UK: Vinyl revival switches to CDs and DVDs thanks to Gen Z's 1990s obsession

RetroGamingUK

RetroGamingUK

Member
www.thisismoney.co.uk

The vinyl revival switches to CDs and DVDs on Gen Z's 1990s obsession

Some 54% of Britons have bought a physical media item in the past year - spending an average £273.80, a Gumtree poll has found.
www.thisismoney.co.uk

Sales of physical media are booming, sparked by those aged 13 to 28.

In an era of gaming, film, music and TV via the internet, Britons are now hankering after owning tangible goods.

Some 54 per cent have bought a physical media item in the past year – spending an average £273.80, a Gumtree poll has found.

DVDs and CDs were most popular, with a quarter of buyers snapping these up. This was followed by computer games (22 per cent) and vinyl records (14 per cent).

The retro revival is being led by Gen Z – those aged 13 to 28 – with nearly three-quarters purchasing at least one physical media item in the past year.

Gumtree says 66 per cent of those aged 29 to 44, 52 per cent of 45 to 60-year-olds and 35 per cent of 60 to 79-year-olds have also bought some, the survey of 2,000 people found.

A surge in vintage formats has also led to a rise of old tech being bought to use them.

Some 15 per cent of Gen Z have purchased a CD player and a similar number have obtained a record player.
Click to expand...

The revival has been sparked by the idea of being able to own, feel and display such items, with 30 per cent citing this, with nostalgic reasons coming not far behind.

One in five bought physical media because of their obsession with the 1990s and love of collecting items from that era.

Kim Faura, from Gumtree, says: 'The 1990s revival is more than a fashion moment – it's changing how Britons consume media.

'The desire for the tangible and nostalgic is pulling people back to physical formats, from CDs to Walkmans.'
Click to expand...

Makes sense

While the likes of Netflix were rapidly growing they could run at a loss to attract subscribers.

Now they the market is saturated and growth is slowing down they're having to make profit which is pushing users away.

Now we just need car manufacturers to start including CD players again.
 
Last edited:
Yay zoomers

zoomer-floss.gif
 
Gen Z?

If you've spent anytime around Gen Z then you'd know this sounds like a right load of old bollocks.

I can honestly say that any Gen Z I've met could not give two shits about the 90's, retro gaming or any some such.
 
I still buy CDs, I find them to often be cheaper than buying the album from ITunes. I just rip them and put onto my iPod. It gives me both physical and digital benefits and I like to see a shelf of them that I actually own.

Digital services do not have everything you want by a long way.
 
RetroGamingUK said:
www.thisismoney.co.uk

The vinyl revival switches to CDs and DVDs on Gen Z's 1990s obsession

Some 54% of Britons have bought a physical media item in the past year - spending an average £273.80, a Gumtree poll has found.
www.thisismoney.co.uk





Makes sense

While the likes of Netflix were rapidly growing they could run at a loss to attract subscribers.

Now they the market is saturated and growth is slowing down they're having to make profit which is pushing users away.

Now we just need car manufacturers to start including CD players again.
Click to expand...
MiniDisc 💽 be like:
Jim Carrey Chance GIF


So much superior to CDs it was not even funny, must be what GamePass supporters feel like…
 
I was never fond of the hipsters but I gotta thank them for helping keeping vinyl going. Their reasons for liking it might not align with mine, but whatever it takes to keep things going.

For me about 40% of my music library is sourced from vinyl because the mastering is much better there in those cases.

Glad to see this is also extending to CDs as another 40% of my library is from them, again due to the best mastering for those given releases residing on CD.

Now if only we can convince them to start buying SACDs, DVD-As, BD-As & Reel-To-Reel...!

Also, Blu-rays rather than DVDs..... DVD is still 40-50% of the physical movie market while Blu-ray and 4K UHD Blu-ray fight it out for the other half. 4K UHD only just outsold DVD for the first time a few months back.

Major Insano said:
No mention of cassette tapes?
Maybe more of an 80s tech.
Click to expand...
Their main purpose for them these days is in the form of a mixtape as a fun, old-school valentines gift (and even then I'd say it's worth throwing a usb drive in there too).
 
