It’s been the biggest year for music purchases since 2001 with market growth for streaming and vinyl. But CD sales have remained flat.
The UK music market boasted a new record in 2024 – the nation’s most successful year in music consumption since the peak of CD sales in 2001, figures from the Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA) show.
While CDs continued to sell more than vinyl, a look the compact disc’s rapid decline over the years shows increased competition between the two physical formats.
Data: ERA
While vinyl sales grew by 10.5% to £196m, CD album revenue remained flat at £126.2m. Despite the monopoly of streaming, demand for vinyl has increased for 16 consecutive years, suggesting there’s still a place for hard copies in the digital age.
“Physical music is definitely coming back into fashion," said Dan Burton, who works at local record shop Banquet Records.
“People are not completely sacking off streaming, but realising I own my music, this is mine," Burton added. "It’s about seeing the value within it. You pay ten quid for your monthly subscription, you make your playlists sure, but when you stop paying for it, they all disappear. The owning of physical formats just means you appreciate it so much more, and artwork is lost within the streaming world.”
While Banquet sells more CDs than vinyl, Burton said that this was often for pragmatic rather than sentimental reasons, with listeners favouring the more approachable price of CDs.
“A lot of our CD revenue comes from the events we host at PRYZM [Banquet’s neighbouring music venue]. The events focus on the release of new albums, so fans can see their favourite artist perform and receive a discounted ticket if they buy a physical copy of the album.”
For fans, physical copies often act as a means to an end, providing all-important access to pre-sale tickets.
Kira Howe, 23, enjoys music production as a hobby and explained that she buys CDs out of necessity rather than preference.
Howe said: “So many artists use them as a ticket for more intimate shows, like the Rough Trade gigs. You have to buy a CD or record in order to get the tickets. It’s a smart way of getting CD sales up I guess, but no one wants CDs. I do have a small collection but no CD player.”
Inevitably, megastar Taylor swift came up in discussion at Banquet. Swift’s latest release, The Tortured Poets Department, sold 783,820 albums in 2024, making it the biggest selling album of the year.
“Taylor Swift, one of our most popular sellers, will release different colourways, variants and exclusive notes” Burton said. “It’s the little bits and bobs that you don’t get if you’re just streaming, so for anyone that’s a serious fan, it goes back to being a collector.”
In 2023, CD sales rose for the first time in two years, a resurgence which the ERA said was led by Swift’s artist incentivisation and loyal fanbase.
In 2024, consumers spent a total of £2.4bn, overtaking the previous high of £2.2bn. Subscriptions to streaming services, such as Spotify and Apple Music, dominated this achievement, accounting for almost 85% of the money spent on music over the last year.
Despite growing up with vinyl, cassettes and CDs, local resident Michael Riley, 54, said he no longer uses any.
Riley said: “Spotify, Sonos, and BBC sounds are my go-to places now. I know I shouldn’t because places like Spotify are not helping the artists, but like everything in life now, all I have to do is press a couple of buttons and I get what I want straight away.”
Although CDs might not hold a place in listeners' hearts and sound systems like they once did, two decades on from its heyday, the familiar audio format is not quite obsolete.
“Will the CD disappear? Of course, its prospects don’t look good right now,” ERA CEO Kim Bayley said. “But it offers a permanence and robustness and quality which is unique. Given how wrong we were about vinyl, it would be foolish to write off the CD for ever.”
