Your first experience of a CD

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

I remember in the mid 80s I desperately wanted to hear a CD. The mythology surrounding them was similar to that which surrounds HD television today - I thought that experiencing music c/o the ridiculously futuristic-looking discs would be akin to a religious or hallucinatory experience. I would finally be able to appreciate music like I'd never done before, opening doors-of-perception that ropey old vinyl had left firmly shut.  

I finally heard a CD playing in Dixon's. It was Take Me Home by Phil Collins. I remember thinking 'Um...well, it just sounds like VHF radio really doesn't it?'

So anyway, share your first CD encounters here. What was your initial attitude, and how did you first hear one? Were you disappointed too? What was the first one you bought? Mine was a 3" of Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue.

NB: This thread may not make any sense to people who have grown up with CDs and known nothing else. In which case, flip the question around - what was your attitude to/first experience of vinyl?

[23 Daves]

I had a friend who swore by CDs and a huge CD collection consisting entirely of Heavy Metal bands.  The CD Player was also part of one of those really cheap midi systems that Saisho made, so frankly it sounded rubbish, rather like an FM radio being played through a sock.  It might have been that which caused me to not bother buying one myself until 1991, but I'm not sure.

I think the first time I heard what they could do properly it was a copy of Extreme's "More than Words" round a mate's house, again, a horrible record, but I was struck by how crystal clear the acoustic guitars sounded in comparison to my cheap vinyl deck at home.

To say the earth moved would be a terrible exaggeration, though.

And for reasons I still cannot really explain, the first CD I ever got was "CD88", an indie compilation of bands with rather low recording budgets.  I think I just thought it was a nice little jukebox of things I already knew I liked I could put on the CD Player.

[TotalMink]

There used to be this phillips cd player that you could get years ago, one of the 1st mass produced ones.   My mates dad got one and subjected everyone that came round to the drum fill from "Air Tonight" by Phil Collins, or sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel.  I was always amazed with the hype around CD's, people spreading Jam on them and using them as frisbees when almost immediately, CDs became more prone to damage than vinyl.

[Morrisfan82]

I remember seeing empty display CD cases in record shops ages before I actually got to see/handle a disc itself. A prospect which I found really exciting, after all, compact discs looked incomprehensibly cool.

The first time I got to fondle/hear one, I think, was the Back To The Future soundtrack, round my friend's house. I was highly impressed how crisp it sounded. Unlike vinyl, which always seemed to make you aware that the music was being played from within the room (what with rumble and crackle and other sonic debris), listening to a CD gave me the impression that the music was being cleanly delivered to you from elsewhere.

It was also on this occasion that I first used the skip search function, thinking that I was doing something I shouldn't because of the unnatural 'skipping' sound the music made while doing it. If it had made a 'squeeeleeleelee' noise like a cue/review-ing tape player I probably wouldn't have been so unnerved.

First CD I bought was The Prodigy Experience (one of my favourite albums to this day), which I'd previously owned only on an appalling 4th generation tape-off. Hearing the detail in the music at last was refreshingly brilliant. I still have the CD, though it has got a small crack in it emanating from the centre hole, which makes me a little reluctant to play it in anything other than a standard one-speed CD player, lest it blow up into razor shards and take my face with it.

I remember it was some time before I stopped handling CDs like they were made of crystal and girl's pants, and started treating them like everyday objects. Seemed to be a long time after I'd seen others start flinging them about with abandon though.

Then again, like a typical nostalgi-o-wanker I've recently found myself getting misty-eyed about the physical aesthetics of once-dreary cassettes, so definitely a case of what-goes-around there.

[dead_johnny_walker]

I remember resisting until about 1985 when CD players had come down to about £300 (!). I bought my first Sony CD player in Lasky's which used to be at the Clock Tower, Leicester (the building now occupied by Alliance & Leicester, which burned down a few years back).

I then went up  the road to St Martin's records on the High Street and bought myself 10 CDs, of varying content.

I can't remember what discs I bought, would have to check and do a memory-jog. Some classical and a few of whatever I was into at the time, probably Talking Heads and the like. You have to remember there was very limited choice at the time, the CD's were a small section of a few racks next to the jazz and classical section. Actually that's just an excuse, cos I've just remembered one of them was Sting.

I remember being very impressed with the classical stuff but feeling that the rock material lacked a bit of oomph compared to vinyl. These days I only ever listen to CDs in the car - at home I listen to mp3's on the PC. I still have a turntable connected to my system though...

