CDs Are Cool Again Among British Youth — Searches Up 96%, 5ch: “Wired Headphones Are a Style Statement”

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The UK’s Guardian newspaper reports that young people are making CDs cool again. According to department store chain John Lewis, searches for CD players have jumped 96% since July, partly driven by students buying them for their dorm rooms ahead of starting university.

On 5ch, the story sparked a wave of nostalgia, with posters swapping stories about lending cassette tapes, DAT Walkmans, and Discmans. The thread also lit up with a wired-vs-wireless earphone debate and a finer point of generational nitpicking: whether CDs count as “Showa retro” or “Heisei retro.”

CDs are apparently making a comeback among young people in the UK. The British newspaper The Guardian ran a feature titled “How young people are making CDs cool again,” digging into the reasons why.

According to a report from British department store chain John Lewis, searches for CD players in the UK have risen 96% since July. One likely factor is that students headed to university are buying CD players for their dorm rooms.

(Omitted)

Source: amass.jp / Original article here

7Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 14:50:32.77ID:/hTyJzCV0
The era of lugging around giant boomboxes is coming back
46Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 14:58:32.28ID:6L4tfS0I0
>>7
Will the tiger wrestling mask boom make a comeback too? (a reference to the retro pro-wrestling "Tiger Mask" fad)
11Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 14:51:39.01ID:0NFkTaM50
Carrying a record player on your shoulder DJ-style is the coolest look there is
19Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 14:53:26.85ID:FXs9rQCb0
>>11
If it's a ladybug-shaped turntable, you could carry two at once
12Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 14:52:18.03ID:S1WczS4Q0
Recording your favorite songs onto a cassette and lending/borrowing tapes with friends was so much fun
And when a girl you liked actually listened to one, that was the best feeling ever
18Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 14:53:21.48ID:kL4MGGqg0
>>12
I wonder if anyone did the same thing but with burned CDs instead
26Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 14:55:00.80ID:Y3RC47Yl0
>>12
Back when MP3 players still had tiny storage, I used to swap out the songs every week
65Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:01:53.56ID:hgGXsil70
>>12
When couples broke up, they'd each pour their feelings into a song and send it to the other
13Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 14:52:22.59ID:92SPHfql0
Wireless means charging it up,
and that's a hassle
Sometimes wired is just better since the battery never dies
21Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 14:53:42.73ID:ll7LvLSu0
>>13
What's so hard about just setting it down to charge before bed?
Once you've gone wireless, wired cables just feel like an annoying tangle — there's no going back
14Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 14:52:26.46ID:9TUSfeF50
For some reason I picture every single British person listening to The Smiths
57Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:00:44.03ID:+y0OvTpH0
>>14
Well, even the next Prime Minister's bound to listen to them…
20Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 14:53:39.24ID:uWiX63ZF0
A few years back, apparently used electric "Cobra Top" hair curlers were being fought over by Japanese middle and high schoolers too
Supposedly ones in good condition were going for over 300,000 yen
62Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:01:31.44ID:+1DdWZQD0
>>20
Just looked it up and couldn't find any Cobra Top curlers going for a price that crazy
Wonder when this was even supposed to have happened
22Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 14:53:49.27ID:pmbewnMy0
29Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 14:55:54.39ID:5gFN/lMP0
I'm pretty sure there's a DAT Walkman sitting at my parents' place
Maybe it'll be worth a fortune someday
99Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:09:10.99ID:k291NmY00
>>29
A DAT Walkman, nice
Couldn't afford one back then, they were way too expensive
Take good care of it
35Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 14:56:32.53ID:GgbjmOr40
I'm exactly the kind of old guy who loved wired headphones and portable players back in his youth, but at this point there's no going back to the smartphone-and-wireless world for me
Back then you barely even knew the song titles half the time
40Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 14:57:39.77ID:GgbjmOr40
>>35
That came out as confusing Japanese
What I meant is: there's no going back from today's smartphone-and-wireless-headphone setup to the old wired-headphones-and-CD-player era
51Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 14:59:11.98ID:PCDw5xU50
Panasonic's shockproof "Shock Wave" CD players are going to be trendy again!
58Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:00:49.86ID:jkMBQ+BY0
>>51
Too nostalgic, I actually teared up
76Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:05:27.87ID:OR9h4z3e0
"Look at me, I listen to records, how cool" → "!!Look at me, I listen to CDs, how cool!!"
Guess that's how it'll shift as the times change lol
79Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:06:09.20ID:H2gj5I3y0
>>76
In America they're saying vinyl LPs are already outselling CDs
89Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:08:16.31ID:nsKx2Pyc0
>>76
Even after the CD era took over, "vinyl is cool" never really went away, right?
There are still musicians who insist on putting out LPs to this day
80Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:06:11.11ID:E0WHLlSn0
For shopping it's still Daiei, right?

