When did you buy your first CD?

[GA Russell]

In late '87 I noticed that the stores gave about half their floor space to CDs, so I gave my sister's family for Christmas a CD deck.

A year later I went into a store and was surprised to see that it had no LPs. I realized that the writing was on the wall, so in early December of '88 I used my birthday money to buy my first CD player and two CDs - Manfred Mann Chapter III and The Beach Boys' Christmas Album.

[Spontooneous]

Late '86 or early '87. It was a cheap used copy of Elvis Costello's "King of America," at the dear departed Exile Records in Overland Park, KS. I picked that title because my LP copy sounded lousy.

Didn't have a CD player at the time, so it was played at other people's houses. I'd accumulated about a dozen CDs before buying a Magnavox player in '87 that I still have.

[Victor Christensen]

1992 Eric Dolphy "At The Five Spot, vol. 1", I had just got a CD Player as a gift from my Mother-In-Law.

Vic

[Peter Johnson]

1985--Robert Palmer "Riptide"--got it at a music store on 10th Avenue in Portland, OR across from the main library (folks from PDX will remember the name of the place, which is slipping my mind at the moment).

I also did not have a CD player--but the disc/package was such a cool, novel "object" that I had to have it. CD player came two years later, a Yorx front-loading (tilt-out tray) that I bought at Fred Meyer for fifty bucks. It lasted ten years!

[Shawn]

1987

First discs...

Metallica - Garage Days Re-Revisited

Metallica - Kill 'Em All

Jimi Hendrix - Smash Hits

Deep Purple - In Rock

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

[Free For All]

1987, Sketches of Spain.

Shortly after that there was a big Blue Note cutout sale at Camelot Records in the mall- they had a ton of BN CDs for 2.99 each. They all had a big sawed notch on them. Still, a great deal and what got me going on my CD collection.

[AndrewHill]

1991 Miles Davis Vol. II, in the longbox

[jeffcrom]

I started buying CDs pretty early on - I think it was 1984. I know that I got a CD player as soon as prices under $200 became common. My first three CDs (I don't remember the order), were Frederick Fennell and the Cleveland Symphonic Winds playing the Holst band suites on Telarc, a Japanese Moanin' by Blakey, and a German Sweet Rain by Stan Getz. I know that I was early enough in the CD boom that it was hard to find CDs that I wanted to buy. And I never did any wholesale disposal of my LPs, thank goodness.

And pardon me if I've told this story before. That first CD player served me well, but after several years it became somewhat unreliable, and would stop playing partway through a disc. I thought I would keep it until it totally died, which led to a minor disaster. I was playing disc two of the Complete Charlie Parker on Verve when the CD player stopped playing again. I cursed a little and went about my business. But a few minutes later, I smelled something burning, and realized that the smell was coming from the CD player. I ran over, hit eject, and found to my horror that, while the motor had died, the laser had continued to work. So disc two of this expensive box set now had a hole burned through it. The happy ending is that Polygram sent me a new disc at no charge.

[Free For All]

But a few minutes later, I smelled something burning, and realized that the smell was coming from the CD player. I ran over, hit eject, and found to my horror that, while the motor had died, the laser had continued to work. So disc two of this expensive box set now had a hole burned through it. The happy ending is that Polygram sent me a new disc at no charge.

[Chas]

I bought my first CD purely by accident in 1993. Mosaic mistakenly sent me the 2-CD Freddie Redd box instead of the 3-LP Redd set I had ordered. Rather than send it back, I took it as a sign that it was time to be a little less zealous in my rearguard action against the digital onslaught, notwithstanding the fact that at that time the economics still favored analog music (I was buying 3 or 4 LPs for the price of 1 CD).

[brownie]

The vinyl fanatic in me refused to purchase CDs when they appeared. Did not like the sound.

Gave in in the late 80s when Blue Note Japan released CDs of favorite albums with bonus tracks. That was in pre-TOCJ days!

It's been a losing battle ever since and now I have managed to squeeze hundreds of CDs in my place.