[Famous Mortimer]

We was poor, and I'm clearly younger than a few people in this thread, but the first CD I ever bought was off a car boot sale - "Pass The Mic" CD single by the Beastie Boys. I still own it and occasionally get it out for one of the most mental "b-sides" ever- "Netty's Girl".

[Morrisfan82]

If you think that's mental, you should see the video.

[Famous Mortimer]

If you think that's mental, you should see the video.

They did a video? Muteki, thank you.

[Ciarán2]

October 1989: my brother bought a three-in-one with one of his first wage packages and a CD to go with it - Steely Dan's "Gold" compilation. The first track I remember hearing on it was "FM". Then  my sister came back from her friend's house (her friend being a music nut) with a stack of 3" CD singles and an album or two. among them were "Ghosts" by Japan, "The Beat(en) Generation" by The The and "Fisherman's Blues" by The Waterboys. Then my bro went out and bought Fleetwood Mac's "Greatest Hits" (the 1988, Buckingham era one) and The Beatles' "Abbey Road".

We were all ultra-impressed with CDs at first. I remember for about three years after I was still thinking how impressive CD sound was. A real highpoint of 1990 was the release of Prefab Sprout's "Jordan: The Comeback" and getting to enjoy Thomas Dolby's brilliant production and those great songs in pin-sharp sound. I was completely blown away by that album.

[thugler]

It was blur 'the great escape'. I remember being fairly impressed partly just due to the ability to skip tracks.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

We didn't have a CD player for ages, making do with tapes.

First CD was I think:

[Ben Ordinary]

For me, my first real CD experience was early 1992 when a family friend was bought a number of CDs for his birthday which he opened with increasing despair on his face. when he was asked what was wrong he said "But...but, I dont have a CD player", not noticing the present still to open. The sort of CD player shaped present. They were about to give him this when he depressively sulked off upstairs so he didnt say something he would regret. Took them about 15 minutes to get him to come back down. CDs eh? Tschh.

I didnt get my own CD player until Christmas 1995 and the first CD I bought was The Presidents Of The United States Of America's debut album. It was all downhill from there.

[quadraspazzed]

Where I first actually heard a CD was in a HMV listening post in Edinburgh. It was The Stone Roses' Ten Storey Love Song.

After bugging my parents for ages they finally relented and bought me a (pretty shitty it has to be said, but we were poor enough) HiFi - with an LP deck and CD player. The first CDs I bought were Nirvana's Unplugged (still a great album) and Pearl Jam's Vitalogy (which I traded for Second Coming not long after. SC wasn't great but it was sure better than that crap).

Bizarrely (or perhaps not given the price of CDs), I had more fun with the LP deck than the CD player. My da's mate brought me down a load of punk/post-punk records - standouts that stayed on my  playlist down the years being Dead Kennedys (Fresh Fruit), The Damned (Machine Gun Ettiquette), The Mekons (Quality of Mercy), Gang of Four (Entertainment), Stiff Little Fingers (Inflammable Material) and Angelic Upstarts (Teenage Warning). I know it sounds like a dicky thing to say, but I still really love vinyl even though its awkward, time consuming and easily scratchable.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

The not-every-album-was-necessarily-available-on-CD thing went on for a while didn't it? I remember in the early 90s, CD sections in record shops were still separate grottos. Vinyl disappeared so gradually that I genuinely didn't notice it go. (Same with cassettes, actually - it struck me the other day that I couldn't remember the last time I saw a cassette aisle in a record shop. Am I right in thinking that nothing except spoken word stuff is released on cassette these days? Not even albums by really huge bands?)

CDs were once such a novelty that Radio 1 had designated shows to showcase them. I remember John Peel being dismayed at the tag-line '...with music mainly on compact disc'.

[Lfbarfe]

though it has got a small crack in it emanating from the centre hole, which makes me a little reluctant to play it in anything other than a standard one-speed CD player, lest it blow up into razor shards and take my face with it.

I'd risk it once to make a CD-R backup copy.

Hmmm, first experience of CD - I'd have to say listening to '43' off the first Level 42 album in a friend's bedroom. It was slightly scratched and when it stuck, I thought it was a remix. That would have been about 1987. I didn't get a CD player (a Sony Discman) until Christmas 1991, but I'd already amassed a few CDs in time for the big moment. I think the first thing I bought was a Buddy Rich box set. I don't have the Discman anymore, as it went a bit funny just outside the guarantee period, but I still have and use its replacement, a Sherwood, bought in Richer Sounds in 1993.

