°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ 27th of April 2026
Dear Diary, we need to bring back CD's
Before anyone even says anything, I am very much aware that CD's are huge. They've been making such a huge comeback in the past few years, and they've never truly dipped in popularity. however, as someone who's very slowly trying to step away from streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube Music etc, i've come to realise that we need to start listening to music through a CD player again?
The more and more i listen to albums through a CD player, the more and more .. i learn to actually appreciate the art. Streaming services have very much made us used to passively listening to songs, without much thought whatsoever. Simply clicking play and letting random songs on our playlist play mindlessly. But with a CD player? you are forced to listen to the entire album. Not to say you can't mindlessly listen to a CD either, but it's harder to do it mindlessly.
You have to physically choose the albums you want, you can't necessarily pick and choose what songs you want to listen to. You have to commit to the entire album unless you want to keep getting up, grabbing a new CD, taking the old CD out and putting the new CD in (PLUS putting the old CD back in its place) .. after a song or two.
I think puposefully sitting with an album, letting the first 1-2 songs play whilst you read through the song list, flip through the booklet, maybe even read throught the lyrics is one of the best ways to experience an album. I adore putting on an album i rarely listen to, or a new album from an artist i've never heard from, and just .. sit by my window, or sit in the dark or even read a book.
Talking about listening to artists i dont know, or albums i dont listen to often, i often thrift my CD's. That's the only way i've ever aquired my CD's!! Through charity shops or vinted, sometimes Ebay or Mercari but I always have one rule for myself whenever i go charity shopping for CD's .. i always try and buy at least ONE album from an artist i dont know or an album i dont know. It is truly one of the best ways to discover new songs, maybe even new genres and just expand your prespective a bit? i adore charity shops that have a 3 for £1 offer because then im forced to buy at least 2 or 3 CD's i dont know that well
I always have people ask me "andrea, why do you collect CD's when you can just listen to it on Spotify?" because why not, but seriously like i've discovered SO many artists that i never would've discovered randomly on spotify or Apple Music (especially since the reccomendation system sucks ass) like as im writing this im listening to the album "Ask a Woman Who Knows" by Natalie Cole, released in 2002. It's a jazz album consisting of 13 tracks, and 2 bonus tracks. And whilst i do adore Jazz, i never ever EVER would have found Natalia Cole on Spotify through my usual playlists but because i found her CD in a random charity shop in a small town? I now get to experience this one album.
Also really random thought i want to say, a lot of albums are experiences. Many artists are very specific about the order they put their songs in, and if you shuffle an album through a streaming service? you tend to miss out on that experience of listening to each song, one by one, in the way that the artist intended for it. Music is a form of art, and it sucks that people don't treat it as such.
Even if you cannot listen to a CD because you dont have a CD player or whatever, the second best thing you can do is watch music videos. I do this often, and have also found new songs and artists this way as well. Like genuingly, start with a song you love, full screen the music video and watch it through then look through the reccomendations and pick out another one to watch!! The way i always do it is that i always try and find songs that were released in the last week or so, OR songs that have less than 10k views OR even songs i've never heard of by artists i love. That's how i found out that Pabllo Vittar had a song with Charli XCX in 2019 because i listened to the song she did with NMIXX (Tic Tic) and that's how i found out that NMIXX was in a song with her six months prior called 'MEXE'!!
TLDR; appreciate music more, listen to new albums and start collecting CD's because it's so much cheaper than buying a subscription for a streaming service every month (a streaming service that CAN remove the songs whenever they want to)