Cassettes would like to have a word.
Bring Back the Burned CD— They’re a love language. And a reminder of the hope we once had.
Submitted 2 weeks ago by Beep@lemmus.org to technology@lemmy.world
https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2026/03/13/Bring-Back-Burned-CD/
Comments
etchinghillside@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
EndOfLine@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
By: Lorie Ransom, The Daily Drawing
SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I call this “road tinsel”, there used to be a lot of it strewn along highways.
sefra1@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I find that most my old cassettes still play, can’t say the same for the CDs.
rozodru@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
imho in a weird way cassettes were better/more fun. Like wanting to record a song you like so you’d sit in front of the tape deck for hours on end listening to the radio waiting for that ONE song to come on so you could record it. It would take you hours, maybe even days, to make that mixtape of songs you didn’t own.
Also when I was a kid I had one of those fisher price tape decks that had the microphone attached to it. I wanted to make a mix tape of all my favourite songs from my NES games or games that I would rent (like the Battletoads theme song, or the music from the Batman videogame) so I would pop the game in then hold the microphone up to the TV speaker and record the songs.
etchinghillside@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
Jumping across the bed to hit record when a song came on is a core memory.
Zen_Shinobi@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Um no. Having to rewind the tape was annoying. If you had a janky player it would eat it.
db2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
deranger@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Cassettes are making a comeback much like vinyl but to a lesser extent. I’ve got 800 or so cassettes and probably 3/4 of them were made in the past 6 years.
MichaelScotch@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Vinyl made sense because of its high fidelity. Cassettes do not make sense unless you enjoy dogshit audio quality
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Cassettes are a great way to play ambient and lo-fi hip-hop music.
anon_8675309@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Bring back that whole timeframe. We weren’t all so stuck up our phone’s ass.
some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah, growing up as a teen it was the opposite. I was burning CDs and had this phone stuck up my ass
Dasus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
CDs and had this phone stuck up my ass
Kids will think you’re joking, but the vibration on those things was a proper… well, vibrator.
Nothing like getting a text from your crush with your phone in your crotch for her/him having indirectly caused you sexual pleasure.
(Also we did actually have contests on who’d throw their phone the highest without failing to catch it. And the throw were easily 5-15 meters high. And lots of misses. But not a single disabled phone. Small scratches on the covers maybe, but you could also buy new covers so it was no problem.)
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Posted in r/teachers yesterday:
I took my own children to a park, there were about 8-10 kids running around between the ages of 1 and 6. The children were feral. The parents were on their phones the entire time. None of the bad behavior was noticed, let alone corrected. A three year old boy sat in a tunnel and screamed and pushed anyone who came near. Mom was oblivious. She wasn’t watching her kid, she was on her phone. Another girl (about 5) was being extremely rough around some of the toddlers (kicking towards them, jumping over a one year old at one point). Her dad didn’t correct the behavior. He didn’t see it. He was on his phone. I could go on. Besides the occasional glance, parents were completely disengaged from their children.
gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Bring Back the Clay Tablet— They’re a love language. And a reminder of the hope we once had.
Bahnd@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Sing me a song about shitty copper.
gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Fuck … Erm…Shite
There once was a man named Ea-Nasir His business practices were very unclear He got so many complaints Some real, some ain’t But one lasted for thousands of years
SoGrumpy@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
What no love for the mixtape? We have to go straight to CD?
etherphon@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
Surely the what the world needs right now is more plastic.
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
That is a downside.
Zamboni_Driver@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
What a dumbass article. It’s way too easy right now to burn a CD, we need another 25 years before were nostalgic about this one.
Humanius@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I think the majority of people at this point don’t have a computer with a CD / DVD burner anymore. And at least over here the supermarket also does not sell blank CDs / DVDs anymore.
Most people would have to go out of their way to acquire the means to burn their own CDs
Zen_Shinobi@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I disagree. Find a prebuilt PC that ships with a drive. Extremely rare unless you custom order it.
On my desk sits a usb CD/DVD writer. Majority of my non tech friends might have an old bluray or DVD player laying aroung or a PS3/4.
With your statement, you can say floppies are too easy to burn since you can buy a usb writer and a stack on amazon.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s true. Using floppies is too easy for decent nostalgia usage. To prove the point: how many people do you know who use floppies for nostalgia reasons?
