Feel old yet?

[theweaselking]

30 years ago yesterday, the first CD and the first CD player were released.

(It was Billy Joel, for reasons likely unfathomable to those who don't remember the 1980s)

Comments

[dreamshade.livejournal.com]

Oh, okay, I'll go get us some records to listen to.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Before my music-listening time, to be sure; I don't remember CDs becoming commonplace until the late 80s or early 90s, at which time they cost too much, and I didn't *want* the ability to skip tracks, and burners weren't affordable, and get off my lawn.

First CD I owned was Tom Petty's "Wildflowers".

[rbarclay.livejournal.com]

IIRC it was around '87/'88 that CDs and LPs were starting to have the same price-tag around here, and thus CD-players became somewhat interesting. Pretty much at the same point the first portable CD player (Sony "Discman") became affordable, further driving demand.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Of course, the 1st-gen Discman had no shock protection, which limited its utility significantly... (My sister had one, and she couldn't really use it in the car unless someone else was holding it gently in their hands.)

I'd also note that LPs had lost much of their market share to cassettes well before CDs came to market..

[rbarclay.livejournal.com]

Oh, it did (and I should know, I had one, wikipedia tells me it was a D-50), but the buffer was only about 1/10th or 1/8th second, and it couldn't reposition the laser fast enough for car rides - it was built to be carried around in a jacket pocket (or stationary), where it worked suprisingly well.

As for cassettes, I don't know, me and everyone in my vicinity were only buying vinyl, and then copying it to cassette.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

I've owned two LPs in my life, both purchased from a community yard sale. Was definitely only buying tapes when I was in middle school (1988-1992) and into HS.

[frith]

Two thirds of my cassettes are copies of 33 rpm LP's. Saved wear on the LP's.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

My first was whatever album "It's The End Of The World As We Know It" was on, purchased on amazon.com (which is also nearly twenty years old). Before that I had lots of tapes, I think the first was Weird Al's Even Worse.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

I recently ripped all of my CDs to mp3s; I'd apparently accumulated almost 200. :)

I still have 50-100 tapes, but there's not a whole lot I can do with those..

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Confetti party?

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

But there's some good music in there! (And some awful music, in retrospect.)

[rbarclay.livejournal.com]

You could come over and take the cassette tape player off my hands, then rip all your tapes ;-)

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Heh, I've considered ripping tapes... but man, that'd be a -lot- of time, for some iffy-quality audio. :]

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Fast, and better quality, and just as legal in most of the world, to download a CD rip.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

just as legal in most of the world

Ain't that the truth.

[iblis-kukl.livejournal.com]

[skington.livejournal.com]

It was Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms that was "the album that's on CD now" over in the UK, but that was in 1985. As well as selling shitloads, wikipedia tells me it was the first fully-digital album, which would explain why it was in all the CD player adverts. (Remember when CDs were listed as aad, add or ddd?)

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Given that the alternative was a fucking ABBA album, maybe it's for the best.

My first CD was purchased in 1990, Jean Michel Jarre's "Waiting for Cousteau".

[skiriki.livejournal.com]

My first cd was in 1995 and... it was Nine Inch Nail's 'Pretty Hate Machine', soon followed by 'Downward Spiral' and Alice Cooper's 'Hey Stoopid'. Reason being that I was piss-poor and I couldn't afford them until then.

[frith]

My first CD player is also the only CD player I've ever owned. It's a portable Panasonic SL-NP1. It still works. My first CD's are probably Beethoven symphonies 5 and 8 (Philips, Sir Neville Marriner) and Rachmaninov symphony number 2 (London, Vladimir Ashkenazy). Both cases have a drill hole in a corner. They were either marked down for clearance, or they had some sort of anti-theft device inserted there.