Last edited:
Audiophile said:
Also, Blu-rays rather than DVDs..... DVD is still 40-50% of the physical movie market while Blu-ray and 4K UHD Blu-ray fight it out for the other half. 4K UHD only just outsold DVD for the first time a few months back.
Click to expand...
Blu-Ray discs are much more resistant to damage / scratches than DVDs are and players are ubiquitous. Xbox One S was a decent cheap one too.
 
Good. Get that zoomer shit away from the vinyl pressing list so they can get back to doing 80's stuff, mixed the way 80's stuff was mixed.

Alas, I like soundtracks and those are often brutally expensive on vinyl because they never get repressed.
 
I don't think there is anything weird, or wrong about it.

I myself used to feel the waves of "fake" (the feeling was genuine, though) about some 80s movies, anime, and music, that I watched for the first time in late 2000s, or later.

Or even from the 90s, even though I am born in 1989, and basically 90s kid, but a lot of things that defined 90s just wasn't available to me when it came out.
 
nush said:
I still buy CDs, I find them to often be cheaper than buying the album from ITunes. I just rip them and put onto my iPod. It gives me both physical and digital benefits and I like to see a shelf of them that I actually own.

Digital services do not have everything you want by a long way.
Click to expand...
This is a true alpha male move. You can get hundreds of CDs at clearance for like $1-2 per 10 or more. Then just rip that shit and boom - done.
 
RetroGamingUK said:
www.thisismoney.co.uk

The vinyl revival switches to CDs and DVDs on Gen Z's 1990s obsession

Some 54% of Britons have bought a physical media item in the past year - spending an average £273.80, a Gumtree poll has found.
www.thisismoney.co.uk





Makes sense

While the likes of Netflix were rapidly growing they could run at a loss to attract subscribers.

Now they the market is saturated and growth is slowing down they're having to make profit which is pushing users away.

Now we just need car manufacturers to start including CD players again.
Click to expand...
Thats not what this is saying. This isn't to do with price or users turning their backs on subscriptions but people wanting tangible objects.
 
rm082e said:
Well, CDs are superior to vinyl so I support it.

(trollin)
Click to expand...
They are though. The only good reason to prefer vinyl is if you prefer the sound of the master recording they used for it and the added distortion. And that same master would sound better on CD. You could even add back the missing distortion. CDs got a bad rap because there was a trend to make the master recordings sound louder and louder, crushing the dynamic range.
 
DVDs?

Boutique 4K Blu-ray is where it's at.

Best looking version of the movie and if you buy the deluxe editions that's like the perfect version to keep for life:

I picked up these in the last month:

images

images

Dollars-Trilogy.png

14941927-1275163161930022.jpg

616tOVjI5nL._UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg
 
Last edited:
I want more 90s nostalgia movies filled with banger hits like these ones:







And then if we get early 00s I'd go with these:







Okay, Freestyler would be very late -99, but it probably was more known in the early 00s.
 
Killer8 said:
DVDs?

Boutique 4K Blu-ray is where it's at.

Best looking version of the movie and if you buy the deluxe editions that's like the perfect version to keep for life:

I picked up these in the last month:

images

images

Dollars-Trilogy.png

14941927-1275163161930022.jpg

616tOVjI5nL._UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg
Click to expand...
I wish some of the big studios would just outsource most of their catalogue movies to boutique labels and have them do both standard and special editions.

Paramount especially; their B-team authored discs are absolute stinkers when it comes to encoding (Double Jeopardy for eg.), whereas when they send them off to the likes of Arrow, the difference in encoding is night and day. Nice thing with the boutiques is they don't skimp. BD-100, Dolby Vision, high bitrate/efficient encode on most releases. Arrow who are top of the heap imo, use Fidelity In Motion to author some of their discs and they work absolute magic, even the best, most well-regarded discs done by big studios in-house can't come close to the consistency of the encoding they do.

It's also nice to have good art on the box.
 
