30 Years and many paper cuts later...
So the compact disc recently celebrated 30 years! I still remember the very first time I heard and saw a CD। Flashback to one of the early Record Conferences in Toronto. The Record Conference, as it was known then, was a gathering of all the movers and shakers from the Radio and Recording industry. It’s now called Canadian Music Week, which just wrapped up for ‘09 here in the city, with excellent attendance numbers by the way. Back in the day, they did a panel on the new audio format called the compact disc. Rather than only boost the new format’s musical fidelity, which true audiophiles have derided for years, (saying things like “an acoustic piano on CD doesn’t sound at all like a piano on vinyl”), I can vividly remember that the focus seemed to be the disc’s indestructibility as a key selling point. The presenter doing the unveiling of this strange but miniature ‘silvery record’ stubbed -out a cigarette on it’s face, poured sand all over it, also coffee, threw it to the ground and then like magic, he popped it in the CD deck and it played without any glitches or skips. Anyone who’s ever owned a CD, knows that demonstration may well have been the very last time a CD never skipped.
Happy Birthday my shiny round friend! But here’s the thing….Um…It’s not that I don’t like you on a personal level, but while touting your 30th, it’s a little difficult to really celebrate because looking back, you let me down. Allow me to explain. For starters those graphic designers tried so hard to make your inner sleeve and liner notes something special, but CD, you never matched the vinyl album’s layout capabilities. And my eyes are still out of focus from trying to read microscopic liner notes without the aid of a magnifying glass. Sure…eventually you offered fold out designs and even 3 layered thingies, but it doesn’t even come close to the tactile sensation of holding a proper LP in your hands. For the uninformed, that’s not ‘text –speak’ for Laugh n’ Play; LP means long player. LOL. And one of your biggest sins CD, was what I call the ‘wacky fold’ design। Leaves of glossy paper that have to go back in the case just so, or the cover won’t close at all. Paper cut anyone?Jeeezus, I didn’t know I needed a degree from Origami University to play a friggin’ piece of music!
And there’s more about you CD that I still can’t get right. When vinyl was it, your favourite side of the album just never seemed complete without hearing the stylus go round and round picking up nothing but hiss on what’s been called the ‘lock-groove’. Vinyl afficionados will remember this as the silent loop at the end of the last track on a side, designed to stop the needle and tone-arm from skating all over the label itself. There could be music fans out there, brought up only on CD’s, who've never experienced the sound of a side done.
And what about those mysterious etchings on the very center of the album? Runout groove etchings were the coolest thing ever. Kinda like finding an easter egg on a DVD or video game today, these etchings gave you pause to think ‘is this a mini message from the Artist himself?’...‘Whats that mean?’… 'Who wrote that?’… 'Why’s it written there?’
It’s no surprise that throughout the CD’s reign, many artists put out vinyl versions of their work. Some still do. On the smooth end, Van Morrison has put out vinyl and on the rockier side of things so has Motley Crue. There’s many other artists on vinyl of course and they’re apparently as popular as snowshovels in Winnipeg. In fact, in 2008 1.88 million vinyl albums were purchased, more than in any other year in the history of
Happy Birthday CD, save me some cake. And now that the MP3 has taken over, I wonder if there’s similar nostalgia and fondness for the wayward CD?
Now if I could just get these fold-up liner notes back in the damn case. "Ouch...paper cut".