Then, in 2000, I got my first CD burner. I didn't think it could get any better - I could make CDs in my spare room. 'king hell. I will never, ever get nostalgic about cassette. Trust me. Open-reel tape, sure. Cassette, no.

[Paranormalhandy]

My Dad got a CD player in mid-1988 - a Panasonic - and it's still the one I use today.  The first two CDs I bought would have been "Sgt Pepper" (this was still in the afterglow of the 20th anniversary blitz) and "Paul Simon Live Rhymin'", both purchased in the Woolworths in Arbroath.  The "Live Rhymin'" CD is something of a rarity now.  

At Christmas 1991, I got a CD player myself for the first time - and bought "The Best of REM" (the IRS years compilation) and "Never Loved Elvis" by the Wonderstuff.  It was a small portable CD player, and it stayed with me at university for a good two years before finally dying after being splashed on.

The following year, 1992, was a big learning curve for me.  I started it by buying Jeff Wayne and ended it with Velvet Underground bootlegs ... But perhaps my fondest early CD memory is of Our Price Records in the Bon Accord centre in Aberdeen (a great place in 1992 for comedy cassettes, btw).  One Saturday I came across a CD by Paul Simon - I was a HUGE fan at the time - called "Greatest Hits Etc."  Briefly, this CD was brought out by CBS in 1987, but rapidly withdrawn when Warners bought the rights of his early solo stuff, and wanted to bring out their own greatest hits instead.  And here it was - deleted for four years, no barcode, exclusive tracks - and it was STILL available to buy in Our Price.  :-))

The other thing I remember was seeing a Bill Hicks CD (Relentless, I think) on the racks of Our Price around about the same time (i.e., a good six years before Rykodisc re-issued and repackaged everything).  As far as I'm aware, Laughing Stock only ever brought out a cassette edition (which I already owned, so I avoided the CD) - so what could it have been?

Maybe this last point is more for CC than anything else ...

[trotsky assortment]

I think the first time I heard a CD was in Currys - they were playing 'Brothers In Arms' by Dire Straits.

The first CD I actually saw was shortly after that, on the counter in WHSmiths. It was a CD reissue of 'Queen's First EP'.  At least for many years I've been convinced it was.  I've never seen it since.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

I will never, ever get nostalgic about cassette. Trust me. Open-reel tape, sure. Cassette, no.

When the door on my cassette deck broke once, I started to pretend, Billy Liar-style, that my cassettes were actually tiny reel-to-reel tapes. This only really worked with the transparent ones, obviously.

I get misty-eyed about cassettes, but not pre-recorded ones. I never trusted the fact that you couldn't unscrew the latter.

[23 Daves]

There were few things more panic-inducing in life than hearing the music eminating from a cassette suddenly start to sound all muffled and wobbly.  The split second you hear the tape chewing afterwards (which for some reason always sounded like somebody rustling cellophane) you'd always drop everything - cigarettes, cutlery, priceless dinner plates - to go and rescue your copy of XTC's "Waxworks" or whatever it was.  It was almost always a bloody double-play tape though.

I actually left the room whilst a tape was being chewed once, and it destroyed the whole player, actually buckling the spool feeder.  It was a cheap, crappy cassette deck, sure, but I was still really pissed off.  Cheap, crappy turntables and CD players don't do that sort of inconsiderate, destructive thing (though I suppose blunt styluses (or styli?) are a problem).

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

I liked the physicality of cassettes, though - the fact that you could see how they worked. Nowhere near as sexy as vinyl, obviously, but not as terminally unlovable as CD/mp3.

[Beep Cleep Chimney]

First CD I ever heard was 'Now That's What I Call Music 10'.  1987, it was.  Round my mate's house.

His dad had come home from work and announced that he'd just been and bought a 'portable' Sharp CD/twin-cassete player for some astronomical figure.  We were delighted, sadly his wife wasn't.

Yes, in theory this thing was portable but, MY GOD, it weighed a fucking ton so you'd be lucky if you made it downstairs with it without pulling something.

Remember being very impressed with the sound quality, as I'd only really heard the recent Now albums on cassette, and could now appreciate every subtle nuance of, erm, well "I Don't Wanna Be A Hero" by Johnny Hates Jazz and "Never Can Say Goodbye" by The Communards.

Unfortunately, that initial enjoyment was cut short as my mate's dad turned off Now 10 after the umpteenth play of "Pump Up The Volume" and decided to treat us all to "Bat Out Of Hell" instead, at which point my mate and me fucked off outside.  Obviously.

First CD I bought myself was 'Flag' by Yello, I think, a year later as I ADORED "The Race" at the time.

