(this was my favorite song at age 6).
It's true. I romanticize the days when I would skip lunch to buy a CD. It seems my getting older plus the overabundance of free mp3's has devalued music, at least on a personal level. It's difficult to appreciate something until you've been deprived of it.
I remember the first time touching and listening to a compact disc. I believe it was the summer of '87, when my parents had returned from their Europe trip. They brought back about dozen discs, of which 3 of them still remain in my memory: "Essential Mozart," "Single Man" by Elton John, and another disc with a promiscuous looking women wearing a wedding dress. I was six at the time, and I dared not listen to the CD with the sexy women while my parents were home. It wasn't until years later I realized I had secretly listened to Madonna's "Like a Virgin." This was long before I knew a word of English of course.
(Madonna's Like a Virgin Cover. Even at age six, I found her music to be disappointing. I much preferred Elton John at the time, but I found myself starring at this women over and over again. I don't think it was so much the sex appeal aspect since this was long before my puberty; rather, it's her attitude that always struck me interesting)
Though advantages of compact discs were clear, it wasn't until mid 90's when CD's completely drowned out the cassette tapes. I hated cassette tapes - they were one thing on earth I hated more than VHS. All that rewinding, fast forwarding, and figuring out which side is side A or B immensely annoyed me.
Why in the world, you may ask, would I listen to cassette tapes when CD were already invented? Two reasons. One, we only had one CD player in the house, which was in the living room. Two, I did not have money to buy CDs (or cassettes for that matter).
What I did do, was to buy blank cassette tapes and record songs that played on the radio. I guess this was an early version of illegal downloading sorta to speak.
(This is back in 91. Oh man I wanted to be just like him when I grew up.)
(Yes kids, Mark Wahlberg used to be a rapper. He was too cool to go by his real name, so he preferred to be called Marky Mark. Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch to be exact.)
During this time, CDs identified you. Obtaining the newest and the coolest CD by an artist was the fastest ticket of gaining admiration and jealousy from friends.
Two of my favorite CDs purchased during this time is probably The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and Third Eye Blind. I still remember the day I bought Lauryn Hill's wonderful CD. I ripped up the CD cover as soon as I came out of the store, and I listened to it in the car without driving because I wanted to devote 100% of my attention to her.
Towards the end of 90's, mp3s started to emerge, and friends borrowed CD's from friends and stored it on their computer. At the end of millennium, napster was invented, and the era of CDs began its demise.
Though mp3s have long overtaken CD's as the hegemonic form of music, there is still something sensible about purchasing and listening from a CD. From annoying wrappers to the sound of the CD's initial spin, and the featured art work on the cover, CDs feature a unique mixture of analogue product and digital music.
I wrote this piece because purchasing Corinne Bailey Rae's second album reminded me what purchasing CD used to be like. Buying this CD is more than just purchasing a product or supporting an artist. It's to reminisce and to re-experience the nostalgia once felt by a destitute teenager from Korea who had to starve a week to listen to precious music he loved.
No comments:
Post a Comment