[icehawk]

CDs can oxidize in the span of decades. I've got hundreds of burned CDs that are from 2003 that are fine (even if they have changed color) because i store them in a climate controlled environment.

A vinyl record degrades every time you play it in a normal turntable.

[criddell]

Most of my CD collection is from the 80's and 90's and I've never done much to take care of them. Many have spent a decade or more of their life in a car. Most of them spent ten years in my attic that gets very hot and very cold.

Out of 100 disks, only five or six have failed and all have been because of scratches on the foil side (or whatever the media that the music is encoded into is called).

[thaumasiotes]

Note that if you don't store your records in a climate-controlled environment, they'll melt. You don't need to play a record to degrade it; just keeping it around is enough to render it completely unplayable.