Happy birthday, CDs!

Thanks for the reminder. My second CD was Beastie Boys' "Licensed to Ill." I got my first CD player from my parents for my birthday in 1987.

I wonder why "52nd Street" was chosen to be the first CD. By 1982, had already been out for a few years.

 

Incorrect. It was Thin Lizzy.

 

You're both wrong; it was Wilco.

 

I remember my father bringing home a CD player for the first time. We didn't have any CDs so we walked across the street to the store and each got to pick one out. I picked Queen's Live at Wembley, which I still have. I don't have an MP3 player or iPod or anything, so we still listen to CDs. My 5-year-old son spent his allowance on CDs yesterday, picking up SpongBob's Greatest Hits, Beatles For Sale and Chuck Berry's Greatest Hits. He has a wide-range of tastes.

 

First CD player I had was a Discman that looked a lot like this:



My uncle was a bigshot sales guy with Colgate in southern California and he had a garage full of these as part of some promotion. My mother was on vacation out there and brought it back. I was pretty pumped but it turned out to be a complete piece of shit. It was eventually stolen out of my brother's car and he didn't miss it either.

 

Also, I remember I paid $18.99 for my first CD at a Sam Goody-type record store in the mall because it was the only place in my area you could buy them.

 

I dunno, maybe for a weekend or something it would be cool to go back to those days. There was always a real community in those stores, it was the same people you would see at concerts, the place I could get a cheap issue of Billboard every week and the staff was always great at pointing you towards something you would like based on what you had bought before or helping a neophyte like me find his way around the worlds of blues and jazz.

Mind you, I don't mind a few mouse clicks to find out what's available than rasslin' with one of these things:



Anyone else remember the Phonolog?

 

First one I bought was this:



Had been into smooth jazz to that point with a few David Sanborn and Kenny G albums, so it wasn't a far trip to what was then called New Age, but was really just instrumental. My roommate had bought a CD player so I started buying CDs and putting them on cassette for in the car.

I was blown away by the sound quality and how this CD just sounded so beautiful. I have four more CDs by him and that record label also helped me discover the greatness of Billy Joe Walker Jr., who was putting out some great acoustic guitar instrumentals.

Here's one:

 

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