Compact Discs

I read an article in The Guardian a while ago about CDs and how they're seemingly popular again. The author does admit this is possibly due to artists like Taylor Swift releasing a never ending amount of reissued albums with perhaps one new song, and the fans buy all of them regardless of the spiralling costs. They regretted throwing away all their CDs, which I somewhat understand and also find confusing.

Here's a list of good things about CDs:

• It's a more personal experience. It's quite wonderful to flick through the liner notes and maybe see some artwork related to the album, or simply the lyrics which are being sung. Spotify, on the other hand, doesn't offer this - they do offer a lyrics service, but sometimes it doesn't follow along with the music, sometimes the provided lyrics have nothing to do with the song, and sometimes they make up lyrics (albeit this is from two years ago).
• It's a more personal experience. I can remember the first CD I bought, I cannot remember the first song I streamed. I have a physical copy which may have partially helped the band financially, Spotify is far more useless in this regard (pennies, not pounds).
• It's a more personal experience. There'll be more joy in sharing music physically than to send a link to someone over the internet. Then again, I believe none of my friends often use CDs either way.
• Physics and computer science courses include CD technology in teaching (whether through wave diffraction or through decoding binary data). It would be a shame to no longer teach this.

Here's a list of bad things about CDs:

• Often expensive, especially if the artist is more popular.
• Take up far more space.
• Streaming services have far more music and are often cheaper than the finite stack of CDs from a finite number of artists.
• Jewel cases are bad for the environment, and paper cases can get worn more easily - and they're often wrapped in plastic anyways.
• You need a dedicated CD player which costs even more, especially as computers get sleeker and thus have fewer and fewer ports for no reason.
• They can suffer disc rot, and thus can become unplayable if not maintained over time. Ditto scratches.  

But I won't be throwing out the CD collection I've amassed over the past few years. In a weird way, there are plenty of memories I've obtained even from the CDs I've played very, very rarely. Who could forget when the shop worker tried to convince me to exchange money just to make the purchase of a Massive Attack album easier? What about the comments they'll share about an album? There's a social element in this too, which is somewhat important to maintain; I'm not the most bubbly person, but for others it could be valuable.

But obviously CDs aren't going to be driving music anymore. Certain albums are becoming viral because a political candidate endorsed it, or because people are making social media trends about them. Advertising seems to be more important than ever if you're going to become famous, and selling more CDs won't help you in that cause.

There's something satisfying about perusing through the CDs in charity shops, before the crushing realisation that all they have is an endless list of classical music and Britpop cannon fodder. Sometimes, though, there will be that album that seems interesting, and upon listening to it, you can't help but be pleased you found it. 

As I've mentioned multiple times on this blog, I prefer physical technology over software on many occasions, purely because it's more satisfying to own something you can hold, and because innovation isn't always necessarily better. I think similarly about CDs.