I mean... or because CDs actually have good audio quality and aren't just nice to look at?
the only value of Vinyl is the looks... not the low quality audio that deteriorates even further with use.

"but it sounds warmer" stfu! no it doesn't! it's differently mixed because some higher frequencies or frequency changes that are too sudden would literally make the needle skip, so the audio has to be compressed to properly function!
you could make a CD sound identically to the vinyl version, but noone does that, because it's objectively a fidelity reduction!
 
Last edited:
As someone that use to own a lot of Vinyl and Cd's i'm all for this and think it's a good thing, but i'm not going back to turning LP's over after 5 or 6 song's or playing 10 to 15 on a CD when i've got countless songs on my MP3 player that i use with my In Ear Headphones and my Hi fi using my DAC lol, but i hope it continues.
 
kevboard said:
I mean... or because CDs actually have good audio quality and aren't just nice to look at?
the only value of Vinyl is the looks... not the low quality audio that deteriorates even further with use.

"but it sounds warmer" stfu! no it doesn't! it's differently mixed because some higher frequencies or frequency changes that are too sudden would literally make the needle skip, so the audio has to be compressed to properly function!
you could make a CD sound identically to the vinyl version, but noone does that, because it's objectively a fidelity reduction!
Click to expand...

Not looking to get into a big thing over this, but everything you posted is objectively false. Will make the needle skip? No. Search "loudness wars cd" and have a read. I'm a big 90s rock guy...Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californication on CD is an abomination. The clipping hurts my ears. Same album on vinyl, different master - sounds entirely different. It's listenable. Off the top of my head, there were a number of Metallica albums which suffered from the same issue (Death Magnetic being a particular example - which I realize is a later one from that band and metal-heads might give me shit for even caring about it).

People were listening to the Guitar Hero versions of the latter (Death Magnetic) because they weren't clipped-to-shit like the CD release.

Vinyl deteriorates - yes. But if you get a heavy (180g) record, you'd have use a seriously-garbage turntable/stylus and abuse the album for it to deteriorate to an unacceptable level in any type of near future.

Moving on: Someone may have mentioned this earlier, but another "neat" aspect of vinyl is: although you can drop the needle on whatever track you want, if you work at it, you're kind of forced to listen to "an album," as opposed to "whatever track I want." Less convenience for some: sure. But, this puts a listener into the mode: this is what the artist was going for - which, in my opinion is worthwhile, but, admittedly, might be annoying for others.

This is the "why not both?" thing. I have CDs (recently grabbed Smashing Pumpkins' Zeitgeist - as I think that ONLY exists on compact disc due to rights issues), I have vinyl. There is no "definitively better format." Which is, like, man, why they all still exist. CDs are great...but so are sometimes-better-mastered LPs when you have a quality TT and cartridge.

I really want an 8-track player - in the car. That's truly hipster, but I'm pretty sure the wife won't permit it.
 
MrAnthrope said:
Not looking to get into a big thing over this, but everything you posted is objectively false. Will make the needle skip? No. Search "loudness wars cd" and have a read. I'm a big 90s rock guy...Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californication on CD is an abomination. The clipping hurts my ears. Same album on vinyl, different master - sounds entirely different. It's listenable. Off the top of my head, there were a number of Metallica albums which suffered from the same issue (Death Magnetic being a particular example - which I realize is a later one from that band and metal-heads might give me shit for even caring about it).

People were listening to the Guitar Hero versions of the latter (Death Magnetic) because they weren't clipped-to-shit like the CD release.

Vinyl deteriorates - yes. But if you get a heavy (180g) record, you'd have use a seriously-garbage turntable/stylus and abuse the album for it to deteriorate to an unacceptable level in any type of near future.

Moving on: Someone may have mentioned this earlier, but another "neat" aspect of vinyl is: although you can drop the needle on whatever track you want, if you work at it, you're kind of forced to listen to "an album," as opposed to "whatever track I want." Less convenience for some: sure. But, this puts a listener into the mode: this is what the artist was going for - which, in my opinion is worthwhile, but, admittedly, might be annoying for others.

