What was your first CD?

[Mike Blakesley]

The "first LP" thread inspired me to start one for CDs.

Of course I was around for the debut of CDs, when it was near impossible to get the titles you wanted. The first two I heard were Fleetwood Mac's RUMOURS and Genesis's GENESIS. They were "store demo copies" for a while but I eventually bought them and still have the Genesis. The FM has been replaced with the newer "deluxe edition" from a couple of years ago.

I'm not positive but I think my first A&M CD was FOURSIDER by Sergio Mendes.

What was your first CD?

 

[Harry]

My first CD was actually two first CDs. For Christmas, my wife decided to get me a CD player and naturally, I needed discs to play in it, so she told me to pick out two CDs. The two I picked out were the soundtrack to SOMEWHERE IN TIME and Carpenters THE SINGLES 1969-1973.

Sometime that fall, I think I picked up the Tijuana Brass CHRISTMAS ALBUM. So on Christmas morning, I had three new CDs to play.

Harry

 

[Dave]

Should I get the player first or the CD('s) first??? It was fifteen years ago and back when Montgomery Ward was a booming business, so that's when/where I bought my first CD player, a Pioneer which I still have (and still works so immaculately today)...

OK, the first CD which I bought and put in it and played afterwards...: John Tropea New York Cats Direct; 'cause I was such a fan of New York Session Studio Jazz-Rock at the time...!



Dave

 

[toeknee4bz]

I know it's gonna sound a bit obvious, but it was RISE by Herb Alpert. This was 1986, and I had just graduated high school. My first job co-incided with the market being flooded by the all-new "Digital Audio Compact Disc. " A&M had by this time re-issued the album w/ yet another catalogue number, CD 3274. My second CD was Bob James' 1978 gem TOUCHDOWN.

Tony

 

[Mike Blakesley]

I'm pretty sure my first TJB disk(s) were GOING PLACES, WHAT NOW MY LOVE and BEAT OF THE BRASS. At that point in time I'd tapered off listening to the TJB and didn't see the need to get the other titles. I got CHRISTMAS a few years later, whatever year it first came out on CD.

Later on, I got a copy of WHIPPED CREAM. Since I hardly ever played it, when TJB disks went crazy on the internet I sold that WC disk for $149! (I wonder if that guy feels like a loser now.)

 

[martin]

I think my first CD was a recording of Mozart's 40th Symphony, but no. 2 or 3 was the TJB Christmas Album... This was in 1987.

- greetings from the warm and lovely north -
Martin

 

[Mike]

I’m not 100% sure, but I think it was Humble Pie’s “Rockin’ the Fillmore”

Mike

 

[Captain Bacardi]

My first CDs (I bought a few when I got my first CD player in 1987) were:

Herb Alpert - Classics
Herb Alpert & TJB - Classics
Gato Barbieri - Caliente
VA - Compact Jazz - The Sampler (Verve)
Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue



Capt. Bacardi

 

[JOv2]

Great thread, Mike --

In OCT84 I mail-ordered a Japanese pressing of Kind Of Blue it was 18 bucks!! I wouldn't own a player until JAN86, but I started to stock up early. My first A&M CD was Ornette Coleman's Dancing In Your Head; my first A&M pop CD was Suzanne Vega/Solitude Standing, both from 1988.

 

[Mark-T]

Carpenters Voice of the Heart- I bought the disc and walked into an electronics store to have it played so I could decide whether to buy a new system or not. I KNEW this album. One I heard Ordinary Fool on disc and all the nuances I had been missing, I made a purchase.

 

[Mr Bill]

I hadn't even purchased a player yet (I was saving up for the PIoneer 909 for both CDs and LDs) and bought Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Prevention and Oingo Boingo's second MCA release, Boi-Ngo...

--Mr. Bill

 

[Rudy]

First CDs in 1983:

Earth Wind & Fire: Powerlight
Phil Collins: Hello, I Must Be Going
George Benson: Give Me The Night.

A month or so later,

Donald Fagen: The Nightfly
Jean-Luc Ponty: Individual Choice

By mail order as imports:

Phil Collins: Face Value (Virgin blue-face import with custom label)
Peter Gabriel: Peter Gabriel (4th album, on Charisma)

A few more followed, but it took me a few months to get a CD player. Ended up with a Hitachi (same player that Denon rebranded as their own) that was about $500. Players were hard to come by back then, and even grey market sources were taking months to deliver. When that one died, I got the Sony "D5" Discman portable, followed by a Nakamichi OMS-7.

 

[Phil Fox]

I bought Andrew Lloyd Webber's Song And Dance: The Songs sung by Bernadette Peters. I had been dying to hear these songs from Broadway. However, it was probably another year before I got around to buying a CD player!

Phil

 

[AM Matt]

Pink Floyd "The Dark Side Of The Moon" on Harvest & Rod Stewart "Every Picture Tells A Story" which I bought in Saginaw, MI back in July of 1986. I bought both of them when those were reissued in 1994 (Dark Side) & 1998 (Picture) & threw the CD of "Every Picture Tells A Story" away but kept Pink Floyd because the newer one has a different booklet than the original. Darn it, i wish I had those Herb Alpert solo CD's of "Magic Man", "Blow Your Own Horn", "Fandango" & "Bullish" back then though.

 

[LPJim]

I stuck with LPs for the longest time, not owning a CD player until around 1990 when my parents bought a new player and gave me the old one. My first CD was Glenn Miller's IN THE DIGITAL MOOD (1983), which came with the player.

My first A&M CD was REAL LIFE by Simple Minds, followed by a bunch of Jazz Series digi-packs (still in long boxes) from a cutout bin for $5.99 apiece. When the Modern Masters Jazz Series came out, I bought every one, beginning with the 2-CD by Max Roach and Dizzy Gillespie.

