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Monday, October 1, 2012

Hellevant Happy Birthday, Compact Disc!

Posted by on Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 2:34 PM

Although the technology had been around for a while, October 1st is the day in 1982 that the world's first CD players were announced in Japan. The world's first compact disc? Billy Joel's 52nd Street. :(

Here's a fascinating article about the compact disc. Did you know that standard compact disc holds 74 minutes of audio because Furtwangler's 1951 Bayreuth Festival recording of Beethoven's 9th Symphony is 74 minutes long?

The thing I find most fascinating about the CD format was the rush for people to sell their LPs to buy CDs, causing the entire market of used record stores to flourish. Can you imagine what it would be like to be a vinyl enthusiast in 1987 when all of the hippies were selling their records to buy $20 CDs? And then the fact that nobody wanted records, so you could pick up a copy of Jane's Together for $5? What a world!

"The rich man's 8-track tape." - Steve Albini, 1987
"The compact disc is 30 years old today. Happy Birthday and Rest In Peace." - Travis Ritter, 2012
"Man, shuffle is awesome!" - Derek Erdman, 1990

 

Comments (2) RSS

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Dean Fawkes 1
Relatedly, Embrace The Uncool, The Compact Disc, which was spurred on by two other articles: 'I Come Not To Bury The Compact Disc, Bu… and 'In Praise Of CDs'. The latter of which appears to be gone now, but there's the similar and more recent 'An Ode To The Compact Disc'.

Best quote: 'I'm grateful to the CD. I'm not a dick toward it. Don't be so high and mighty about vinyl, you ungrateful bastards'.
Posted by Dean Fawkes http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Author?oid=479789&section=Blogs on October 1, 2012 at 4:21 PM
biju 2
Interesting, I always thought that the first CD ever made was ABBA's "The Visitors"

The Philips factory in Germany, where the world’s first CD was pressed, belonged to Polygram – the recording company, which Philips owned at the time. The first CD to be manufactured at the plant was “The Visitors” by ABBA.
http://www.newscenter.philips.com/main/s…
Posted by biju on October 2, 2012 at 3:29 PM

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