It seems digital compression artifacts have replaced the previous generations' audiophiles liking for the "colour" that tubes and vinyl imparted to the sound.
No one’s going to be converting their music library to old-fashioned low bitrate MP3s, whereas vinyl is more popular than ever. (Okay, maybe not ever, but it’s actually growing again.)
let's not confuse "the only format available at the time" with popular by choice. each time a new format was created, it was adopted to the point of vinyl nearly becoming obsolete. what is old is new again is part of vinyl's resurrection. it's doubtful most hipsters buying vinyl today even have sound systems other than bookshelf speakers to hear a difference in any format.
My point was that vinyl, as well as being (1) pleasingly retro and (2) physical rather than existing in the cloud somewhere, also has (3) fundamentally desirable traits as an audio format — ‘analogue warmth’, etc. Bad lossy digital compression has (1) but not (2) or (3).
You’re right about vinyl’s current popularity not having much to do with that though: it’s mainly (1) and (2) I think.
That said, assuming a pilot signal was added one could probably put two to three hours of PAL-frequency analog audio (which completely went away with digital sound) onto a CD.