But today it was different. It was much more personal, and as I reached the end of my final sentence, I decided it was more fitting to post here - in a place where my published opinion and career as a member of the music industry are followed.
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27 years ago today, the CD player was born. I vaguely remember them being a considerable amount of money, but my memory tells me that my family didn't get one until about 1992.
Can that be right? I remember tapes and tapes and even 8-tracks (my parents were never that big on vinyl, though there's an interesting but modest collection in their den), but did CDs fit into my 80s experience? I honestly cannot remember. That also begs the question: do people still have dens? My parents' house has a den and a living room. Are those the same now?
In any case, my first CD was Green Day's Dookie (with the banned Ernie puppet on the back cover). Shortly after that, Garbage's self-titled debut, Smashing Pumpkin's Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness, Nirvana's Nevermind and Michael Jackson's HIStory came as birthday and Christmas gifts. I remember how special I felt, after inheriting my sister's first compact stereo system. I used that machine for years. Nine Inch Nail's Downward Spiral would go on to be both one of my all-time favorite albums as well as one that I wouldn't buy, in CD form, until I'd graduated college. I spent my high school years constantly re-playing the dubbed cassette I'd made from my bio lab partner's CD, and the same holds true for Marilyn Manson's Anti-Christ Superstar.
I fell in love with Led Zeppelin through a cassette tape that a boy made me when I was 14. I listened to it the morning he moved away for college and cried in my bed. I had made him a Tori Amos "best of" in return. During college, a guy communicated a break-up through cassette tape. There were hundreds of miles between us and I sneer at the thought of him still. My ego was cracked harder than my heart, but I still remember the songs on the tape, which only took up about 15 minutes of plastic, polyester film.
And Tori Amos...she was my hero in high school. If I remember correctly, I own about 80 of her CDs: albums, singles and bootlegs. Back then the UK import singles came in two parts, and I would dilligently buy both from Tower Records in Huntington, NY (now out of business) whenever I laid eyes on them. For months I found the same goddamn issue of Caught A Lite Sneeze, and was thrilled when I got my hands on the UK version. It had a different cover - taken from the Boys For Pele photo shoot - and B-sides I'd never known about. Still, I wanted it all. I wanted the German version, and would gladly pay over $9.99 to get it. The funny thing is that it was the same artwork as the US version. It also contained two of four B-sides already on the domestic...but there was a third. It was called "Hungarian Wedding Song," and clocked in at exactly 60 seconds. It was childish and nonsensical but when I walked into Tower Records on one of my Saturday visits...there it was.
And it was all mine.
There were no waffles.fm or what.cd accounts. I don't even think Napster existed at the time, and I wouldn't get the internet until sometime in 1997. It was my moment...my music, my format and my money. I can still hear the click of the magnet in the top corner of my stereo cabinet. Push in...click...release. A wall of glass glided towards me and the modest facade of my CD/cassette/radio system with detached speakers was before me like the monolith in 2001. It was beautiful.
With all that said, the New York Times published a much talked about story about Downtown 161 records this week, and the point I took from it was this: people cling to vinyl and continue to cultivate an unavoidable digital music library. That's all. Cassettes receive affectionate attempts of ressurrection because of the endearing nostalgia of "the mix tape," but CDs and 8-tracks dont's have that. For the commercial consumer, the latter was never possible and the prior is just too cold, plastic and lifeless. Example: a music fiend can look at a vinyl record - just look at it - and remember key moments in their longtime affair with music. I truly don't believe that catharsis can come to life with a CD until after the play button has been triggered.
I'm not old enough to start prefacing my anecdotes with "When I was your age" to anyone, but college graduation is a distant memory and the woes of car insurance, 401k's and mutual funds are as staple as morning coffee. I'm part of the last generation that saw ghettoblasters as a top-selling model, and not kitsch factor. I remember when the mp3 came out. Reading about the birth of the CD during its death or journalists referring to the domino-like shutdown of brick & mortar record stores like a pandemonium of the past finds me sitting here thinking about the music collector. If we don't have a tangible format, will those private, bedroom moments still exist for future generations? While you can still stick the title tape that you carefully removed from the top spine of your new CD on the dashboard of your car in the record store's parking lot, it's just not the same. I cherish my relationship with music as equally material as I do metaphysical, but as I find more and more of my library existing in my iTunes...what will be lost?