This is the "why not both?" thing. I have CDs (recently grabbed Smashing Pumpkins' Zeitgeist - as I think that ONLY exists on compact disc due to rights issues), I have vinyl. There is no "definitively better format." Which is, like, man, why they all still exist. CDs are great...but so are sometimes-better-mastered LPs when you have a quality TT and cartridge.

I really want an 8-track player - in the car. That's truly hipster, but I'm pretty sure the wife won't permit it.
Click to expand...

bad mastering is not the fault of the CD as a medium.
vinyl has zero benefit on a sound quality level and only deficits. that's an objective truth.
you can master a CD exactly like a vinyl and it would sound identical.

also I was referring to modern albums released on Vinyl. albums that were mastered entirely for CD or even beyond CD quality, and then get compressed onto a Vinyl, where they literally have to make sure the needle doesn't skip due to frequencies that Vinyl just doesn't work well with.
these don't sound "richer" or "warmer"... they are just lower quality
 
Last edited:
My sibling's kids have gone retro too.

Not in terms of gaming (they like modern smartphone games as they gave up playing Switch years ago), but wearing old clothes we wore and its still in our old bedrooms at our parent's house. They love putting on our old button shirts, hoodies, and ancient Roots and Club Monaco sweat tops. Coudnt believe it.
 
kevboard said:
bad mastering is not the fault of the CD as a medium.
vinyl has zero benefit on a sound quality level and only deficits. that's an objective truth.
you can master a CD exactly like a vinyl and it would sound identical.

also I was referring to modern albums released on Vinyl. albums that were mastered entirely for CD or even beyond CD quality, and then get compressed onto a Vinyl, where they literally have to make sure the needle doesn't skip due to frequencies that Vinyl just doesn't work well with.
these don't sound "richer" or "warmer"... they are just lower quality
Click to expand...
Whilst technically redbook CD has some advantages over vinyl, to say there's zero benefit is an exaggeration, e.g. there is higher distortion with vinyl but it's 2nd order harmonic distortion which tends to sound pleasant to our ears whereas CDs tend to have 3rd order which sounds harsh.
However, I agree that when vinyl sounds better it's mostly due to mastering and the active participation in the playback affecting the enjoyment of the listener.
 
Last edited:
Wildebeest said:
CDs got a bad rap because there was a trend to make the master recordings sound louder and louder, crushing the dynamic range.
Click to expand...
It was also the fact that no one knew how to correctly hold or handle a CD and they were much more fragile.

They were fingerprint/scratch magnets and I recall plenty of times where I was way more upset at CD skipping and reading problems than I was ever upset at any vinyl issues. Doubly so if it was a video game CD, because those were much more expensive than music.

CD Cleaners, CD dust cleaners, and lens wipes were a small bandaid on a very big issue.

We can't let nostalgia make us forget about all of those past annoyances.
 
March Climber said:
It was also the fact that no one knew how to correctly hold or handle a CD and they were much more fragile.

They were fingerprint/scratch magnets and I recall plenty of times where I was way more upset at CD skipping and reading problems than I was ever upset at any vinyl issues. Doubly so if it was a video game CD, because those were much more expensive than music.

CD Cleaners, CD dust cleaners, and lens wipes were a small bandaid on a very big issue.

We can't let nostalgia make us forget about all of those past annoyances.
Click to expand...

What are you talking about? CDs are so much sturdier than vinyl records. In the good old days when I played vinyl, you'd have to blow the accumulated dust off the record player needle, wipe the record for dust and still you got problems with the needle getting stuck in a groove.
 
March Climber said:
It was also the fact that no one knew how to correctly hold or handle a CD and they were much more fragile.

They were fingerprint/scratch magnets and I recall plenty of times where I was way more upset at CD skipping and reading problems than I was ever upset at any vinyl issues. Doubly so if it was a video game CD, because those were much more expensive than music.

CD Cleaners, CD dust cleaners, and lens wipes were a small bandaid on a very big issue.

