Lately, I have been filling our residence alongside piles and piles of CDs. I'm not alone: physical media (primarily vinyl, but additionally CDs) have been on an upward revenue trend for the former five years.
But dissimilar vinyl collectors or tastemakers looking for rare albums, I am listening to CDs as a parenting move since of my 8-year-old daughter.
I didn't desire her to hear to AI slop
As she grew out of the "Baby Shark" music of her toddlerhood and into appreciating rock, pop, hip-hop, and folk, I wanted her to have the chance to examine on her own and the liberty to choose what she liked.
But whenever I put Spotify in my daughter's hands, she would scroll, hear for a few seconds, afterward scroll again. She would rotate into mesmerized by the abbreviated videos that perform alongside the music.
She would try searching for "narwhal" or "axolotl" and discover AI slop songs. The final straw came whenever dozens of playlists popped up in the hunt results alongside NC-17-looking playlist shield art. I looked downward at my phone display filled alongside anime seductresses, and I was done everlastingly alongside trying to let my kid navigate Spotify on her own.
I gave my kid a heap of CDs
An test ensued: a CD participant and a heap of CDs. My CD player in 2026 is handsome, wooden, and Bluetooth-enabled. She can choice anything. If streaming were a sprawling trash heap filled alongside needles, CDs are a playground alongside a beautiful fence. If streaming were an art museum alongside AI-generated animations abruptly flashing in forefront of the Mona Lisa, CDs are a quiescent exhibition alongside ideal light.
Streaming wasn't fair harmful for my kid; it was harmful for me. I had grown increasingly dissatisfied as my personalized playlists served me additional and additional acquainted tracks, sending me into the identical well-worn rivulets of songs that are inoffensive and foolproof for me.
When I put on a CD, it is easier for me to surrender to letting it perform from forefront to back. When I desire to appearance up a lyric, I drag out the liner notes. There is no hazard of my seeing a notification. The shield art power be faded and stiff, but it is not going to pivot to video. CDs are part of my war for presence, a small but crucial reclaiming of what it method to be motionless in a area and hear to a song.
We've been purchasing new CDs
I have been delightfully amazed to discover that CDs are motionless readily accessible out there in the world, at thrift stores, asset sales, and equal Target and Walmart. CDs have traits that children crave: they're tactile objects made of pane and synthetic that necessitate careful handling. They arrive alongside their own environment — the shield art, liner notes, track listing. Importantly, they arrive alongside extremely small censorship overhead for parents. In amassing a small CD gathering for our family, I've replaced the changeless "no"s and negotiations my female and I had complete Spotify alongside music that is a hearty yes for me. Yes to Bonnie Raitt, yes to the Cranberries, yes to Soul and R&B Today.
Vinyl records have a akin physicality, but CDs have a few key advantages complete records, in my humble opinion. They're smaller and cheaper. If you really desire to, you can motionless scorch nearly any CD. And the audio norm of a CD is unbeaten, although many of group have woo-woo beliefs to the contrary. The enticement of a needle dropping into a bodily groove is real, but I'll obtain the small romantic, plucky CD any day.
I've discovered new artists
Our shared adventure into CDs has ruined me out of the algorithmic doldrums and into a area of finding and receptiveness. I've been listening to new-to-me artists akin Lucinda Williams and Bill Evans. I dug up my old CD books and established mixes my allies made for lengthy highway trips. I remembered how chief music was to existence and companionship rear whenever I was a teenager, and CDs reigned.
I desire my female to have that benevolent of profound association alongside music someday. She's a representative 8-year-old who puts on Taylor Swift 90% of the time; all now and then, we rock out to Queen, Avril Lavigne, or The Donnas. When we appearance for item to hear to together, we fair scan our synthetic cases and choice something. We get to the fun part faster. She digs the new Muna record, which has an apropos track, "Big Stick," in which guide singer Katie Gavin becomes the sound of the algorithms that regulation our lives, chanting, "I can create you desire what I desire you to."
We dance, we holler, and I bask the fulfillment of knowing that no one is making us desire item we haven't chosen for ourselves.
