Why the Compact Disc (CD) Was the Last Great Music Medium

Streaming music platforms have been in the news quite a bit recently, and not for good reasons. A lot of people who use streaming music services (which includes virtually all of us) are also quite sick of increasing rates and never-ending subscription tiers, the involvement of AI in music curation, and a lack of appropriate pay that goes to the artists we love. 

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We’re at a weird time in music history, honestly. Streaming services might just continue on, or the average listener, on a grand scale, may just opt out of using music streaming services entirely. It’s times like these that remind me of the beauty of the compact disc, the music medium that I grew up with and miss quite a bit. 

But it hasn’t really gone anywhere. A revival of physical music media could be on the horizon.

The Compact Disc Music Medium Isn’t Dead; It Might Actually Make a Comeback

There are so many reasons why the compact disc (CD) could be considered the last great music medium. It took the popularity of vinyl and shrunk it down. And while you can’t beat the sound quality of vinyl, you also can’t beat the portability of CDs and CD players. Sure, cassette tapes were great. But CDs improved on that particular physical medium in a big way. And if it weren’t for CDs, the boom of Greatest Hits compilation albums would not have been as big as it was in the 90s.

When the digitization of music through MP3s became a thing in the 2000s, CDs certainly didn’t disappear. They didn’t fade away when MP3 players became a thing. People still loved their CDs even when iPods were the hip thing to have. There was something wonderful about owning a physical product that couldn’t be snatched away if you failed to pay $20 for the month, or if your MP3 player broke. You bought the CD once, and it was yours. For the (approximately) 15-year shelf-life of that CD, the music on it belonged to you. And the musicians who created the albums on those CDs were (most of the time) compensated appropriately.

There is a chance that the compact disc music medium could see a resurgence nowadays, as more average consumers grow weary of having algorithms feed them the music they may not even like. At the very least, I can see MP3s making a comeback very soon. However, there’s something magical about holding your music in your hands. I’d love to see CDs come back in vogue.

Photo by Nikos Pekiaridis