CD-R

A CD-R, (COMPACT DISC – Recordable) is a type of CD in which data can be written once and read arbitrarily many times. In layman's terms, it's those blank CDs you can buy for cheap at office supply stores that you can burn music (or other data) onto.

Due to their low price, it's very common for underground musicians to produce and sell their own albums by burning their music onto a CD-R and selling the CDs at events or online. While making CD-Rs provide a cost-effective way to release music without the need to be signed to a publisher, the (usually) limited run and knowledge that these CDs are usually created by hand by the artist themselves can also make them a sought after release by fans.

Sometimes, music that is released via CD-R might be released digitally (for example, Tentenko releases most of her CD-R material on bandcamp, while mikinormu's are available through most major streaming platforms), but this isn't always the case.