ba/Alex

Since 2015, there has been a huge revival of older formats of music – vinyl records being the most popular. The main group responsible for this is gen-z, who have been able to romanticize this format due to their lack of experience and nostalgia, as this technology was already obsolete in their youth.

This revival does however have a darker side which is not very commonly discussed, sustainability. Alot of these older formats have a very limited life span and are made out of toxic materials which contributes to pollution

A sustainable music format with good audio quality does exist, and that is the Compact Disc – CDs. Many usually associate this format with unpleasant experiences, such as broken jewel cases in the car. The reason for this non romantic view is because we have not yet had a generation reach adulthood with no prior experience of using CDs.

This research has culminated into my project called “Alex” – a CD player with a different user experience. This hopes to support a future CD revival for a younger, upcoming generation in order to make physical format music a little bit less toxic.