CD hunting Vs. LP hunting · The Music & Community Network

CD hunting Vs. LP hunting

I recently got the ability to listen to CDs up and running again at home, something I've not had available for probably more than a decade. Fortunately, I still have all my old CDs, so I have a full cabinet of music I love to listen to. Yay me.

However! There are thousands of CDs available in thrift stores and various other places - and they are dirt cheap, which is great. What's not great however, is the absolute scale of "stuff" that has been released on CD vs. what's been released on vinyl. When you go browsing through vinyl collections, it seems like you're often able to find something that looks interesting. With CDs, this feels a lot harder.

For context, there are NO music stores where I live - not unless you count music supply stores, which sell instruments. Internet killed the local rural music store. But since there are thrift stores a plenty, and CDs at those stores, I felt the need to go looking.

My initial strategy was to search for popular music that I don't personally have a large collection of - the Beatles, Beach Boys, that kinda thing. So far it's been a complete bust.

Does anyone have strategies for what to look for in the mess that is the non-curated used CD market? I'm afraid that the relative low-barrier-to-entry cost of CD production in the early 2000s means that it is significantly harder to find "good" stuff compared to when you're looking at vinyl of almost any era. Or maybe all the cool kids have already raided the good stuff.

0 comments