The Daiei Empire (a once-dominant Japanese supermarket chain)
93Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:08:45.26ID:FXs9rQCb0
>>80
Dom Dom Burger's actually been opening more locations lately
83Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:06:33.29ID:rl0WpSPd0
The PC Engine's HuCards were groundbreaking — still impressive even now — but if you tried to fit CD-quality audio onto one, how many minutes would it hold?
95Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:08:56.56ID:H2gj5I3y0
>>83
A 650MB CD holds 74 minutes, so
a 2.5MB HuCard would hold about 17 seconds
96Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:08:57.09ID:+1DdWZQD0
>>83
Max capacity was 2.5MB
You couldn't even fit one whole song
85Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:06:48.64ID:ZwYn6aFf0
You guys are old enough to remember the Discman, right?
98Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:09:05.65ID:9pO0onpT0
>>85
Sorry, never heard of it
Thought you meant the Walkman
92Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:08:34.16ID:em4Sn1qQ0
There's always a crowd in every era that thinks old stuff is cool
After vinyl, CDs are bound to become collector's items next
Better buy them all up cheap at Book Off while you still can
130Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:15:41.47ID:0kZOGp8C0
>>92
Unlike vinyl, the problem with CDs is they degrade over time
104Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:09:48.29ID:rl0WpSPd0
CD players and wired headphones are selling well again in Japan too
Is this just an extension of the disposable "Utsurundesu" film camera trend?
107Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:10:44.23ID:Rfk5q5RE0
>>104
Showa retro, huh
Polaroid cameras will probably make a comeback next
114Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:12:25.32ID:em4Sn1qQ0
I'd say CDs are more "Heisei retro" than "Showa retro"
They weren't even that widespread yet by the end of the Showa era
126Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:14:54.48ID:9Z/W5TEP0
>>114
Yeah, true
Vinyl was still hanging on in late Showa, and plenty of people were saying stuff like "CDs sound thin and flat"
131Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:15:42.79ID:4fTImok/0
>>114
I doubt Gen Z, who throw around "Showa retro" these days, can even tell the difference
Though it's kind of funny how the TV personalities milking bubble-era nostalgia only experienced the actual bubble as little kids at best — they're part of the "Ice Age" generation (Japan's lost-generation cohort hit hardest by the post-bubble job crunch)
118Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:13:00.63ID:mfGsR9t10
SONY
https://preview.redd.it/in-1988-sony-released-the-d-88-discman-a-portable-cd-player-v0-abgidrs1djad1.jpeg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=90fb21f69950d69b99736181646ebe2b33b6de1e
122Anonymous2026/08/24(月) 15:13:50.19ID:9pO0onpT0
>>118
It's sticking out!
That's gonna get scratched to hell

*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Entertainment/Sports News+) thread “CDs Are Back Among British Youth: ‘Wearing a Portable CD Player with Wired Headphones Is a Way to Show Off Your Sense of Style’”.

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