AlanP: how would you feel to know that the £10.99 you spent on a Phil Collins CD in 1985 is the equivalent of over £32 today? I think I know what my response would be.
I too bought CDs before I had a player - some sort of future-proofing, I suppose. I would record them to tape temporarily using friends’ systems. First disc I bought was Jarre’s Waiting for Cousteau in summer 1990. First CDP was a Technics SLP75 (or something like that) in early 91 for £235. No, I don’t want to know what that’s the equivalent of today, thank you.
Dave , Loved the fact that Alf featured the 12’’ inch mix of “All Cried Out” on the new fangled cd thingy. Hoped that this was a sign of things to come and perhaps better value for money with the extra playing time
Yep, that 12" mix was the highlight of the CD, I thought.
Mind you, have a listen to Fink doing the same song on his “Biscuits For Breakfast” album … sometimes the cover version manages to surpass the original, IMHO.
As an aside, us early adopters of CD players must surely remember the item on the Beeb’s “Tomorrows’ World” when they smeared a CD in marmalade before inserting it into the player, just to show us that it would still play … I somehow managed to resist doing that with Alison’s album!
Thanks for that Ebor, £32 wow,that’s scary.Obviously we knew the price differential at the time between the new silver discs and vinyl.So with this in mind I kept a note of the purchases I made against vinyl to compare if this was really going to be a costly format.I have to admit though that I was completely sold on cds and apart from current 12’’ singles stopped buying records completely.- cue cd v vinyl argument and how foolish I have been
I bought a Phillips CD104 in late 1985 and these two discs along with (I think) the fourth, untitled Led Zeppelin album. I already had the Led Zeppelin on vinyl, of course, but thought I’d see what it was like on CD. The big advantage I soon discovered with CD was that quiet passages on classical albums were truly quiet, with no annoying clicks and pops. I still have all three albums, although I never bothered to rip the Zeppelin.
Hard to remember which was the first. Almost certainly a classical CD as it was in that area that CD scored best with its lower noise floor and better dynamic range than vinyl. For me that would have been 1989 or 1990, at the same time as buying my first CD player, a Cambridge CD2 - the first CD player that sounde good, to my ears.
The first non-classical, bought around tge same time, was, I think, Tanita Tikaram’s Ancient Heart.
Funny… I bought my first vinyl at 14 in 1979 and I very vividly remember which one it was, the store, even the proprietor… not so for my first CD which was 11 years later… but I was quite a bit into REM, U2 and the Cure at the time …
Bought on the day of release 22nd September 1987. I remember the day vividly…
The Smiths had already split up by the time the album was released. I was 16 at the time and they were my world. I was crushed when they split up and emotions were still raw. Listening to their last ever album for the first time was full of emotions.
I remember sitting on my bedroom floor leaning against my bed listening to ‘’Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me’’.
If you don’t know the song it has a long intro with ambient noise of an audience screaming and shouting, then the track kicks in with a stab of strings. At this point it all became too much and tears streamed down my face. I knew I’d never hear another new album or see them live again, part of my life was over forever. Remember when music meant that much to you?
Went to University Audio in Cambridge while visiting my sister and needed a disk for demo, so “The Present” by the Moody Blues seemed the best of a bad lot.
This was a few months after the introduction of CD so not much choice of disc or player: something decidely odd about the Sony player (it’s timing was up the spout and everything sounded very disconnected), but all seemed sweetnes and light with the Marantz CD63 (the original top loader). Didn’t buy player for a few months, which came from Superfi in Lincoln, now sadly gone (Superfi, not Lincoln )
It developed a fault and, after a few months of waiting (why did we put up with that kind of ‘service’ back then ?) they replaced it with a brand spanky new black one - sounded better and search was much quicker (original took around 15 seconds to get to the last track on a disc (that wasn’t the fault) - the new one was around 5 seconds).
Also noticed that the channels were reversed on “The Present” with regard to the vinyl, wrote to Polygram who promised a new one when it was re done. Years later it turned up, still reversed !! Not sure if the remaster from 2008 is reversed; I don’t have the original vinyl or CD anymore to compare with.
My first cds were actually Metallica Rare Tracks Vol. 1 & 2. These were Italian pressed bootlegs. I recorded them on my parents Technics Midi system onto TDK SA cassettes! I was 14 at the time and 2 CD’s were not an insignificant investment BUT I was a massive Metallica fan!
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