Why Are People Buying CDs Again?
In the first half of 2026, Americans bought 16.3 million CDs . That was up 16% from a year earlier. At the same time, global on-demand audio streaming reached 2.8 trillion plays . That sounds strange. Spotify and Apple Music can give you access to millions of songs in seconds. You no longer need to buy a CD to hear an album. Yet people are buying more CDs. So what are they actually paying for? A CD Used to Have a Simple Job Twenty or thirty years ago, buying music was straightforward. Buy the CD. Put it in a CD player. Listen to the music. Streaming removed the middle step. Today, you can hear the same album on your phone without owning anything physical. But the CD did not disappear. Instead, its job may be changing. Luminate reported that U.S. CD sales rose much faster than vinyl in the first half of 2026: 16% for CDs versus 2.4% for vinyl . K-pop was a major reason. But not the only one. Remove K-pop sales entirely, and U.S. CD sales were still up 6.7% . Something broader is h...