Compact Disc is 25 years old today. What are your memories?

[TheBoingoBandit]

Yes, that silver disc is 25 years old today. To commemorate this anniversary, I thought we could use this thread for your comments, memories and predictions of this format's past and it's future possibilities.





I bought my first CD in aroud 94/95 before I bought my first player. It was "Right before my eyes" by Patti Day (great song!). There was a pile of this unsold single in a charity shop for ten pee each, so I thought why not.

Soon afterwards I bought Commordore's ill fated CDTV system for fifty quid in Dixons and of course finally got to play my disc.

Having skipped vinyl and gone straight to cassette, I was blown away by the ability to skip track at the touch of a button.

From there on, all the music I bought was on CD. Now I have about 400 discs (including 100 free with magazines and newspapers). A large number of these I've never got around to playing.

To make up for this, I now plan to buy a media player hard disc soon and copy all my CDs uncompressed onto it. Until uncompressed audio free of security restrictions becomes available to buy online, then I'll be sticking with CD for the time being.

[Steve N]

My first one was Fergal Sharkey.

[mjn]

CD's? Are they still around

[danmc_82]

Originally Posted by mjn

CD's? Are they still around

What you been using, computer chips?

[DVD-Man]

My first memory of CD was my big bro getting Now 20 and shifting from cassettes to CD to be played on his new Sony hifi after landing a highly paid job. This was 1990 IIRC.

Erm future is most definatley wind chimes, coasters, frisbees, building materials etc

Liam

[alphaomega16]

CDRWIN

[Miniholic]

My first CD was the Back to the Future OST that I got for Christmas (85 or 86) when my Dad got his first CD player (He got Queen's Greatest Hits). Got my first CD player about two years later by which time I had maybe 10 CD's.

Originally Posted by DVD-Man

My first memory of CD was my big bro getting Now 20

I've got Now 8 on CD.

[RMCF]

1st memory has to be Dire Straits 'Brothers in Arms'.

Mum used to work in an electrical store and kept telling me about these new CDs.

Also said that they only had a handful of discs for sale, but that they tended to listen to BiA all day as the others were crap.

I think it was the next year I got my own CD player - and yes BiA was my 1st CD.

[krish]

as an avid vinyl collector I managed to avoid CD until just after the Freddie Mercury Tribute concert of April '92 ... it was then that Metallica released a live CD single (Enter Sandman, Sad But True, Nothing Else Matters) of their Wembley performance that kicked off the concert ... then I bought my first CD player (a Marantz CD52SE) a day or two later

[TeenSpirit]

Originally Posted by RMCF

1st memory has to be Dire Straits 'Brothers in Arms'.

Mum used to work in an electrical store and kept telling me about these new CDs.

Also said that they only had a handful of discs for sale, but that they tended to listen to BiA all day as the others were crap...

SNAP !! Same story here - I was doing weekend work at Halfords, aged 16 and they had in a new personal cd player with demo disc 'Brothers in Arms' - I was blown away by the sound quality and begged my Dad for a Cd player for Xmas. My Dad being a 'vinyl' man wasn't convinced (Dad's deck cost him over £4,000 so he wasn't about to be outdone by CD's ), but he ended up getting me a Marantz system with Celestion speakers for Christmas

My Dad still thinks that CD quality is nothing on vinyl, the way he plays it - he has demonstrated this to me in his 'music room' and he is right - his system is amazing and you can really hear every sound separately whereas with CD the sounds do seem to link together. I think technology is more towards compactness these days and most people are listening to music via MP3 files IMO.

[Setenza]

CD=Rubbish unreadable sleeve notes.

Dead Kennedys had very creative Album and inner sleeve art with all the relevant lyrics etc.

On the CD versions you can only read these using an electron microscope.

CD made the music industry in less personal and more corporate driven.

[WibXL]

I think that the first CD that I bought was either Iron Maidens seventh son of a seventh son or number of the beast, the first player that I had was a personal compact disc player which I got for Christmas along with both of Iron Maidens "the story so far" box sets.

Like XoD though I miss the artwork and sleeve notes that you used to get with vinyl.

EDIT: I also had a CD32 which broke and couldn't be repaired because of all of Comadores (sp?) problems at the time even though they had a warehouse full of the chips needed somewhere in Asia.

[PoochJD]

Hi,

My first CD was a German import of the anime soundtrack to "AKIRA" by the Japanese group Geinoh Yamashirogumi! Owned the CD for about 8 months, before I could actually play it, because I was that desperate to have the music! Cost me the best part of £23 from what I remember.

However, I still have the disc, and it's in the same immaculate condition that it was when I bought it, despite numerous playings. Great music too!


Pooch

[Steve N]

Originally Posted by RMCF

1st memory has to be Dire Straits 'Brothers in Arms'.

I remember that when Brothers in Arms came out is was seen as THE CD that gave the technology its first real boost.

In much the same way The Matrix was seen as THE movie that got people going out and buying their first DVD player.

Took me a long time to wean myself off cassettes but IIRC my first CD was Dreamtime by the Cult circa 1984/5.

Still have the CD but bought the remastered version late '90s. Might see what condition the original is in and whether it still plays.