[Adam]

1986 or 87, junior year of college, two years before I had any sort of CD player to play it on, but friends had players:

The Waterboys - Fisherman's Blues

[Patrick]

1986 or 87, junior year of college, two years before I had any sort of CD player to play it on, but friends had players:

The Waterboys - Fisherman's Blues

Same here. At a Rose Records in suburban Chicago with my roommate who had a player. 4 or 5 BN cutouts which largely served as my intro to the label and the genre. Midnight Blue, The Real McCoy, Rollins at the Vanguard, maybe Adams Apple. Still among my absolute favorites, picked based on name recognition of players and/or how cool the cover looked.

[Dmitry]

Several posts mention BN cut-outs in the late 1980s-early 1990s. Cut-outs are cds or lps deleted from the label's catalog, as we know. BN would delete cd titles only a couple of years after pressing them?

[Clunky]

I bought my first CDs in January 1987, I didn't hate LPs but had become frustrated by crappy pressings. Robert Parker's Fats Waller collection was my first jazz and my first CD my next two were Kind of Blue and an early Japanese BN of Somethin Else. Being a student I didn't have much of an LP collection any way ( around 150 LPs or so of rock/pop). I didn't sell any LPs but built my CD collection from then. About 6 years ago courtesy of the "what vinyl are you spinning" thread I invested in a half decent TT (Rega P3) and then realised the error of my ways. I still by CDs but prefer to go for LP if possible.

Edited January 5, 2011 by Clunky

[jeffcrom]

Several posts mention BN cut-outs in the late 1980s-early 1990s. Cut-outs are cds or lps deleted from the label's catalog, as we know. BN would delete cd titles only a couple of years after pressing them?

I know that I bought some BN cut-outs around that time.

[Chuck Nessa]

These occurred when EMI finally had their own cd plant up and running. Previously, all their cds were manufactured by the Columbia/Sony owned plant and that operation provided warehousing for EMI. When the relationship ended, EMI deleted all the titles and dumped the inventory. Later EMI offered new pressings of these titles on a "one time, no return" basis to stores - these were the "collectors classics" or whatever they were called.

[Dmitry]

Thanks for the explanation. Chuck, the early EMI-made cds were called the 'Collector's Choice' series.

[Spontooneous]

These occurred when EMI finally had their own cd plant up and running. Previously, all their cds were manufactured by the Columbia/Sony owned plant and that operation provided warehousing for EMI. When the relationship ended, EMI deleted all the titles and dumped the inventory. Later EMI offered new pressings of these titles on a "one time, no return" basis to stores - these were the "collectors classics" or whatever they were called.

Thank you, Chuck! I've been wondering about that since 1987. I bought a LOT of those cutouts and still enjoy most of them.

[GA Russell]

FFA, that's my belly laugh of the day!

"No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!"

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

1992, bought a mail-order Queen bootleg, before i had a player. funny thing is its the only cd i have that is bronzing real bad--- its just coincidence that the 1st cd i bought is bronzing, cause i bought it in 1992, i have cds that are way older ,but yea thats my 1st

[porcy62]

Haydn, some late symphonies, Karajan, DG. It was in the 84/85, probably. I bought Philips CD100 as well, the first cd player on the market. Cds were the easy way for long time, when I moved home twice in a years. Now I have a real house and a good TT, too damn heavy for moving

Edited January 5, 2011 by porcy62

[JohnJ]

Bought a CD player in Tokyo when they first appeared on the market so I guess 1984. First CD was probably Boz Scaggs - Silk Degrees - which I still have and which still plays fine. They were expensive then though, 3,500 yen or over $40 at today's exchange rate (of course the dollar was much stronger in 1984!)

[Peter Friedman]

1984 - There were very few jazz CDs available. I did find a few Pablo (Japanese) CDs which were among the very first I acquired. There were many more classical music CDs around, and as I had just purchased

my first CD player, I stocked up on those. This resulted in my re-awakened interest in classical music. I had listened to a lot of classical music in the 60's, but drifted away from it after that until the CD era came around.

[RDK]

I believe my first was in '84 or '85. I actually bought a CD before I bought a player (though I no longer remember why; I probably had someone tape it for me so that I could listen to it until I eventually got the player). My first CD may have been Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms, though I also remember Keith Jarrett's Standards Live and Charlie Haden's Ballad of the Fallen being among the firsts.