Since everything is streamed or downloaded these days, a CD no longer makes sense. However?
Some technology is sad to be gone, but the CD has only disappeared because better alternatives took over. As was said in the intro: streaming, possibly downloading or other ways of listening to music online are simply more convenient and faster. So it wouldn’t be weird if the compact disc declining in popularity.
CD rises in popularity
It is therefore remarkable that the opposite is true: more CDs were sold in 2021 than the year before! That’s according to a report from the RIAA: Recording Industry Association of America. They analyzed all forms of listening to music and gauged the figures for 2020 and 2021. With ‘physical music’, i.e. CD and LP, there is an upward trend in sales against all expectations. It would be 46.6 million CDs sold in 2021 compared to 31.6 million in 2020. An increase of 20 percent. This is the first time in 17 years(!) that there has been an upward trend in the sales numbers of the CD. One explanation may be that music stores in the US were largely closed in 2020, so that in 2021 CDs were bought again en masse. So it is not necessarily ‘at the old level’, but a bit better than 2020.
Elpee
What rose even more explosively than the CD: the LP. The LP is again more popular than ever, which in turn has to do with a cult status around old record players. The RIAA report notes a 61 percent(!) increase in the number of LPs sold. Not bad either, but good: due to the aforementioned cult status, a lot of music is still being re-released on LPs. This is not the case with the CD (yet).
A special development for the CD. Read the rest of the report here†
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