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

[skreidle]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[iblis_kukl]

I remember the 1980s all too well, and this is still unfathomable to me. (I swear, American Psycho is the best 80s nostalgia flick ever made...hated, hated, hated that fucking decade.)

eliazar

[skington]

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?)

[skiriki]

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.

[ungulata]

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.