On the 17th August 1982, the worlds first Compact Disc was manufactured at a Philips factory in Germany; a copy of “The Visitors” by ABBA.

To mark the 25th birthday of this piece of technology today, I’m reposting this article I wrote for an old website in 2002. My favourite thing about it is what it doesn’t say, as opposed to what it does— as it was written about a year before the iTunes Music Store opened, apart from a passing reference to MP3s I’ve completely ignored the (at the time almost entirely illegal) music download market which seems to have replaced the tape player/walkman, and presently appears to be the best bet to replace the CD.

I remember the first record I ever owned. I had yet to form any musical opinions or tastes of my own, so the fact that it was a compilation of what someone somewhere judged to be the best singles that they had aquired the publishing rights for that year meant it was pretty much ideal for me at the time.

It also happened to be on CD, which shows that I can’t really hark back to the golden age of when records were records and expect to be taken seriously by anyone. On the other hand, it also shows that this isn’t just some nostalgic rant about the good old days; 2002 was the 20th anniversary of CDs release onto the market.

But that doesn’t change the fact that vinyl is the best available format for a record to be on. (more…)

August 17th, 2007 | Other Media | No comments