We can't let nostalgia make us forget about all of those past annoyances.
Click to expand...
People were told there were indestructible compared to records, which was a lie, but they are more durable. Records more easily got scratched or worn out. And compact discs do have error correction so if a drive is good enough it can sometimes still seamlessly play discs that have damage that would have ruined a record. This is not a problem "solved" by streaming. The quality of the internet connection can introduce barely noticeable flaws or skipping in your music and your service can go down completely.
 
kevboard said:
bad mastering is not the fault of the CD as a medium.
vinyl has zero benefit on a sound quality level and only deficits. that's an objective truth.
you can master a CD exactly like a vinyl and it would sound identical.

also I was referring to modern albums released on Vinyl. albums that were mastered entirely for CD or even beyond CD quality, and then get compressed onto a Vinyl, where they literally have to make sure the needle doesn't skip due to frequencies that Vinyl just doesn't work well with.
these don't sound "richer" or "warmer"... they are just lower quality
Click to expand...

CD should always be capable of being better but the mastering is often so bad that vinyl often ends up having far better dynamic range. This is especially true of modern CD releases and frequently garbage 'remasters'. Often CDs released in the 80s, if you can source them (or cough a rip of them) will sound just as good as the vinyl.

This is the site he's likely referencing:


UQWltnAeGnM8LyMV.jpg


hGamk0OGastc2Xj1.jpg


Without even listening I can instantly tell that a CD with that level of DR would sound horrific.


The real scam when it comes to CDs though is 'Super Audio CD' encoded with the DSD format. Audiophiles will swear up and down that these sound even better than normal CDs, when it's really just down to the mastering not being dogshit. It's not the technical specs of the SACD format which are giving the benefit there (much of the technical improvements are well beyond the human hearing threshold anyway).

Plain old CD should've been the end game for audio, much like how 4K is for movies (imo), if the publishers weren't keen on fucking it up so much.
 
Killer8 said:
Without even listening I can instantly tell that a CD with that level of DR would sound horrific.
Click to expand...
It should also be said that with streaming the issue of the lack of dynamic range is not any different but that streaming companies just compensate for the apparent loudness of music so one song does not sound much louder than the next because the master is compressed to shit. Really then the track with better dynamic range should sound better but people get used used to the sound of compressed music. TV programming also never got into this loudness thing which is why you had audio tuned for a live music show the adverts would come on and the music would sound so loud it would jump scare you.
 
is this where nerds come to pretend they know about vinyl?

Saying a cd is more durable than vinyl is absolutely mental

As a skratch dj/turntablist for nearly 20 years I can safely say I've thrashed more wax than most of you have had hot dinners.

I own records that I have cut with every day since I bought them years ago.

I've stacked them on top of other records and skratched and juggled them

I've used stickers for cue markers on the grooves and peeled it off and still used them

I've waved them in front of me when it's been fuckin hot in the club and I needed a fan

I've had warped records that were unplayable that I sandwiched between glass and flattened them out in the oven and now they work perfectly

I've cleaned records by pouring pvc glue on them and peeling it off to clean the grooves out

My mate kicked one across the room!

The list goes on

And guess what? They all still play fine

Can you honestly tell me that a cd could even handle a fraction of that?

I'm not saying vinyl is perfect and I think it's stupid for anyone to start collecting it these days just for listening purposes but holy shit is there some serious bullshit being spun from people who clearly have very little experience with the medium
 
There are a lot of lies or misunderstandings around. People who say that vinyl records don't need more care and maintenance and can never degrade on playing are lying. People who say that if you store a CD and Vinyl Record in a climate controlled bunker the CD will last longer are lying. People who say that one tiny scratch will make a CD unplayable are lying.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

UK and US refuse to sign international AI declaration
2
59
4K
Madserb2023 replied
Gen Z reacts to Eminem.
2
60
7K
Kraz replied
Just want to publicly acknowledge and thank some members of this community for doing nice things and being there for me when things were tough...
11
225
paolo11 replied
I feel like Man’s timeless obsession with wacking off has driven much of technology in the last 40 years
35
616
Plies replied
[UK] 'Unfair' to call parents into school to change nappies (diapers)
2
81
5K
Dr.Morris79 replied
Top Bottom