Last week, Lorde released her fourth album, Virgin, after several months of partying with fans in Washington Square Park and talking about breakups and birth control. With Virgin came a whole bunch of merch seemingly designed on Microsoft Word. One of the products, a CD version of the album that’s completely translucent, apparently comes with some major functional issues.
the xbox 360 slim can play lorde virgin clear cd https://t.co/AS2Fr7AOv8 pic.twitter.com/vJCcmpZjLH
— Joseph Mann (@iosefmann) July 1, 2025
why is lorde selling non-functional CD … like is this capitalism or am I missing the artistic decision made here ? pic.twitter.com/WcVP5fPdWo
— ☁️ (charging up for Wicked) (@gtwlls000n) June 30, 2025
Naturally, fans are pretty pissed. One person on Reddit called the CD an “expensive coaster.” Others have been more forgiving, pointing out that most customers are just treating physical copies like collectors’ items and listening to the album on streaming. “Buy the CD to support the artist and then stream the music like a normal person,” one person commented on TikTok. “No one actually listens to CDs.”
The fiasco has become the latest chapter in an ongoing debate about artists releasing multiple vinyl variants of their albums — a trend that’s been criticized for wasting materials just to boost album sales. For her last album, Lorde opted out of releasing CDs for environmental reasons.
I dunno, if I’m buying something, I probably want it to work. On the bright side, it’s recyclable!
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