Next to edutainment, movies and games, Philips positioned music as another big thing for CD-i. In a world without Spotify and other audio streaming services, the music industry was also in the Ninetees looking for new ways to grow. With the arrival of the CD-i platform, it was possible to include graphics to give a new dimension to music. In the first place, this was done in the CD+Graphics format, an enhanced audio CD that offered, next to the audio, some simple graphics or subtitles of the text, so you could sing-along (karaoke). But with CD-i it was possible to create an interactive audio-visual journey. 'Interactivity' was a keyword in the heydays of CD-i and various bands and record labels took benefit of the possibilities. Take HEX, who created visuals to accompany their popular dance/house/electronic music. The visuals were not just a video loop but they were generates by the processing power of CD-i so they were each time different.
CD-i also made it possible to include interviews, pictures and other digital merchandising to an album, like what they did to the 'No Limits' album of 2Unlimited. 2Unlimited was a very popular duo making dance/pop tracks and with Beyond Limits, they made a version that included video clips but also interviews and pictures. There are numerous examples of other artists who took CD-i as a next step to offer more than plain music. It is something that we don't see anymore nowadays: All other info, next the audio itself, is offered via internet...
In our opinion, to offer a complete package including music and an accompanying visual tour, next to interviews and pictures, was by far our favourite tribute to support an artist. With the streaming services like Spotify and also Youtube, it will probably never come back...
