Do you remember your first cd?


There was a thread concerning Bose 901s the other night and it started me thinking about how early cds sounded on those speakers. The first cd I purchased was Scarecrow by John Mellancamp way back in 86 I think. That cd sounded ok back then but if I were to put it on now the sound would drive me out of the room. I haven't been able to listen to it since the 901s left. Another early cd is U2s The Joshua Tree which also sounds horrible now.
Just wondering now how many can recall their first cd purchase and whether they are listenable still?
timrhu
My first cd purchase was Bob James Grand Piano and yes it still sounds good today.

Chuck
Milli Vanilli.. I didnt get into digital until the late 80's and I guess I got off to a bad start :~)
Gary Numan - The Fury (1985?)

I still have it and still am a fan.

Brad Day
Atlanta, GA
Dire Straits-Brothers in Arms it was free for joining BMG I didn't even have a player. Now I wanna get the SACD.
First cd was Jimi Hendrix - Live at Winterland. I did'nt even had a cd player then, so I had to wait for my parents to leave so I could play it on their stereo. How the time shave changed..... It still sounds reasonable, and the music is of the finest ever recorded.
Hi, good thread. RUSH-Exit...Stage Left was the
VERY FIRST CD that I bought back in the EARLY SUMMER
of 87. I was a senior in High School and I got it
the FIRST DAY that I got my CD player.
I STILL have that SAME CD to this day.
My first CD was a gift - Bach harpsichord sonatas - received about a year before I had a player (1984).
Dire Straits- Brothers in Arms....still have it.

Now, for us older folks, do you remember your first LP?

Cream- Disraeli Gears.....still have it.
I bought a cd in order to audition my first cd player. "Matthew Ward's Greatest Hits" I had the tape so I had some idea how this music was supposed to sound. He is the lead singer of Acts Chapter 2. The first track sounded awful on a Sony 601ES changer but sounded fine on the Rotel 965LE so I bought the Rotel. That was 5 or so years ago but I still listen to the player and the cd.
Metallica Black album in 1991. I played it on a $10 sears CD boom box, we bought at a garage sale. That was my first CD and my first system. Previous to that I just had a clock radio with a tuner. Music was just something I made myself or I listened at other people's houses.
1st - Dire Straights brothers in arms
2nd - The Who whos better whos best
3rd - Pink Floyd - animals

And yes, I still have them. I'd think that they are the oldest things I own along with my high school diploma, year books, first hammer and first watch(timex - still works). Now I'm really starting to show my age.
My first cd was Neil Young "Harvest" I didnt even own a cd player at the time most of the selctions available at the time were of no interest to me for there were few rock cd's besides Billie Joel. So I had to go out and purchase a cd player I believe it was an early Yamaha player.
My first CD was the Telarc Copland Fanfare for the Common Man/Appalachian Spring/Rodeo disc with Lane and the Atlanta Symphony--still sounds pretty good today. Telarc's early Soundstream recordings were well-made, sound even better on SACD than you'd expect, particularly in the bass, where they've managed to tame the overblown bass drum somewhat.
Count me in for Dire Straits - "Brother in Arms" as well. Also bought it prior to my first digital player. Still one of my favorites!
... purchased at Wall to Wall sound the same day I purchased my first disc player - A Sony 5 disc. What I remember most was how unimpressed I was with CD after all the hype. Thought my Technics SLB-10 w/ pmount AudioTechnica cartridge sounded just as good or better (albeit with more "noise").
Yes - Close to the Edge, 1990, high school graduation present. Sadly it has oxidized and no longer is playable. So much for perfect sound forever. Thankfully, it is the only CD in my possession to have met that fate.
I still have it, Wynton Marsalis, "Standard Time Vol. 3", I bought it from the store I worked at, it had been dropped from the rotation to play in the store and I picked it up for $2. Sadly, being 20 at the time, 1991, I didn't even have a cd player, but I figured for $2 I just couldn't pass it up. I didn't even know I would like jazz at the time, but now I very much do.
Glenn Miller Orchestra - In the Digital Mood
Don Henley - Building The Perfect Beast

Still have both of them. The Glenn Miller was used to demo the speakers I purchased in 1984 which were Polk Audio SDA-1.
1) Rush - "Moving Pictures"
2) Mark Knopfler - "Local Hero"
3) Yes - "The Yes Album"

Eventually upgraded the Rush/MP to MoFi ultradisc and the Yes/YA to Atlantic remaster.

Still have Knopfler disc. So sublime that one.
I borrowed a CD player (CAL I believe) from my local dealer, so I stopped at Tower on the way home. Picked up Joni Mitchell's Hejira, which was a favorite LP and sonic reference. Boy was that disappointing! It was a while before I finally bought a CD player.
can't rememeber my first CD but my first album was the Beatles Hey Jude. Probably says something about the cool factor of CD's..or lack of there of. Can't even clean seeds on 'em
First CD: Aerosmith's Greatest Hits
First LP: Alice Cooper Billion Dollar Babies
MOVIE GREATS from 1986, a CD filled with music from movie soundtracks like Jaws, Out of Africa, Back To The Future, etc...
In anticipation of buying my first CD player (circa 1985), I bought about a dozen CDs, including:
Talking Heads - Fear of Music
- Remain In Light
King Crimson - Discipline
Brian Eno - Desert Island Collection (the individual
albums had not yet been transferred)
Laurie Anderson - Mr Heartbreak

yeah, I guess that was in my Adrian Belew phase ;-)

Dire Straits' Brothers In Arms was certainly a very early purchase.

