The surprising music genre driving CD and vinyl revival | Music | Entertainment

EXCLUSIVE

Crusty old rockers and beard-stroking hipsters are not the only people fuelling the vinyl revival with young people also scouring the bargain basements to look for classical gems. New research for the Daily Express’s Strike A Chord campaign from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) suggests that vinyl and CD formats are enjoying a quiet revival among young people that are discovering orchestral music for the first time.

And building up a physical music collection at home is supporting their interest in experiencing live concerts and also taking up learning a musical instrument. The Express’s Strike A Chord campaign is battling to help restore the UK’s floundering music education after numbers of students taking GCSE and music A-Levels plummeted to critical levels.

Whilst 48% of survey respondents said they still liked to listen to orchestral music tracks through streaming sites and playlists, 17% of young people said they now preferred building a physical collection of CDs and vinyl and enjoy listening to recordings of albums in full.

A further 12% of people said they liked to buy orchestral music downloads for a digital collection.

These signs of resurgent intertest in building up a music collection of records, CDs and

downloads at home correlates with more young people saying they wanted to discover

more about a range of music genres. When it came to the genres young people wanted to

find out more about, orchestral and rock topped the list for summer 2025 (each

30%), above other genres such as country (24%), dance (17%) jazz (24%) and rap (23%)

Other ways under 25s young people nurture an interest in orchestral music at home

Beyond the allure of building up a music collection at home, there are other ways that

young people learn about the genre at home: 34% enjoy classical radio, 26% listen to music

podcasts that featured orchestral music, 19% said they liked to watch concerts online – and

20% said they were keen to learn a musical instrument at home.

The composers that young people are most likely to add to their collections of recorded

albums included: Mozart (44%), Beethoven (43%), Tchaikovsky (14%) and Vivaldi (13%).

Beyond traditional repertoire, 20% of young people said they would also add video game

soundtracks to their collections and 22% would buy film soundtracks.

Huw Davies, deputy managing director at the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra said: “Our research this year shows that interest in orchestral music is continuing to rise and it’s very encouraging to see that an increasing number of young people are experiencing the genre for the first time. For many people new to orchestral music, the magic of the live concert experience is usually the moment that converts curiosity into interest, but recorded music has always played an important role in getting people to the concert hall in the first place. 

“For many classical fans, the joy of building a music collection and comparing different interpretations of popular works deepens an appreciation and love for a universe of music that can become a lifetime journey of enrichment and discovery.”