Month: May 2024

I think mine was Alan Parsons Project Ammonia Avenue…

The CD is Dead! Long Live the CD!

It's no secret that I like physical media. After selling nearly all my records in a fit of madness in the late 1980s when I moved to San Francisco (because CDs were the thing), I've spent the last 30 years rebuilding and augmenting my original vinyl collection because records do sound good.  In my quest to do that, I viewed my amassed CD collection as more-or-less disposable. In fact, I sold most of it during a period of extended unemployment while in Denver and never looked back. What remained were discs that held emotional significance for one reason or another and would never be sold no matter how dire my financial state—even though I'd long since stopped playing them. Hell, I didn't even have anything to play them on save for a 90s-era AIWA boombox and a Sony Discman of the same vintage (pictured above). Neither players were what I'd classify as "Hi-Fi" but it didn't matter. Those remaining CDs were in a banker box at the back of my office closet, and all but forgotten.

That was, until some time after the fire, and I realized that box was nowhere to be found. Being forgotten at the time, I didn't think to look for it when we went through the house after the restoration company came through, and when I did realize it was missing, it was too late. It wasn't even listed on the restoration inventory.

Needless to say I was heartbroken—if only because of the sentimental value of those discs. As I wrote about in 2022, I finally decided to stop crying about it, buy a CD player, and start rebuilding my collection. After giving up dealing with that wonky vintage deck, I broke down last fall and bought a new player and since then I've been going a little crazy, taking advantage of the fact that used (and even some new) CDs cost a fraction of new or used vinyl.

And I have to say that I'd forgotten how good these old workhorses actually sound. (As I write this I'm listening to Sylvester's Greatest Hits on that Discman through my Grados at angelic volume and almost orgasming) And when you stop to consider the tech that goes into making them work, it seems close to black magic, even to this relatively tech-savvy guy.

Interestingly, it also seems that CDs are making a comeback. Sales are up for the first time in years. There's just something about physical media that appeals to people—even to the latest generation who grew up on iTunes and streaming.

Sade: Stronger Than Pride (1988)

Kraftwerk: Computer World (1981)