Farewell to CDs

I know this may seem premature, but I am here to bid farewell to the Compact Disc. I grew up listening to LPs, those 12 inch round discs with grooves on each side that played music when touched with a diamond (or sapphire) needle. As I was growing up there was a brief coo in the status quo when the eight track tape showed up, but this wen away quickly, and the LP still reigned. As I was in high school a lot of people switched to cassette tapes. For the most part I held out, other than making taped copies of my records to play in my car. When I got to college some of my friends were switching to the perfect sound quality and indestructible composition of the Compact Disc. At the time the players were quite pricey, so I resisted technology.

As my college graduation approached, I found out my parents were planning on getting me a CD player, and I began buying CDs. My first was Michael W. Smith's The Big Picture followed by Vangelis' Chariots of Fire Soundtrack. I would listen on the CD players in the college library while I studied. The sound was so pure, so crisp and full. I knew music would never be the same. It had finally reached its full potential.

But as the CD aged it did not do so gracefully. The wonderfully built SONY player that I got for graduation lasted over 10 years before giving out. This kind of quality was replaced by $29 throw-aways from Walmart that may last a year if you're lucky. The booming sounds and subtle nuances of of the early CDs gave way to a barrage of mediocre music that in no way put the superior sound quality of CDs to the test (of course the blame for this lies not in the media, but in the music makers).

Then we were blessed with the internet, and mp3 files and pirated music. I knew CDs had nothing to fear, because the slow down load time and poor quality of these files. Music purists would never go for that. But then Apple invented this iPod and sound quality and storage size kept getting better. Now even my mom has an iPod (and I still don't and I'm dang envious). And so as the digital music age emerges we bid farewell to the CD. And in doing this I want to share a few things that tick me off about CDs before they go.

First of all I have always hated te CD for ruining album cover art. The 12 inch square that held an LP was the perfect canvas for amazing works of art (think Sgt Pepper's, or Kansas' Point of Know Return)

But the 5 inch size of a CD jewel box has stunted the art of album covers and reduced must covers to just a photo of the artist or band.

Another thing that bothers me about CD's especially in recent years is the compulsion to release several versions of the same CD. The way this works is an artist will release there CD with 10-13 songs. Fans will buy spend their hard earned money to rush out and buy the disc. Six to twelve months later the artist suddenly decides there were 5 or 6 more songs that should have been on that CD. So instead of giving us a new CD, they release a special deluxe edition with all the original cuts, plus a few new ones, tack an extra $3 on the price and resell to the same fans who of course must buy it to support their favorite artist. No wonder so many people just pirate music on line.

And along with the annoying special editions we have the "bonus tracks" and "Hidden tracks". Bonus tracks usually come when an older album is rereleased to CD, and some record executive decides instead of the classic "Dark Side of the Moon" you want a bunch of songs the band threw out when the released the classic, so they give you "Both Sides of the Moon" (note, so far this has NOT happened to the Pink Floyd classic, but it has to many other greats). I do not need alternate mixes or live versions tacked on to the front back or middle of a classic album. If you have extra songs, just save up enough to make a whole CD of extras. And most annoying are "hidden tracks" This is when some silly track or studio outtake is put on the end of a CD after 3 or more minutes of silence. This is supposed to be a nice surprise for listeners, but to me, I don"t want the silence. If I'm listening in my car and it goes to silence, I think something is wrong and I need to fix it. I probably have 20 or more CDs with "Hidden tracks" I've never heard because I just skip to the next track. I swear when I get an iPod I will not put any silence in, and will hide NO tracks.

Good bye CDs we'll miss you, go join theLP the cassette and the 8track in the music graveyard. NOW SOMEONE PLEASE GIVE ME AN iPOD!!!