Vinyl Records and CDs: Why Physical Releases Still Matter

At Blowtorch Records we are all about physical releases. In this long read, Laurelanne Davis from Laurelanne Media dives into both the numbers and the emotions generated by vinyl and CD versus digital streaming.

---

The Needle Drops

I bought a record player in 2019 because everyone said vinyl was back and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Turns out the fuss is real but not for the reasons I expected. It's not the sound quality though, yeah, there's something there. It's not even the artwork, though the 12-inch canvas beats the hell out of a Spotify thumbnail. It's that playing a record makes you actually listen. The whole process - pulling it from the sleeve, dropping the needle, flipping it at the halfway point - forces you to be present with the music in a way that hitting 'play' on Spotify never will.

In 2024, vinyl pulled in $1.4 billion - the highest revenue since 1984. For the 18th straight year, sales grew. Vinyl outsold CDs for the third year running: 44 million units versus 33 million. Physical formats now account for 11% of the music industry's total revenue while streaming dominates at 84%. That 11% shouldn't exist. Streaming was supposed to kill physical music entirely but it's still here, still growing, still refusing to die like it's supposed to.

The question isn’t why vinyl survived. The question is why we ever thought it wouldn’t.

The Canvas You Can Hold

Start with the obvious: the artwork. Not the thumbnail on your phone, compressed to a square inch of pixels. The actual artwork. Twelve inches by twelve inches of visual real estate, large enough that it matters, that it communicates visually what the music communicates sonically.

In 1938, Columbia Records hired Alex Steinweiss as their first art director, and he invented the concept of album covers, replacing the plain covers used before. What seemed like a simple marketing decision became one of music's defining features. Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon with its prismatic light. Nirvana's Nevermind and its subversive innocence. Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures and those radio waves that became iconic without a single photograph. These protective sleeves became visual arguments, aesthetic statements that set the tone before a single note played.

The size matters. Listen, I know we're not supposed to say that, and I can never resist being a little cheeky, but when it comes to album art, size absolutely fucking matters. Most record collectors state that one of the main reasons they fell in love with vinyl is that you can see the artwork in 32 cm x 32 cm format. You can hang it on your wall as art or sit with it while the record spins and analyse details you'd never catch in a digital thumbnail.

The designers behind these covers became as important as the bands themselves. Storm Thorgerson created dozens of iconic sleeves in the '70s for some of the most iconic bands ever. Peter Blake did Sgt. Pepper's for The Beatles. Reid Miles made Blue Note jazz records instantly recognisable. These people shaped how you understood the music before hearing a single note.

When CDs arrived, they shrank that canvas to 4.75 inches. Digital streaming reduced it to whatever size your screen allows, often viewed while scrolling, often ignored entirely. Something was lost in that shrinkage, not just size but significance, the sense that music deserved presentation, that it was art worth displaying rather than data worth accessing.

Vinyl gives it back. That space to breathe. That invitation to look, really look, at what the artist and designer created together. Gatefold sleeves that open like books. Inner sleeves with lyrics and liner notes. Posters tucked inside. The physical package becomes part of the experience, part of what you're buying when you choose to own music rather than rent access to it.

The Compact Disc Defends Itself

Look, let's talk about CDs for a second because they deserve better than being vinyl's sad cousin in this story.

CDs generated $541 million in revenue in 2024, and yeah, that's down from their peak, but that's still half a billion dollars of people choosing physical media in a format that works. No turntable required. No careful needle placement. No worrying about warping in the heat. Just music, instantly accessible, in your car or your old stereo or that portable player gathering dust in your closet.

The 4.75-inch jewel case might not have vinyl's visual real estate, but it pioneered something vinyl never could: portability without sacrifice. You could carry 20 CDs in your car. You could skip tracks without lifting a needle. You could play the same disc a thousand times without degradation. For an entire generation CDs were the perfect middle ground between vinyl's ritual and streaming's convenience.

And the sound? Pristine. No surface noise, no pops, no crackle. Just the music exactly as it was recorded every time. Audiophiles can argue about warmth and analog character but CDs delivered consistency and clarity that vinyl couldn't match.

They're still here because they still work. Artists still press them because fans still buy them. They're cheaper to manufacture than vinyl, easier to ship, more durable in storage. For independent musicians especially, CDs offer a physical format that doesn't require $30 price tags or nine-month pressing plant backlogs.

The format deserves respect. It democratised music ownership for decades. It's physical media that actually functions in a digital world. And for collectors who want something tangible but don't want to invest in turntables and proper storage, CDs do the job perfectly well.

The Ceremony of Listening

But physical media offers more than visual appeal. The appeal extends beyond visuals into ritual itself, the series of small actions that transform passive consumption into active engagement.

