BLOOMBERG OPINION

VINYL snobs, unclench: Reports of the compact disc’s resurrection are greatly exaggerated. Contrary to claims that CDs are making a comeback on the back of Gen Z interest, its long fadeout has, at best, been interrupted. Not even the kiss of life from the industry’s reigning princess charming is likely to revive the fortunes of music’s most unloved format.

The figurative smooch from Taylor Swift, who released albums in both formats last year, pushed CD sales up just a scooch from 2022’s 35.87 million to 36.83 million albums, not enough to match 2021’s dead-cat-bounce of 46.7 million albums. On the other hand, sales of long- and extendedplay records continued an 18-year growth streak to 49.61 million albums in the US — again, with a solid assist from Swift.

To be clear, all these numbers are dwarfed by streaming. According to Luminate, the music data tracking firm, there were 1.2 trillion (no typo) on-demand audio streams in the US last year, up 12.7%. Morgan Wallen’s One Thing At A Time was the US chart topper of the year, with 6.36 billion audio streams; Swift’s Midnights was a distant second at 2.86 billion.

Still, the contest between physical album formats is significant, vinyl overtook CDs in sales in 2022 for the first time in a quarter of a century; not coincidentally, it was also the year Swift sold more vinyl records than CDs, with her Midnights becoming the first album to accomplish that feat since the 1980s.

And the older format looks likely to widen the gap. Vinyl sales ended 2023 on a high, with over 2 million units sold in the week ending Dec. 21, the third largest since 1991.

This is, on the face of it, somewhat counterintuitive. Vinyl’s steady growth since 2005, and its especially strong performance since streaming platforms became the main mode of music consumption, is usually attributed to fans’ desire for a physical representation — an artifact — of their passion. A record is not only