Are we entering a new analogue age? Gen Z is leading us there

For decades, we've lived in a digital world. Now gen Z is reversing that.

We first heard about the brave new world of “digital” at the end of the 1970s. We weren’t sure what that meant, but it sounded futuristic and cool, especially with music. It held the promise of accuracy and greater fidelity that we could feed to our monster stereo systems. Ry Cooder has gone down in history as the first artist to release a digitally recorded album with Bop Til You Drop in 1979.

The CD came along a few years later, adding to digital’s momentum. Soon, all recording studios began migrating from their giant analogue tape machines and consoles to state-of-the-art hard drive systems powered by software like Pro Tools. By the end of the ’90s, everything was digital: CDs, MP3s, personal music devices and so on. Beyond a few outliers who wouldn’t let go — I’m looking at you, Jack White, Lenny Kravitz and anyone who refused to give up their vinyl albums — analogue music was essentially dead.

It’s all different now, of course. Even though streaming is the dominant form of music consumption, analogue is still very much with us. Artists looking for a particular recording vibe seek out studios still equipped with ancient two-inch, 24-track tape machines. Vinyl sales have been on an upward trajectory since 2008. Even cassettes refuse to go away.

But this yearning for analogue goes deeper and much of it lies with gen Z. The first generation to grow up in an always-on, always-connected digital world, is looking for something more tangible. They’re expressing nostalgia for an era before they were born.

Many late millennials and gen Z (and no doubt the newest cohort, gen alpha) seem to have a thing for the Before Times, an era when things were less complicated, more orderly, less divided and had more substance, and a time when everyone wasn’t glued to their devices 24-7. Today, these generations see nothing but crazy politics, forever wars, the climate crisis, an imbalanced economic system, a firehose of disinformation, and a social media ecosystem — something that’s used by half of all humans on the planet — that’s intent on making them feel inadequate. Now they’re facing a few run by AI.

In other words, they want some imagined Good Old Days. Young people are feeling stressed out, hopeless, scared and alone. Gen Z’s interest in things they can touch, hold and physically possess is helping them find stability in a turbulent world.

When it comes to music, I’m seeing plenty of anecdotal evidence. Young people have fallen in love with vinyl, scooping up as much as they can afford. Ask any indie record store what they’re buying and they’ll tell you it’s the classics: The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd. Any used copy of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours that comes in is sold within seconds. At record shows, that’s the first thing people search for.