Music journalist Jennifer Otter Bickerdike interviewed dozens of artists for her book Why Vinyl Matters and nearly all of them circled back to the same thing. As one put it: "It's the ritual element of it. It's running your finger down the side of the record, trying to open the plastic wrap, and then pulling it out, seeing if there is an inner sleeve, hoping for a gatefold. Nowadays, you just walk over to your computer, you click three times, and you have 140,000 songs at your fingertips. Vinyl was just a different kind of thing, and it still is."

This matters more than it sounds like it should. In a culture of endless scroll and infinite choice and attention fragmented into seconds, vinyl demands something radical: sit still. Listen through. Give the music the same focus it took to create it.

As one music enthusiast described it, "Vinyl is a rebellion against the ephemeral nature of digital music. It's a statement that music matters, that it deserves to be cherished and experienced on a deeper level."

The Sound Debate (And Why It Misses the Point)

Audiophiles will argue about warmth and frequency response and whether vinyl's analog sound truly surpasses digital's clinical precision. That debate is real but ultimately beside the point. Yes, vinyl has a warmth and depth often flattened by streaming compression. Yes, there's something in those grooves that digital files strip away. But more importantly, vinyl offers context. A record tells a story in sequence. It has two sides. The format itself creates boundaries that force engagement.

The legendary DJ John Peel said it best: "Somebody was trying to tell me that CDs are better than vinyl because they don't have any surface noise. I said, 'Listen, mate, life has surface noise.'"

That's it. That's the whole thing. The crackle is proof that something physical exists, that music can age and accumulate history and that the record you're playing now carries the weight of every time it's been played before. Digital music doesn't age. It doesn't show wear. It exists in perfect reproduction, unchanging, which is both its strength and its limitation.

The Collector's Instinct

Then there's the collecting itself, the hunt through record store bins and the thrill of finding a first pressing or a coloured variant or an album you'd been searching for. Independent record stores accounted for 40% of all vinyl album sales in 2024 making them the largest retail channel for physical music. These stores function are places where people gather to talk music and discover new artists and connect over shared obsessions.

Record Store Day has become an annual pilgrimage. 33% of all consumers who had purchased vinyl over the previous 12 months attended Record Store Day events, with nearly half of those consumers under 35. Baby boomers aren't driving this resurgence. Gen Z and millennials are building their own relationship with physical music, finding something in vinyl that streaming's infinite library can't provide.

What is that something? Ownership, for one. Permanence, for another. Streaming doesn't let you own anything. Algorithms decide what you hear. Songs disappear when licensing deals expire. Your playlist from five years ago probably has dead tracks in it now. Buy a record and it's yours. Forever. It sits on your shelf. It works in twenty years. You can hand it to your kids. That kind of permanence doesn't exist in streaming and people are realising they miss it.

Limited editions and coloured pressings tap into the collector's mindset, the desire to own something rare and special. Artists and labels both understand this which is why musicians can craft vinyl versions of their work to include unique touches like custom album art, rare bonus tracks, or behind-the-scenes content that appeal directly to their most dedicated fans.

Taylor Swift turned this into an art form, releasing multiple variants of The Tortured Poets Department that helped drive vinyl sales to increase by 17% year over year during the first half of 2024. Nearly half a million copies moved on vinyl alone. Critics can dismiss it as manufactured scarcity but fans aren't stupid. They know exactly what they're buying and why. The variants give collectors options for signalling their fandom while owning multiple versions of the same music because each pressing offers different things like alternate covers, bonus tracks, and coloured vinyl that looks gorgeous spinning on a turntable.

Supporting Artists in the Streaming Economy

Here's where it gets real: artists don't make shit from streaming. We all know this. Spotify pays fractions of a penny per stream. Most musicians need hundreds of thousands of plays just to cover rent. Streaming simply doesn't pay for smaller artists, meaning they have to find other ways to generate revenue, and physical record sales can play a part in this.

Vinyl, with its higher price point and physical manufacturing costs, actually generates meaningful revenue. While digital streaming services provide some financial benefits the revenue per stream is minimal. In contrast vinyl records with their higher price points and limited pressings allow artists to generate more revenue and create tangible products that fans cherish.

For independent musicians especially, vinyl has become a crucial income stream. The connection matters as much as the revenue. When fans buy your vinyl, they're making a statement: this matters enough to own, to display, to play on my turntable rather than let it disappear into a playlist. That support is tangible in ways streaming numbers never are.

As Karen Emanuel, CEO of Key Production, noted in 2024: "Vinyl isn't going anywhere! New pressing factories have opened, and others have increased the number of machines, resulting in much increased capacity. As a result, supply can now meet demand and we'll see the industry begin to realise this with more artists releasing more music on vinyl."

The Gen Z Paradox

Here's what nobody expected: the kids love it. Not just love it, they're driving it. Nearly 40% of vinyl buyers in 2024 were under 35. Generation Z, who grew up with streaming, who never knew a world without instant access to infinite music, who were supposed to be the generation that killed physical media forever, they're the ones keeping record stores alive.

