5 reasons I’m listening to CDs over streaming

As convenient as streaming music is, I have my qualms with it. From the bad pay for artists to inconsistent audio quality to my own penchant for collecting things, I have my reasons from moving away from streaming music to more physical, tangible formats. I love CDs for this reason, and have been listening to them a lot more lately.

I’m a big believer in moderation when it comes to technology. There should be a balance between the very-online, on-demand, and interconnected nature of streaming, and the offline, curated, and physical nature of media like CDs. So in 2024, in an attempt to bring that kind of balance to my life, I’m taking the CDs out of my closet, reading the inserts, and enjoying the good quality audio. Here are some of my main reasons why I’m listening to CDs over streaming.

1 Music can disappear from streaming services. CDs can’t disappear from my hands

Licensing agreements come and go. CDs are forever.

Streaming services don’t own the music on their platforms, and you most certainly don’t own them either. The way streaming works is that they have licensing agreements with copyright holders, and only with that licensing agreement can they have that music on their service. So if the copyright holder doesn’t renew that agreement or terminates it, that music will no longer be available on the service. This happens for a lot of reasons to do with royalties, copyright disputes, and protesting specific services.

If you use CDs primarily, you never have to worry about that happening. Regardless of what happens between various parties and copyright holders for the music down the line, nobody is going to come into your house and take the CD away from you like that.

2 CDs always have CD quality audio

Lossless all day, every day

I’ve been a Spotify user since 2014, and over the course of the last 10 years, Spotify has never added a lossless audio option, even though they keep saying it’s coming. All files on Spotify are Ogg Vorbis, which is a lossy-compressed format similar to MP3 in quality.

On the other hand, CDs are lossless. As long as you’re listening to the CD with a wired connection, you’re getting that beautiful, 16-bit/44.1kHz audio quality. There’s no waiting for the streaming service you use to add your favorite tracks with lossless quality, you have it in your hands.

3 CD inserts bring a fun physical, visual element that you can’t get on streaming

Nothing online comes close to the joy of flipping through an album insert.

Genius or built-in lyrics on streaming services just can’t beat the beauty of a lyric insert in a CD. They’re full of photos, design specific to that album, and have accurate lyrics for each track, and the full credits of who worked on the album. That experience just can’t be replicated on your phone or computer. Holding an insert in your hands, flipping through it, and appreciating the work that went into making it is like nothing else.

4 I like having a physical collection of music

A Spotify playlist is no replacement for holding an album in your hands.

While I am known to make playlists and sort music in very specific ways at times, I do prefer to listen to full albums. And sorting through full albums on streaming services can be a bit annoying. When you have a collection of CDs sitting on your desk or a shelf, you have everything right in front of you, and you can easily make your decision about what to listen to that way.

Additionally, CDs are beautiful. Having all those cases with the album art right there to enjoy adds something to your physical space that a streaming service can never do. Even better, sometimes album inserts fold out into a poster. That’s always a very fun little surprise.

5 You don’t need the internet to listen to CDs

No distractions, just tunes.

CDs are great for when I just want to unplug from the internet for a little while. Since listening to a CD just requires a disk reader and an audio input, I don’t need to feel distracted by notifications or even just the existence of an internet-connected device in front of me.

Plus, if you’re in the car and want to save on mobile data or storage, or you’re in an area with bad cell reception, putting a CD in is a great way to listen to music instead. You can also just load the music from your CDs on to your phone by ripping the CD and transferring the files over, so you can listen offline but still on your phone. There’s a lot of options available if you own CDs, and you can choose how online or offline you want to be.