Nostalgia keeps Baghdad’s CD store alive

BAGHDAD – In Baghdad’s Bab Al-Sharqi market, Abu Muntadher Al-Daraji’s store stands out with its shelves of CDs. From Call of Duty 9 to Spiderman 2, his collection includes nearly 60,000 CDs.

Despite rapidly advancing digital technologies, Al-Daraji holds onto his vast CD collection, hoping for nostalgic customers. Although he lost hope as CDs became obsolete, social media nostalgia groups have renewed his optimism.

This trend is popular among those born in the 1980s and 1990s, who are driven by childhood memories and seek old games or use CDs as decorations.

Al-Daraji’s passion for the “good old days” began with recorders, then video tapes, and finally CDs. His shop in the Al-Najah Complex in Bab Al-Sharqi has become a graveyard for these disks as they fell out of fashion and customers dwindled.

“Sales of CDs declined after 2013 and 2014 when games and data storage shifted to flash drives and hard disks” and later gadgets, said Al-Daraji.

Despite fast-paced digitalization, Al-Daraji remains hopeful. In the past three years, enthusiasts have sought his CDs through social media groups dedicated to old devices and games. These hobbyists often look for old CDs and cassettes to decorate offices or revisit their childhoods.