Magister@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Sure you can burn a CD, but I think I have nothing to play them anymore. My car (2020) does not have a CD player anymore. Nor my PC nor my laptop have one. I may have in my drawer an old BD reader DVD burner/reader with a SATA plug or something, I remember I plugged it on my laptop with a USB adapter yearsssss ago to rip my LOTR BD. It has been used 1 time in like 10 years.
worhui@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
In audio circles stamped cd’s have been making a comeback. It’s much like the last decades vinyl revival.
It’s not the older generations getting nostalgia, it’s the younger generations looking for ‘experience’ over content. Buying a physical thing, storing on the shelf, having a visible collection of disks to show off.
Additionally it is a revenue stream for artists, where else spite the costs of mastering a d pressing a cd, they can get more money from a cd release than from streaming. So artists have been incentivized do make releases a big deal since they money goes straight to them. It’s a bit like a ‘buy me a coffee’ but with a physical item.
You can buy brand new cd players, not just blueray players or vintage units that need service.
It’s a thing.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
In terms of nostalgia-buying, we millenials are now the older generation. I doubt it’s all the 15-20yo who are buying CDs.
worhui@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I went looking for data and it seems cd sales are on the decline again. So my info is outdated. It looks like it was trending younger with Taylor swift and k-pop titles as the top sellers. It appears to be less of a revival and more of a fad.
It looks like vinyl is still growing in 2026 even while cd decrease again.
It’s a bummer since artist can get a bigger cut of physical media sales and cd are easier to make than a records.
filk_nl_Max@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
There was a certain intentionality to burning a CD that a Spotify link just can’t replicate. Spending an hour picking the perfect songs to fit exactly 80 minutes, and then handwriting the tracklist… it was a real labor of love. It’s a shame that convenience has replaced that personal touch.
BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
No, we need transferable digital licenses. I want to both own my software and download it on the go
THE_GR8_MIKE@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I never stopped. How else am I going to burn PS1, Dreamcast, and 360 games?
DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
PS2 for DVD-R
ftbd@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
And why is burning an audio file onto a CD better than having the same file on flash storage?
krisevol@lemmus.org 2 weeks ago
Being old does that to people
NekoKoneko@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Why do some people like vinyl? Why did the iPod’s scroll wheel evoke joy when used? Why is the OG PSP’s UMD drive clicking open and closed enjoyable?
If you’re looking to abstractly optimize consumption and sharing, it’s worse. But if you’re looking to optimize personal connection to the art, having some tactile interaction arguably does that better.
I’d even bet that if you scanned brain activity of someone opening an MP3 versus someone putting in a disc and hitting a play button, the disc’s physical interaction very likely creates stronger neural pathways that trigger more chemical rewards.
blackbeans@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
That authors’ view is explained in the article.
Unlike a burned CD from a friend, there’s no social contract that compels me to sit with something new, and take the time to better understand it. There’s very little on Spotify that will compel me to dive into the catalogue of a new-to-me artist, then seek them out when they go on tour.
SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
It’s usually not. I have one old car with a CD player and a less-old car with a USB stick loaded with media. The flash storage is better.
But if you have nice speakers and listening space, the quality of the DAC matters, and a real CD player would probably have a better DAC and sound better than compressed audio on a flash drive sticking out of your receiver. Unless you have a fancy audio server/DAC setup, in which case it’s moot.
YewEyeOwe31@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Its not inherently better than sending someone a playlist by any other means but on the other hand I just think its neat to have a physical thing that you have to intentionally plug into something and listen to in a specific order and way. That and the way that tech/streaming is changing the ways we interact with music on a personal and cultural level is overwhelming to me, makes me nostalgic for the limitations of older mediums. When you had to be intentional about what and how you listened, it (at least to me) made a deeper connection between me and the music as a listener. Fortunately we can still be intentional in many ways, its just easier to not do that with streaming and algorithmically recommended stuff.
I do wish that my friends would still send each other playlists in any format.
gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Elitism
merc@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
It seems to me like the world has had 3 phases:
- Phase 1: People own media on records, tapes, etc. because that’s the only way to listen to what you want whenever you want. The only alternative is radio, where you listen to what the DJ thinks you should hear. If you buy something once, you can listen to it whenever you want forever. (Or at least as long as the medium holds up)
- Phase 2: It was relatively easy to get the media you wanted on demand, but it wasn’t always legal, because the copyright cartels were used to a certain way of doing business and didn’t like disruption. During this phase people still bought read-only media in stores. But, they also sometimes bought blank media and filled it up from their computers at home.