Why? Several reasons, all of them more interesting than simple nostalgia (which doesn't even make sense for people who weren't alive when vinyl dominated). First, tactile identity. Their entire lives exist digitally, stored in clouds they can't see or servers they don't control. Vinyl gives them something physical to own, to display, to use as a marker of identity and taste.

Second, there's the performative aspect. Records photograph well. They signal taste and depth in ways Spotify screenshots can't quite capture. Your vinyl collection says something about who you are, what music matters enough to you that you'll pay $30 for it, what aesthetic you're building, what kind of person you want to be seen as. That's not shallow. That's how humans have always used art and objects to construct and communicate identity.

Third, and maybe most importantly, vinyl offers an escape from algorithmic recommendation systems. Streaming platforms trap listeners in echo chambers where personalised playlists limit exposure to new sounds. Flipping through record bins forces discovery. You find things you weren't looking for. You take chances on albums based on cover art or a name you vaguely recognise. You're freed from the tyranny of "you might also like."

The Future Written in Grooves

The vinyl resurgence has moved beyond trend into infrastructure. According to market research from 2024 the vinyl records market was forecast to increase by $857.2 million through 2029, growing at a CAGR of 9.3%. Pressing plants that closed in the 1990s are reopening. New manufacturers are entering the market. Sustainable practices are emerging: records pressed at 140 grams rather than 180 to reduce carbon footprint, bioplastics replacing petroleum-based vinyl, recycling processes that turn old records into new compound.

But the future isn’t just vinyl. Physical music serves needs streaming cannot, regardless of format choice. CDs are holding steady at $541 million in revenue. Cassettes have their own cult following. K-pop is innovating with hybrid formats that combine digital access with physical collectibles. The point is that physical music offers experiences that clicking “play” can’t replicate.

Music journalist Jennifer Otter Bickerdike put it perfectly: “Vinyl is crucial for the evolution of modern music. What streaming and downloading have done is make there be too many choices, and too few bands who will be iconic in a decade or more. Everything is disposable and throw away, or virtual! So, the physicality of vinyl helps create a more substantial bond between fan and artist in a very material, tangible way.”

The Substance of Sound

We’re told convenience is progress. That access is everything. That owning music is outdated when you can stream anything, anytime, anywhere. And there’s truth in that. Streaming democratised music consumption in ways previous generations couldn’t imagine. But it’s not the whole truth.

Music functions as culture to engage with, not merely content to consume. It’s art to respect. It’s history to preserve. Physical formats, vinyl and CDs both, force that engagement. They make music a presence in your life rather than a service you subscribe to. They give artists a revenue stream that isn’t pennies per play. They create community around record stores and Record Store Day and the shared experience of finding that album you’ve been hunting for.

“Listening to vinyl is about connection with something you love; intangibly that could be the music that plays, or even the artist, speaking to you on a wider level. The vinyl allows a physical manifestation of that art that can be treasured, cherished, bumped, bruised and scraped, even ignored over the years. That tells your story too, where it was bought, who you were with, and maybe what partner, parent or child you were with at the time. It adds up to something meaningful; to telling the story of our own lives that are more than a sum of our parts.”

That’s what survives. Not the format itself but what the format enables: deliberate listening, visual storytelling, tangible ownership, ritualised engagement with art that deserves more than algorithmic shuffle and fractured attention.

The needle drops. The crackle starts. The music fills the room. And for the next twenty minutes, or however long Side A lasts, you’re present and fully engaged with music as intended experience rather than background ambiance.

Streaming isn’t going anywhere. Physical music isn’t going anywhere either. Convenience and substance serve different values, both legitimate, both necessary. The kids buying vinyl understand this instinctively. They stream on their commute and spin records in their bedroom. They build playlists for workouts and collections for their shelves. They know that both approaches have merit, that music can be many things depending on context and mood and what you need from it in any given moment. So the ritual continues. The needle drops. The music plays. And somewhere in that crackle and warmth and intentionality, we remember why we fell in love with music in the first place, not as a service or a stream or background noise, but as art worth holding, worth cherishing, worth making space for in lives that move too fast and forget too easily.

The beat goes on. The grooves keep spinning. And forty million songs at your fingertips will never replace the weight of twelve inches in your hands (yes, I know. Cheeky!)

Laurelanne.media is a fiercely female-focused music publication delivering unfiltered reviews and provocative pop culture articles. They specialise in championing female artists while covering compelling music from all creators, written in an authentic, conversational voice that ditches academic criticism for raw, relatable takes. Their reviews capture the visceral experience of music through honest reactions, lyrical deep dives, and the kind of enthusiasm (or criticism) you’d actually use in real life. They’re unapologetically provocative, professionally insightful, and built for twenty-something women who want their music journalism to sound like a conversation, not a lecture. A perfect fit for Blowtorch Records.

---

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and never miss out on gig info and our latest deals

SUBSCRIBE