nonsense and just use your ears.
As time passes and more and more buyers realise that all the problems we experienced with vinyl back in the day are STILL with us, people will become increasingly disillusioned.
Leaving aside the self inflicted damage caused by the “loudness wars” lunacy, properly mastered CDs still sound amazing.
As an experienced record seller, I’ve noticed that CDs are more than holding their own now – the sales of used CDs are strong, prices slowly rising across the board. Bear in mind that secondhand sales are not factored into yearly trade figures. Truthfully it’s streaming that has noticeably fallen away, people really do prefer physical media.
Mark my words, in just a few years time, CD collecting will really take off. Being able to buy music in a physical format that isn’t warped, scratched or badly pressed – and costs a fraction of the price – what’s not to like?
I just got a portable CD player that can connect to a bluetooth speaker or headphones. Super convenient.
“More here.”
Where? No link.
And yet, most of my friends are not into vinyl at all. Only a few audiophile types. CDs never went away for old geezers like myself were I can’t be bothered with computer B.S.
I bought a new turntable exactly a year ago, but, I haven’t bought an LP since the CD was introduced as a new medium. I’ve also invested in Sacd & Blu Ray audio surround formats.
There’s absolutely no way that the sonic limitations of LP’s can compete with any of the above. So, as far as I’m concerned, for me CD’s are here to stay.
Sounds like something for your admirer, Hurwitz. I have homes in different countries, and I travel with only my backpack and my qobuz subscription.
I remain committed to CDs.
I have a lot of them and, yes, they take physical space. But I like the “physicality” of discs, and I like having a shelved library of music in the same way I like having a shelved library of books. And, where operas and musicals are concerned, I like having the printed libretto.
I don’t want to have to rely on any paid streaming service for the availability of the music I want. Once I own a CD, the music is mine even if some online site decides to discontinue it. I take very good care of my CDs, some of which are now over 30 years old with no audible deterioration. (Whether there has been any deterioration in my hearing, he said with a smile, is another matter, but occasional audiology tests don’t reveal any.)
On aesthetic grounds, I don’t want a computer sitting around in the living room. All of my audio electronics are stored, out of view, in a lovely piece of furniture with doors.
I don’t want to depend on the Internet any more than I already do, and music is a case where I don’t have to.
I don’t want to depend on a computer, and the built-in obsolescence of computer hardware and software products (“Your program is no longer supported”) for my music. I don’t want to depend on anyone’s cloud storage (and “cloud storage” is just a fancy way of saying “someone else’s computer”), for the availability and safety of my music collection. My CD collection, like the scarecrow in “The Wizard of Oz,” isn’t afraid of anything except fire.
It has now been decades since the first predictions of the death of physical media, i.e., CDs (which I own) and vinyl (which I don’t). All such predictions have, so far, proven wrong. I hope that will continue to be the case.
For those who prefer straming: more power to you. The point is the continuation of choice.
Now, if only laptop manufacturers would go back to having integral CD Players in new models (and also photo card slots) instead of having to use clunky peripherals, I’d be even happier!
What streaming services provide for your entertainment today, they can also withhold tomorrow. Own your CDs and DVDs!
I have never left CDs. Over 20K and still growing. I like physical products.
have you heard them all. i presume
you are unmarried.
What’s the point in having so many CDs that you can’t possibly listen to them all
If you want to, you can.
Maybe he sells them on eBay.
And he needs stock. Why not
Prove it.
I miss liner notes.
Most of what I know of music history came from LP liner notes.
False dichotomy. The third way is to buy downloads from people like Presto which avoids the storage problems associated with physical media and facilitates backup either locally and/or to the Cloud. You don’t risk your favourite recording being removed from a streaming service, and you can still listen to your recordings when the internet is down.
It’s good news, but will we ever see a return of the classical record shops? There used to be loads of fine shops in London back in the LP days and until about 20 years ago, when they began to disappear. What I liked most about these is that you could browse the records, read the sleeves and buy what you wanted. That was part of the pleasure, apart from owning the thing. Streaming has none of these advantages and yes, the LPs and CDs sound far better on my hi-fi than streamed music.
Among the pleasures of record shops were also chance conversations with other customers.
I used to make an almost-annual pilgrimage to Tower Records in Washington, DC, on the October weekend when they had an “open house” and sale. Would head directly to the classical section, which had an entire large room to itself (although, predictably, upstairs and at the very back of the store). Refreshments were being served, the local public radio station was broadcasting live from that room. Enthusiasts of all sorts amiably exchanged divergent views while pawing through the inventory, made recommendations when asked (“Which are the best CDs of Verdi’s ‘Un Ballo in Maschera’ if I limit the choices to modern stereo sound?”), and so on. It was like a party where all the guests were kindred spirits.
When in London I always made a point of visiting the best classical record stores, also including the enormous main Tower store.
In the smaller U.S. city where I live there was no good retail store for classical, but I periodically visited a second-hand book and record store, looking for possible treasures among other people’s castoffs. (The store’s website now announces that they no longer buy or sell classical recordings. Pity.)
I miss them all.
I miss tower records in london.
I would buy cds every week. It was near
My office.
Don’t forget that streaming doesn’t usually offer cd quality of sound… except quobuz or high resolution files. As sad as dawn of CD was dawn of hifi world especially middle range products. It gets so expensive to get a SACD player for example, which offers even better sound… streaming is practical because you can discover a lot though….
Tidal also offers lossless and hi-res streaming.
And most importantly, buying a CD means the musicians involved will actually earn something, unlike streaming.
I hope there can be an equilibrium of the three major music formats: LP, cassette and CD.