- Phase 3: Everything is now online, and you no longer own media. In this phase you can listen to / watch whatever you want, but you don’t get to own anything, and you have to pay monthly if you don’t want your media viewing / listening to be interrupted by ads. In this phase, media you love can just disappear if someone loses the license to stream it, or the copyright owner decides to pull it or modify it. In this version someone like George Lucas can decide that the version of Star Wars you grew up on should change, and you now have to accept his new version.
Unfortunately, long-term storage hasn’t kept pace with short-term storage and bandwidth. You can make someone a “mix tape” that’s a USB stick, but if someone puts it on a shelf it might not be readable in 5 years. You could save the original version of Star Wars to a NAS. But, if your friend wants to borrow it, it’s not as easy as grabbing a case off the bookshelf and handing it over.
I keep hoping that one of these “crystal storage” mechanisms takes off. Then we can much more easily be data hoarders, keeping everything, and not relying on a continued subscription to a streaming service for our favourite media.
9point6@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m not sure if they’ve degraded, but I’ve got one of those CD-R spindles with a few disks left on it somewhere
I could burn a mix CD this afternoon if I felt like it?
Thing is if I gave half of the people I know a mix CD I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t actually have a means of listening to it
unphazed@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Just brought out my old dvds and put them on hard drive. They were burned 18 years ago and used organic dyes. I recovered avout 50% of them. Old me should have spent more on nonorganic discs… but old me couldn’t afford them back then, so he gets a pass I guess. Plus new me can easily dl most of those discs in an hour or two now.
NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
This is stupid. Just make your own streaming service.
sploder@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I was in Publix the other day when this really eccentric wizard looking lady approached me and had a story about how she needed a few bucks. She said she had music for sale that she made herself. I said well how do I purchase it? She reached into her bag and said “ I’ve got cds “ I gave her a few bucks and was on my way feeling good. Got into my fucking car and realized oh shit I’m not a teenager anymore in my old car with a cd player like I thought I was for a solid 10 minutes after buying the damn thing. Got home and had to dig out a cd player for my laptop. Music was weird as fuck which I enjoyed. She bought a jug of cough syrup with the money lmfao
Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world [bot] 2 weeks ago
what’s a CD?
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
A Certificate of Deposit. A kind of simple interest bank account adjacent in form factor to bonds. In simple terms, you give the bank an amount of money for a set amount of time, say a year, during which you can’t withdraw the money without paying a penalty. When the term is finished the bank returns the money plus an amount of simple interest. They often bear higher interest rates than savings or money market accounts and are FDIC insured.
yetAnotherUser@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
CD is just an acronym for the Compact Disc media format.
normalentrance@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
You can get one at a bank. It is short for certificate of deposit. It’s basically a high interest savings account that is difficult to access until it matures. They are at or above 4% now at some banks, so it is a relatively safe investment that is slightly higher than inflation.
sturmblast@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Mix tapes were better
friend_of_satan@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They each have their place. Taps fit in your pocket though, which was great for casual carry. I always had a mix tape in my pocket.
HulkSmashBurgers@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
How 'bout we tweak that just a tiny bit and use flash drives instead?
brickfrog@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Feels like the article is slightly off base, the people today looking for something physical and memorable have been buying vinyl. In 2026 most people I know don’t have a CD player let alone a CD burner. But lots them do buy and play vinyl and have record players for that purpose.
Or… if the article is just a nostalgia deep dive then why the commitment to CDs? You could do the same passing around USB sticks if the purpose is to share music with friends.
Also wonder if the article writer’s own discs actually still work, burned discs don’t last that long. They mention having a a whole box of old discs but I don’t know if they actually tried to play them and checked them for errors. A while back I was doing some data recovery for a friend who had all their stuff burned to discs over the years, turned out about 20% of her discs were either unreadable or full of errors.
Lars_Tanner@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I think people undervalue cd/dvd/bluray. Up to this day it’s best format for giving away data like family photos.
