Stevie G: First came vinyl, CD revival is next 

It took many years of various vinyl revivals for me to realise that vinyl as a format would truly hit the mainstream again. Vinyl became more than just a niche fad in the last 10 years and it was again being bought by more than just us DJs and other music fanatics. The independent record shops that had somehow survived the era where streaming took over were now accompanied by bigger brands, as vinyl returned to the shelves in stores such as HMV and even Tesco.

In Cork itself, Golden Discs expanded, HMV came back, and Music Zone, Plug’d, Bunker, Rip All, 33 RPM and a number of second hand markets and shops continued to stock records. It’s all pretty impressive really, considering how difficult it is to do business in 2026, especially in a business so fickle and tough as the music one.

The strive for a more tangible relationship with music has definitely played a significant part in the demand for vinyl amongst music fans, but buying records remains a costly pursuit, and even second hand vinyl is expensive. It’s not unheard of to see a new vinyl record for 50-ish quid these days, and despite the best efforts of many of these retailers, records still cost a lot.

This all helps explain how the most unlikely revival of them all is also gathering pace, as CDs have now followed cassette tapes as the latest physical format to receive a new lease of life.

The cassette and tape revival made sense to me, as cassette culture has always enjoyed a deep relationship with the underground music scene. Mixtapes used to actually be mixes on tape, and played a big role in the expansion of hip-hop/dance and indie/rock/punk/metal culture worldwide. In the last 10 years I was not surprised to see indie bands and artists and labels releasing stuff on tape. It may not seem practical in the streaming generation, but a tape is a tangible format that connects an artist to a music fan, and I still buy a few now and then!

So what about CDs? In a way, they were the format that originally supposedly killed vinyl, though vinyl had its revenge and has ultimately lasted longer. A greedy record industry duped the masses into replacing albums they already had on vinyl with CDs in the 80s and 90s, and charged a lot more for a format that cost far less to produce. This was truly a great rock ’n’ roll swindle, and as the 2000s dawned it soon became apparent that most households had multiple copies of scratched CDs lying around. The shiny reflective format that promised longevity was full of broken cases and damaged CDs, and soon became as obsolete as DVDs as habits changed.

How are CDs returning? Surely it remains impractical to even find CD players in 2026, when most car stereos and home systems have long since moved on. The most revolutionary piece of technology in modern culture since the Technic turntable was arguably the Pioneer CDJ, which has become the club standard worldwide in nightclubs and festivals, but now no longer supports actual CDs and is simply digital. The world has moved on from the CD, but a few collectors remained, and now even young people are being drawn towards the format.

CDs these days are much cheaper than vinyl and they are much more portable. One of the most interesting things about this revival is that there are bargains to be had for those pursuing to collect CDs. The vinyl revival market remains huge, but Discogs, online speculating, record company greed, and other factors mean it’s much harder to get bargains these days. Vintage shops and online platforms remain full of reasonably priced CDs, and CD players themselves are fairly accessible too. Music remains a key part of youth culture, and many young people still want to buy tee shirts, vinyl and even tapes and CDs from their favourite artists.

Formats such as K-pop have a rich CD heritage and, globally, many fans of afrobeats, baile funk, reggaeton and other genres remain CD buyers.

I bought thousands of CDs really cheap from the Virgin Megastore in Cork and various shops in New York and London in the early 2000s, when record companies started discounting their stock heavily at the dawn of the streaming era. I didn’t have room so I cut out the covers and kept them in wallets that I still use to this day, in my attic, but my days of DJing on them are long over for now. They’ll never replace my vinyl, but in a world where we are striving for connection and meaning, it’s no wonder that even CDs are finding a resurgence!