These are pretty hard to find now, so I'm glad I did. The longboxes are still stored in my basement.

JB

 

[Rudy]

I'm actually glad I hung onto most of my earlier CDs--the new "remasters" often sound horrible. I do wish I could have afforded to buy more of the gold CDs from DCC and Mobile Fidelity back in the day.

 

[Murray]

The first CD I purchased was Carpenters - A&M 25th Anniversary Classics Volume 2. I remember being shocked at how much this double album cost, nearly $50! This was in 1987. I didn't know anyone who had a CD player at the time, so I didn't get to hear my CD until a few months later, when my cousin bought a new stereo system. I was amazed at how good the album sounded. I was hearing all sorts of things that I hadn't heard on my Carpenters LPs, which convinced me to buy my own CD player. I didn't know at the time that most of the tracks had been remixed by Richard Carpenter, and this was the real reason the songs sounded so much different.

 

[JOv2]

First CDs in 1983:

Earth Wind & Fire: Powerlight
Phil Collins: Hello, I Must Be Going
George Benson: Give Me The Night.

A month or so later,

Donald Fagen: The Nightfly
Jean-Luc Ponty: Individual Choice

Hey, Rudy -- were these American issues? The first CDs I saw were in 1983-84, but they were all West German or Japanese. All the pop CDs I bought in 1984-85 were West Germany pressings (Paul Simon, Van Dyke Parks, Ry Cooder -- WB issues).

 

[Rudy]

Until the first CD plant opened in the U.S., CDs back then were pressed in Japan and Germany--the Columbia CDs were pressed in Japan, and many on WEA labels were by Polygram in W. Germany, and others were made in Japan as well. (CD collectors would call these "Japan-for-U.S." and "Germany for U.S.", etc.)

The first US plant was DADC (Digital Audio Disc Corp.) owned by Sony in Terre Haute, Indiana. Fittingly, the first CD produced by that factory was Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The USA", later in 1983. DADC discs would have "Digital Audio Disc Corp" stamped in the clear area of the hub. All early CDs were sold in the U.S. as U.S. discs, but were manufactured around the world.

Denon and Nimbus also pressed early CDs.

A friend of mine (who Harry has also met) has a large collection of first pressings, and has just about all of them listed online. He has some rare A&Ms there, including several copies of The Police "Synchronicity" that have many pressing variations. (That area of his shelf is a solid patch of red, yellow and blue on the CD spines. ) In fact, I owned a rarer one myself, that had an old, rarely-used early logo for the Compact Disc, which was covered up by a sticker on the booklet. I also own the red-faced Joe Jackson "Night and Day" CD as well. His site is at http://www.keithhirsch.com .

I also have the rare first pressing of Donald Fagen's "The Nightfly" that was recalled. It is a "target" CD pressing (where the face of the Warner discs looked like a gun target). In the matrix code on the hub, it has an "02" at the end of the matrix code. This was the pressing that was recalled, since they discovered the sound was wrong on the disc (presumably they used an analog tape, if I remember the story correctly from 25 years ago). They recalled these and issued the "03" which was the one most people bought. Early adopter that I was, I had the "02" version...and it wasn't until just last year I found out I owned a recalled disc, and that it is somewhat rare! But the condition it's in, forget about it... I own it on DVD-Audio now, so I'm not even concerned about the sound of the CD anymore.

 

[nightcat]

When I first got a cd player in the 80s, I ran out to a used cd store. (the only one there was in Chicago at that time). I was shocked to find The Newest Sound Around by Jeanne Lee & Ran Blake on cd! Of course I bought it. Great album, just a singer and pianist. Very moody, dark and mysterious.... a classic. Not many know about this strange album. It was odd to see it on cd as it never sold that well when RCA released the LP in the early 60s. If you ever get a chance, check out their haunting version of Laura.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

I did the CD player thing in 1985 (a $250 Magnavox...it's in the garage now...wonder if it still works?). Bought 3 new CDs at Tower Records near UNLV in Las Vegas to christen it:

Donald Fagen: The Nightfly

Dire Straits: Brothers In Arms

Madonna: Like A Virgin

All because all three were DDD...pure digital.

My vinyl setup in those days was so good, that I didn't even bother with getting CD copies of what I already owned on LP...so my first A&M CD was probably Sting's Dream Of The Blue Turtles followed by Janet Jackson's Control.

---Michael Hagerty

 

[seashorepiano]

First CD? Probably a classical CD, either baroque or romantic, in the mid '90s. First jazz CD? Dave Brubeck's Time Out, I believe. First A&M CD was possibly Jobim's Wave.

 

[KentTeffeteller]

Hi,

I took the first Philips CD Player repair course in 1983. Got my first 3 Compact Discs upon completion and a certificate for 5 more free. 2 of the first 3 were the Philips test CD set. The last one was "Hear The Light". My 5 CD titles from PolyGram labels were: Rod Stewart "Every Picture Tells A Story", Stan Getz "Jazz Samba", Billie Holiday "Songs For Distingue Lovers" Cream's "Disraeli Gears" and The Moody Blues "Days Of Future Passed". 3 months later, Philips gives me a refurbished FD 1000SL top load player as a gift. My first 2 A&M CD releases were Carpenters "The Singles, 1969-1973 and Styx "The Grand Illusion" which immediately followed. I have a Magnavox FD 1010SL top load player the company gave me when they discontinued them and a slew of spare parts. This was in Knoxville, TN (North American Philips headquarters then).

 

[JMAR5]

MILES DAVIS.........................On the Corner
and then Kalidescope World by Swing Out Sister
Greatest Hits on Earth-Fifth Dimension