College-age students are buying more music in the form of CDs and vinyl.
Members of Gen Z, including some AACC students, collect physical copies of their music to make sure they’ll own it forever, unlike the songs they choose from streaming platforms, which can remove albums at any time.
“For me, I think it’s being able to actually own something that you have, like … the physical disk, and you’re not going to lose it,” environmental science student Kyra Box said.
Streaming services make up 84% of music revenue, but Gen Z enjoys collecting CDs even though it’s not as convenient, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
Music professor Ian Wardenski said he has noticed students who collect hard copies of music have more of an “audio commitment” in terms of an appreciation for the higher quality of sound from a good turntable or stereo system compared with a phone using a streaming platform.
“I’ll hear from certain students that they’ll be collecting vinyl or they’ll be collecting CDs, right?” Wardenski said. “And then I’ll hear from other students that, ‘Nope, Spotify all the way.’”
Transfer studies student Jude Worth, who was wearing a The Cure T-shirt on campus, said supporting artists through buying physical albums is important to him.
“I like the concept of physically owning media,” Worth said. “I still use streaming services, but it’s nice to be able to support artists financially also when I can. And it’s also … not only a piece of music, but it’s also, like, kind of a piece of memorabilia.”
Second-year communications student Carter DeSilva agreed.
“It’s just cool. … I have all of my grandparents’ [vinyl] so the ones from like, ’70s, ’80s,” DeSilva said.
Box said she started collecting physical music because her parents did.
“My parents had a big collection of classical music, rock, and they gave it to me and I thought it was neat,” Box said.
Wardenski said parents with a strong passion for music pass their album collections down to their children.
“I think that there is, you know, a generational component here, right?” Wardenski said. “Where, you know, a certain generation will likely have far more hard copies of music: vinyl, CDs, maybe even some tape, right? And then sharing that with the younger generation.”
Worth said just being in a record store is a part of his music experience.
“Stepping into a record store for the first time, it’s like you have all this stuff around,” Worth said. “It was just being in that environment [that] inspired me to, like, this is something that I want to do. Sometimes you get in an environment and you realize it’s the right environment for you.”