Why I Still Buy CDs in 2024

Six years ago, I wrote a blog post titled "Why I Still Buy CDs in 2018". At that time, it was beginning to feel like the Compact Disc was dying in popular culture, and that internet streaming was beginning to take over the music industry. And of course, that's exactly what happened. For most people, music is no longer something you buy, it's something you pay for a subscription to access over the internet. As this shift has happened, though, my belief in the superiority of the CD has strengthened. So today, I'd like to explain why I think the compact disc shouldn't be allowed to die, and why I think it is actually the best way to listen to albums in 2024.

Let's get a few things straight first. I'm not trying to say that CDs are perfect for every music listening need you might have, or that it's better than streaming for everyone. What I am saying is that the CD is a format that is much more convenient, useful, and practical for modern life than it gets credit for, and that you should consider listening to music on CDs if your listening habits align with the strengths of the format in today's music landscape. As evidenced by the growing size of my CD collection, I believe CDs make sense for me. They might make sense for you, too.

In my original blog post, I asserted that CDs were not as convenient as streaming, but I liked them anyways so I kept buying them. Six years later, I've changed my opinion. Buying CDs is more convenient than streaming for the kind of listener I am. I like listening to albums, in order, all the way through. I think that an album can be more than the sum of its parts, as I've already written numerous times on this blog. So let's compare what it takes to listen to an album in 2024 on streaming versus compact disc. Streaming is the most popular method, which requires a subscription or putting up with ads. Then, you have to find the album you want to listen to- that shouldn't be so hard, but often requires navigating through menus and swiping past distractions. Then, you need to hook your phone up to something to play the music out of, or else resign yourself to crappy phone speakers. Bluetooth is frequently unreliable for me and annoying to deal with, but to avoid it you'll need a dongle, which costs more money and in my experience reduces the audio quality considerably by adding hum that wasn't there before. Oh, and if you lose your internet connection, your music is interrupted. That's method one. Alternatively, you could take a CD, place it in a CD player, and just hit play.

Let's quickly run through some of the advantages of CDs as compared to streaming. CDs have no ads. You can buy a CD once and it's yours forever. You can buy them used for next to nothing- that's how I built my collection. You can rip those CDs to your computer and then put them on your phone or any other device you want- they'll be available whether you have an internet connection or not. If your computer doesn't have a CD drive, they can be bought pretty cheap as well, not to mention how cheap CD players are at thrift shops. I got my 5 CD changer for $15 and it is amazing. CDs have better audio quality than streaming, with no internet connection required. CDs typically also come with a booklet, which is totally worth a flip through if you're a big fan of the artist. And finally, when Spotify or Apple Music or whatever finally shuts down, you won't lose all your music if you have it on CD.

I want to dwell on that last point a little while. Right now, we're in a bit of an enshittification crisis. Online services in particular are rapidly getting worse as big companies compete to cut costs, to the detriment of their product. Online music streaming services are no different. User interfaces are getting clunkier and more cluttered. Features that used to be free are going behind paywalls, and features that used to be available with a subscription are being removed entirely. And after all that, you don't even own your music library on one of these services. Every online service eventually ends, and when Spotify ends, I'm going to lose all 200+ of my playlists unless I save them elsewhere beforehand. This will happen to every user of every streaming service eventually, and if you don't like it, you need to change your listening habits.

I still have CDs that I've had since I was a child. I have CDs that I've bought used that are twice as old as me, and they work just the same as they always have. And of course, I have new releases from this year. CDs predate Spotify, and while Spotify's quality is diminishing at the moment, CDs work just as well as they always have. When I bring up that I listen to CDs to friends, they'll often mention that they don't have a CD player anymore. To that I just want to say that it's a solvable problem. You can just go buy one, they aren't expensive. In the long run, streaming is much more expensive.

Of course, there are things streaming does that CDs can't really compete with. The modern understanding of playlists is a totally internet-reliant phenomenon, for example. You can make CD mixtapes, but nothing is quite the same as a 10+ hour playlist. CDs also don't allow you to discover new music as easily as you can on streaming services. In years past, when I wanted to find new music I'd put on Spotify's For You and Release Radar playlists and add anything that I enjoyed to my liked songs. Discovering new music through CDs requires an element of risk typically. However, I've never really discovered new music through CDs. I've almost always listened to albums on the internet before buying a CD, and that's still true. But when I find an album on streaming services that I like, I will almost always try to buy it if I really like it, assuming CDs for that album are even being made.

Over the last six years, I've come to the conclusion that CDs are valuable and are worth building listening habits around. Today, I listen to CDs in the car when I'm driving, at my desk using my CD player, and I rip every CD I buy so that I have it on my phone in case I ever want to deal with the hassle of plugging in or connecting bluetooth in exchange for the ability to listen to a CD I left at home but wanted to listen to anyways. I use Spotify when I want to listen to music in playlists, or albums I don't own but might want to someday, or listen to music recommendations from friends, or when I'm listening to music on a device that doesn't have access to my own music library. Both can coexist, but I find myself gravitating towards good old, physical CDs. As the internet gets worse, CDs stay the same. In 2018, I said CDs were less convenient but I liked them anyways. Today, I think that CDs are back to being more convenient. There just isn't anything easier than placing a disc in a CD player and hitting play.