First, it was vinyl which saw a revival in record shops across the UK, but now the CD comeback is underway with dealers reporting that rare albums on the format are at their highest-ever price.
While you can probably forget about getting big bucks for Brittany Spears, some of the discs changing hands for decent cash might come as a surprise, with 1980s Eurovision stars Bucks Fizz’s Greatest Hits sometimes selling for as much as £60.
It comes after online music marketplace, Discogs, reported a 37pc rise in CD sales during 2020 and that trend has continued to grow, with the format accounting for one in five items sold on the platform by the end of 2022.
Some of the highest prices for CDs on the marketplace include a Woodstock festival compilation called Back to the Garden, which sold for a whopping £2,128, a single of Michael Jackson’s Smile, which went for £2,016 and Bob Dylan’s 50th Anniversary Collection which made £1,956.
John Naylor, who runs the Beatniks record shop in Norwich, says the key to a high price is having an album which was never reissued after its initial run.
He said: “People with a casual interest in music who just have a little pile of CDs at home probably wouldn’t realise and would just chuck them out, but the market is as strong as ever.
“They had a dip in interest when downloads came out, but ever since they’ve been steadily rising again. “One band that does well is Hawkwind as a lot of their albums have never been reissued on CD.
“One thing I would say is there is a big difference between what is rare and cheap, there’s a lot of stuff which has no value and then some albums are worth over £1,000.
“I get a lot of people who come in the shop and are shocked at how much some are going for and I just tell them to look online.”
