#cd-revival

#cd-revival

Streaming hasn't killed physical media. It's made us crave it more. CDs are back in rotation, showing up in record stores, apartments, and design studios with a renewed sense of purpose.

The thing that makes bands so special is often not just the unique chemistry of players but also the deeper alchemy of life experiences and perspectives on art evolving together.

'Starting Over Again' is our first new music in over a decade, and it came from the fans calling for it and us realizing the timing finally felt right. The chemistry in this lineup is undeniable, and everything just clicked. This song is exactly what the title says. A reset, but with more clarity, more urgency, and way more fire behind it. It feels like the start of something big for us, not a throwback, but a step forward.

"I've been afforded an opportunity to sort of caretake this place into the future. I have customers who've been coming in since the '70s, who have literally explored a lifetime of music - their lifetime of music - right through that store."

Headliners include Pulp, playing a one-night-only show in the Royal Festival Hall, mixing new material with the classics, and Scritti Politti, who'll be bringing their leftfield pop energy across two sets.

The growing Aadam Jacobs Collection is an internet treasure trove for music lovers, especially for fans of indie and punk rock during the 1980s through the early 2000s.

Digital typewriters are carving out a niche for a more focused writing experience, stripping things back to the essentials: just you, a keyboard, and your words.

Asha Bhosle entered the industry at just 10 years old with her debut performance in the Marathi film Maze Baal, showcasing her early talent and emotional depth.

The xx opened with 'Crystalised,' closed with 'Infinity,' and included the first-ever live performance of 'Season's Run' in their setlist.

The AT-LP120XUSB features basically everything you could want from a modern, upgraded turntable. The built-in phono preamp lets you easily swap the turntable from your headphones to your speakers without any extra steps or hardware.

The allure of the project is that the magnetic tape doesn't reproduce audio cleanly because the oxide coating introduces a slight instability in playback speed. But these are the 'flaws' that Iulius Curt is after, allowing the resulting sound to have that lo-fi warmth that's ideal for ambient listening.

The TTT-W magnetic modular wall rack is flushed against the wall, featuring four circular magnetic pads that create a vertical design piece, unifying the audio devices.

"At 2 a.m., sitting up and contemplating our loss during my child's wake, I found myself reflecting on all the major news events that had left their mark on me through the years and the helplessness I sometimes felt to change anything. Writing the last verse was the most difficult and personal thing I've done."

R&B in the 21st century has been in a constant state of flux, tugged between safe traditionalism and blurry attempts at progression. For the last decade-plus that "progression" has seen R&B music become more indebted to trap records and the moody atmospherics of alternative bands like Radiohead, Coldplay, or My Bloody Valentine.

Images of Life comprises three LPs; Strange Mysterious Sounds (1965-1970) centers on Lucas' early bands; Rainy Days (1970-1974) gathers solo material from the lead-up to his 1975 self-titled album; and Impossible Love (1979) is a 'lost' album produced by Don Was.

Usually, my handbag is a medley of digital devices and life essentials my phone, iPad, chargers, keys, tampons. But lately, you're likely to also find a half-done newspaper crossword, a ton of stationery, the book I've restarted three times, and whatever scraps and trinkets I've picked up throughout the day to put in my scrapbook. Analog is back, and it feels like we need it more than ever.

1. Soda and beer cans that came with pull tabs:

'We had a few songs that we were like, 'These are really good, these are genius, and we are the Spice Girls slash Destiny's Child,' said singer Ayden Mayeri in the documentary, on which she served as director.

Physical media sales, DVDs especially, are experiencing a new burst of popularity. After a decade of freefall, enthusiasm among Gen Z halved a 20 percent sales decline in 2024 to just 9 percent in 2025. Stores have noticed. The Times' Karla Gachet spoke with staff at cultural hubs like Cinefile and Vidiots to discover why 2026 is already shaping up to be their biggest year, with the latter renting a surprising 1,000 DVDs a week.

My father kept manuals for products we hadn't owned in years, filed alphabetically in a cabinet. When I asked why, he looked at me like I'd suggested burning money. "What if we need to look something up?" The concept of finding any manual online in seconds just doesn't compute for a generation that had to rely on these paper lifelines.

Music doesn't weigh anything anymore. We went from shelves full of vinyl and towers of CDs to playlists that scroll infinitely and libraries that live nowhere in particular. Streaming gave us everything, all at once, all the time. But somewhere in the exchange, we lost the part of listening that involved our hands, our eyes, and our attention.

RCA is reviving Jive Records as a standalone label, the company announced today (February 3). Former UnitedMasters executives Mike Weiss and David Melhado will serve as co-presidents of the revamped imprint. They'll run operations from Sony Music 's New York City headquarters.

Both turntables include one-button automatic playback - which starts the turntable, raises and lowers the tonearm on the vinyl, and returns the tonearm to its resting position once the record ends - a transparent dust cover to keep colored vinyl printings visible as the record plays, and a built-in switchable EQ to select between phono and line-level output. A USB output allows you to convert your vinyl to a digital file and has a three-level output gain selector with low, mid, and high settings. The two turntables also support 96kHz/24-bit wireless aptX Adaptive hi-res Bluetooth audio.

Chances are this does exactly what you need. It will play your old CDs, your new CDs, your homemade mixtapes, the whole nine yards. You can even listen wirelessly thanks to onboard Bluetooth. It's got a decent battery life that can last you up to six hours, and it uses a USB-C to recharge. We usually have one of those on hand.

Last year saw the highest vinyl record sales since 1984, signaling a strong desire among music enthusiasts to return to a simpler time of physical media. Even cassette tapes are making a comeback, with major artists including Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift releasing their material on the iconic plastic, four-inch audio reels. Now, self-described "party slam" metal band Party Cannon is taking the nostalgia play - often framed as an act of defiance against greedy and AI-slop-infested streaming platforms - to a new level.

When Braid broke up, guitarist/secondary vocalist Chris Broach formed The Firebird Band, and the remaining three members - frontman Bob Nanna, bassist Todd Bell, and drummer Damon Atkinson - recruited guitarist Mark Dawursk of Alligator Gun and continued on as Hey Mercedes. They recorded it with Jawbox's J. Robbins, who had also produced Braid's classic 1998 swan song Frame & Canvas, and in many ways, it picked up where Frame & Canvas left off.

Do you think you can finish the lyrics to the biggest hits of the 1980s? This '80s song lyrics quiz will test how well you really know your favorite throwback tracks. In this finish the lyrics quiz, we'll give you a line from a classic song, and you'll have to complete it correctly. From power ballads to synth-pop staples, this 1980s music trivia quiz is packed with iconic moments that defined the era.