With any usb device there’s much larger security risk. Also people want to get storage back.
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Only if burned from FLAC or similar. But also no. 700MB and super slow. Take an old Android phone with an SD card in it and turn it into a WiFi server. Let people connect to it and take what they want. iPhone, Android, Windows, macOS, doesn’t matter, it’ll connect to it.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
this is a good reminder to finish that mix CD I’m halfway through putting together
SqueakySpider@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
The reason I got a cd burner was the frustration of dealing with Bluetooth in my car. I got a Bluetooth capable, simple, CD compatible head unit. The best part about using a CD is it begins immediately when the car starts, versus fumbling with a phone. Though swapping CDs obviously isn’t as great as using digital / streaming.
Prior_Industry@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Once you break up, fantastic tree ornaments also.
Randomgal@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
You can make a million other hand-made things. But sure bring back obsolete tech.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
And, their temporary nature fits the fleeting nature of infatuation.
texture@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
lets not bring back the worse tech in history, k thanks.
roserose56@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
When I first burned my first CDs(after long time), I was happy, and I quite liked, but but since I buy CDs, I don’t do that anymore. When I found my burned CDs after some time, I was intrigued to listen what was in it.
PonyOfWar@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
Nothing’s stopping you from burning a CD right now. But ultimately, these kinds of nostalgic memories are less about the tech itself and more about remembering the happy times of youth. Bringing back the burned CD won’t bring those back I’m afraid.
homes@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
What’s stopping me is that I haven’t had a CD burner in like 12 or 15 years
exu@feditown.com 2 weeks ago
A tiny laser and steady hands should work
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
External USB ones are free in boxes of Frosted Flakes these days.
I have a genuine honest to goodness 5.25" bay mounted Blu Ray burner in my tower right now. Hey, you never friggin’ know. It comes in handy every once in a while. There’s a machine in my basement with an LS-120, a Zip drive, and a 5.25" floppy drive in it that all still work. Occasionally I still find myself needing to get some monumentally important ancient file off of some kind of floppy disk or other for somebody.
krisevol@lemmus.org 2 weeks ago
They still sell them
PetteriPano@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Actually…
I got married seven years ago. We could bring our own music to the ceremony, but it had to be on audio CD.
None of our modern computers have any optical drive, but we have an USB DVD burner. We just couldn’t get any modern system to complete a burn, it just kept failing halfway through.
After many hours I installed OS X on my MorphOS PowerBook G4 from 2005 to use the built-in drive and burn through iTunes.
It used to be a cakewalk. Now not so much.
PonyOfWar@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
You probably had a faulty DVD burner then. I did it within the last year, using my modern computer and a cheap external drive.
JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
That’s totally on your hardware. All those DVD burners you can buy do work.
Signtist@bookwyr.me 2 weeks ago
I’ve recently gotten into vinyl, and what I’ve learned is that convenience is often antithetical to experience. When just about every song ever made is immediately available to me at a moment’s notice, I stop caring; I’ll listen to a song I like for a little while then move onto the next one without thinking about it, and I won’t form any lasting memories along the way. When music is something that takes time and effort to enjoy, I have a chance to form a memory about my enjoyment, and when I have to physically find a song in order to listen to it, it gives that song much more meaning than if I spent less than 5 seconds typing the name in on Spotify.
NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Environmentally awful though.
Ingredients are terrible and they are bulky and heavy to transport.
Makes more sense to have your own server and make a sleeve or carboard qr code that “plays” your selection to give you the best of both worlds.
blackbeans@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I agree with your point. However that’s not what the article is about. It’s about the social and aesthetically engaging aspects that come with physical media compared to the utilitarian services where music is presented like “tap water”, and the sense of indifference that’s created through abundance, hurting the artists financially.
cenzorrll@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
Yeah, I miss the days of making my own mixes, sharing music with friends, etc.
I recently ripped a bunch of CDs and one of the batches was my folio in my car. I do not fucking miss having to handle CDs. The slightest scratch on the foil and it’s done, scratches on the plastic and it’s done. You had a hour and some minutes max that you could pack into one is you didn’t have an mp3 capable player.
I love getting music on CDs, I love listening to an album straight through and the hidden song at the end coming after a bunch of silence, and making a mix that flows like a God. But it’s so much nicer having all of my music ripped on my server.