Ah, great days.

[trotsky assortment]

I had a friend who swore by CDs and a huge CD collection consisting entirely of Heavy Metal bands.  

To be fair (and I'm not sure this is completely relevent) aside from RCA, one of the other couple of record companies to embrace the then new format was Music For Nations.  MFN was a metal only label.  For an independent, it was a bold move - they were producing CDs at the beginning of 1984.

[trotsky assortment]

Am I right in thinking that nothing except spoken word stuff is released on cassette these days? Not even albums by really huge bands?)

You'd be right.  I haven't seen a new cassette for years.  Since about 2001, I think.

[Gradual Decline]

You’ve got to know where to look cassette wise. The mainstream stores have obviously finished with em, they never were the sexiest of formats.

The good old tape lives on in underground circles, Noise bands, the arse end of Metal etc...I bought a fair few cassettes last year.

[King of scurf]

I hate vinyl, just thinking about it makes me nervous.  I don't care if the sound is slightly better, when you have the permanent threat of the whole thing being utterly destroyed in an instant. I can't bear it when bands bring out vinyl-only singles and think they are being cool.  The only time I ever listen to them is to record them onto CD, and then I file them away and hope no-one goes near them.  Of course, if I really hated vinyl I wouldn't care if they were destroyed after I had recorded them, but evidently I have still swallowed some of the evil, "Vinyl has a lot more personality" propaganda.

[Gradual Decline]

I don't mind vinyl, I own a lot of it, but have always gone for the convenience of CD really. Tapes are I suppose the fun knockabout bits of fluff in format land.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

the permanent threat of the whole thing being utterly destroyed in an instant.

Even more true of CDs surely? A cracked LP will still play some tracks - crack a CD and it usually won't play at all.

The ease with which mp3s can be junked makes me even more nervous.

[King of scurf]

Me too, but at least you can export them to a few CDs, scatter them on a few hard drives and so on

[The Mumbler]

I had a thrillingly early experience of CD. A friend of my dad's was a disco DJ who, by the summer of 1983, had opened a hi-fi shop. One evening, he took us there and played some CDs spine-chillingly loudly. (At this point, there were probably only about 50 pop CDs on catalogue in the UK.) I remember hearing "Poison Arrow" by ABC off The Lexicon of Love and just being staggered at how good it sounded*. I think he also played Private Investigations by Dire Straits and The Chain by Fleetwood Mac off Rumours.

A couple of years later, by which time he had a terrifying sound system at home, he treated us to swathes of Frankie's Welcome to the Pleasuredome, Donald Fagen's The Nightfly and Queen's A Night at the Opera.

*Of course, that original master sounded appalling to the ears by the late 80s. Just so quiet. So I pounced when the 1996 remaster came out.

I took the CD plunge in July 1988, helped by the money I'd had for my 18th birthday. My dad had warned me off a midi-system, so I went and spent about £400 on components - Sony CD player, amp, very large Wharfedale speakers. The first CDs I bought were Propaganda's A Secret Wish (because it, excitingly, had a couple of versions of songs different to the vinyl version) and the Heaven 17 compilation, Endless, which had only come out on cassette and CD. I liked shiny pop, so my early purchases reflected this - Prince, Pet Shop Boys, two Erasure albums I picked up second-hand on CD, Scritti and the like. But then I finally shelled out £24.99 for Prince's Sign O'The Times (an unimaginable amount of money to spend on a record, or so it seemed then).

First CD single was, I think, The Race by Yello. Or it might have been Somewhere in my Heart by Aztec Camera (because it had Walk out to Winter as a bonus track).

[chand]

Vinyl disappeared so gradually that I genuinely didn't notice it go.

Well it hasn't really gone, pretty much every indie/alternative band still put their albums out on vinyl and the 7" single format is still going strong. Hip-hop and all kinds of dance still often come out exclusively on 12" too.

(Same with cassettes, actually - it struck me the other day that I couldn't remember the last time I saw a cassette aisle in a record shop. Am I right in thinking that nothing except spoken word stuff is released on cassette these days? Not even albums by really huge bands?)

That's because cassettes are actually shit. I grew up with them but have no nostalgia for them at all. I mean, I might, if it wasn't for the fact that the few remaining tapes I have in my drawer are all chewed beyond recognition or completely snapped. Unlike vinyl there isn't really any aural benefit to putting something on tape, so it doesn't really make economic or any other kind of sense. People still make underground mixtapes on actual cassette and sometimes unsigned bands still hand them out at gigs, though.