John Lewis: CD Player Searches Up 96%, CD Sales Up 16% — SkimNews
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- John Lewis said searches for CD players are up 96% since July, while a separate report on trends in music and film this year found CD sales up 16%.
- Andrew Wales, 67, of London, owns well over 10,000 CDs — his first was John Scofield's Meant to Be in 1991 — and says much of the classical music he buys is only available on CD, though he also keeps about 2,000 LPs, a few hundred cassettes and a growing Blu-ray pile.
- Neil Cumming, 53, of Gloucester, bought his first CD in 1988 and now buys directly from small indie and folk bands, so they keep a bigger share of his money than streaming would; he says streaming means renting music that can disappear from platforms, and he uses it only to try acts before buying.
- Gabriela Crowley, 32, of San Jose, came back to physical music after vinyl proved too bulky following the birth of her baby, and now uses her father-in-law's old CD player every day, valuing a fixed collection and no autoplay or AI-generated playlists over streaming's endless options.
- Asha Varadharajan, 65, of Toronto, has owned her CD player since 1999 and loads five discs at a time in any order, arguing that patience makes songs memorable, streaming makes music ephemeral, and algorithms make everything predictable even though people's tastes are kind of random.
- Ed, 63, of London, bought his first CDs in 1986 — Genesis's Invisible Touch and Level 42's World Machine — and has bought more over the past two years because they cost 'almost throwaway prices against the excessive costs of vinyl', although he initially rejected them for sounding 'too bright and shiny' compared with vinyl.
Why it matters: John Lewis's 96% jump in CD-player searches and a 16% sales rise put physical media back on shoppers' radar, while collector Neil Cumming buys directly from small indie and folk bands so artists keep a bigger share of his money than streaming pays. Ed's purchases also shift spending to CDs, which he calls 'almost throwaway prices' against vinyl's 'excessive costs'.
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