Tom Dunne: The time is right to jump aboard the great CD revival

Music & Me: The digital music cloud's silver lining has seen an increase in compact disc sales, driven by the likes of Adele, Taylor Swift and BTS

Last year, for the first time in 17 years, CD sales actually increased. 

My dearest friends. Do you remember how I once told you that the CD is dead, is just landfill in shiny boxes and you’d be better off burning your collection while dancing naked around the flames? You didn’t actually do that did you? You did! Okay, well, we have much to talk about so.

On a positive note, dancing naked is more liberating that people give it credit for, especially in the garden, at night, by a fire. And I’ll bet you’ve liberated a lot of storage space in your house too. Marie Kondo eat your heart out. However, as regards the CDs themselves, well, perhaps you should sit.

It seems, to use the common parlance, that rumours of their death may have been a bit overstated. Last year, for the first time in 17 years, their sales actually increased. It’s a small increase, but even the faintest of pulses will stop a funeral. Mirrors have been produced and it is confirmed: breath has been detected.

The increase, and the reversal of their ‘off the cliff’ fall, has been achieved largely through the auspices of Adele, Damon Albarn’s sworn enemy Taylor Swift and a band called BTS. Adele’s fans bought 900,000 CDs in just a few weeks. BTS fans can buy up to eight different CD formats each and then, mercifully, never unseal them.

This might seem to be a ‘dead cat bounce’, but to CD enthusiasts hiding in jungle retreats since losing the format war in 2001 this is manna from heaven. For almost two decades they have had to endure MP3s (“an insult”) and then a vinyl resurgence (“money for old rope”) whilst trying to maintain shelf space and strict alphabetising in good cheer.

It has not been easy. They’ve watched albums they have on perfectly good CDs get re-issued on 180g vinyl, or better still 45RPM multi vinyl format with two (2, deux, dos, one plus one) tracks on each side without being able to say any of the great CD mantras such as:

1. You can’t even skip the crap tracks.

2. You’ll get backache getting up and down to change the stupid yoke.

3. Do you call that bottom end?

4. At least I can lift my box sets.

This glimmer of hope in the CD world has empowered CD owners. People are suddenly remembering all the stuff they liked about CDs. Simple pleasures, like buying them, listening to them, reading the notes and owning them. And of course, still being able to listen to them when the WIFI fails.

I took the news somewhat uncomfortably. I’ve been mentally moving towards the garden fire, naked dance scenario for a long time. Tidal streams in CD quality. That service, through a DAC into good speakers, is hi-fi heaven. And as for the ease of use, the playlists, the almost unlimited ability to discovery tracks from any era... phew!

But something keeps stopping me. Partly it’s that I can’t look at a CD without remembering the time and place it came into my life. Ryan Adam’s Heartbreaker I have only ever known on CD. It was conceived and recorded for CD, just like Amy’s Back To Black and Beck’s Odelay.

Those albums, and almost everything recorded from the late 1980s onwards, were recorded from the headset of ‘how will this sound on CD?’ and ‘how can we best make use of all of CD’s massive information storage capability?’ Most of this additional info storage was used for the delight and delectation of ‘bottom end’ fans. ‘Bottom end’ is the amount of low frequency or bass a record can have. Vinyl was not great at this. CD’s appetite for ‘bottom end’ was almost unquenchable.

Having been in a band at this time that was recording albums I can tell you that U2 were the driving force. Each new U2 album achieved new heights in how much bottom end could be recorded. They were listened to in studios the world over and marvelled at. Cups fell from tables, walls vibrated.

Records such as U2’s Mysterious Ways, Soul to Soul’s Keep on Moving, and Massive Attack’s Teardrop and Unfinished Sympathy produced bass sounds the like of which had never been heard before. They are utterly the children of the ‘CD recording age’ and all the better for it.

I’ll bet you wish I had told you that sooner. Before you bought the petrol and dug the firepit, perhaps. Oh and, insult to injury, they’re cheaper too!