I still remember how cool my dozen or so CDs looked, standing up in a compact, heh, row, on their own accord, waiting patiently for me to install a player.
Dire Straits Brothers in Arms. It's in my cd player now. I have tickets to see Mark Knopfler in June.
Don Henley's "Building the Perfect Beast." Played on a portable CD player bought in Japan in '84 through my roomate's stereo. Sounded amazing at the time without pops and clicks etc. Played through a lower end hi-fi it was a dramatic improvement. Still sounds good in my current system.
i dont recall my first CD but i remember my reaction,,(this sounds hard and edgy,,i want my turntable back)

I bought the first Peter Gabriel CD and Tchaikovsky's 1812 (Telarc). Believe it or not they were the only two CD's available when I bought my first CDP (I'm guessing this was in 1983). I bought the "perfect sound forever" early on, I apologize to my turntable daily.
cd- flim & the bb's, "neon," ca. 1986
lp- van cliburn, tchaikovskyÂ’s 1st piano concerto, ca. 1959
45- the platters, "great pretender," ca. 1956
Pink Floyd - the final cut.
I remeber - each truck starts at very low volume, so I kept increasing it. And than on track 7, after very low volume, the explosion came. I thought I blew all the windows in the house. I haven't listened to it for a very long time.
Hey Kelly, I was thinking of putting in my first 45, but in my haste I forgot.

96 Tears- by ? and the Mysterians, ca. 1966

I don't still have that one, I wore that sucker out several decades ago.
Cd-Peter Gabriel "So" in 86 or 87 and first lps were The Guess Who (America Woman) and Steppenwolf (Born to be Wild) in 71 I think. Not sure of the titles as they were all stolen while at uni. Had some great blues albums back then also. My first 8 track was the Easy rider soundtrack! I believe my first cassete was Iron Butterfly. Piezo the seed reference brings back old memories. Ever open an old album and found a 30 year old "j" inside. LOL
Larry
My fist lp was American Woman by The Guess Who. Not sure of the year (68 maybe) but it was a new release. Shortly after that I joined Columbia Record Club and ordered Big Brother and the Holding Company, Doors 1st, Blood Sweat and Tears to name a few. What do ya think I was doing while enjoying that music? Wow the memories.
Van Halen - 1984
Tears for Fears - forget name
The Time - Ice Cream Castles
Led Zeppelin - IV

Played on an early JVC CD player
Hey Rosstaman

In the Digital Mood I still have that cd what a great cd. I still listen to it from time to time. My dad also loved that cd as he was a fan of the big band era. He served in WWII God rest his soul.

Chuck
Yes, I remember it. But - must I admit what it was? In my defense, I didn't "choose" it. :)

I worked all summer at the golf course (about age 15 I think) to make enough money to get a Pioneer "rack" system from Sears (LoL) that was $800. I had to earn $1,600 that summer as I made an agreement with my father, I could buy that stereo for $800, if I made $800 to put toward my college tuition. The wise man started making me realize if you work hard enough for it, you appreciate it more. (or I think so) Looking back, unfortunately I could have done much better for the money, but this was before I discovered the "high end"...

Anyhow, I worked all summer to make the dough and thought if I was paying retail for the system I asked the sales guy to throw in a cd, so he went over to the rack and came back with a cd and said, "Here is the #1 cd on the charts. It will sound great on your stereo." It happened to be *cough* Debbie Gibson's debut album. Being the first and only cd I had for a few days, it got much more play time than it deserved.

Well that system travelled with me to Ohio State and after discovering Progressive Audio across from campus and the better gear to be acquired, the Pioneer Rack system served well for spinning tunes at fraternity keg parties... :)

Now if that isn't embarrasing... both the cd & the system!
That's kinda funny. I remember the first LP I bought and that was ten years before CDs came out, but I have no idea what was the name of my first CD.
Liquid Liquid because the dealer couldn't get it on tape. Now it's worth $100. First and last time I made money in hi-fi.
Stop Making Sense by the Talking Heads. It was around 1984. I was living in Boston, working for minimum wage at a left-wing printshop. I had seen the movie with a girlfriend, and was blown away. About that time my roommate bought a stereo with a separate CD player. I didn't even know what a CD was. "Dynamic range" he said. Sure enough, it could play *loud* and clean. Actually I think it was his CD, but I made it mine, pogoing all over the apartment to "Burning down the House" when he wasn't home. Great CD, I'm going to have to buy a copy and relive the old days.

I travelled light for many years, just a little tape player and a lot of LPs (no turntable of my own, though), and finally couldn't stand tapes anymore, bought a CD boombox and what was probably the first CD I actually owned -- U-2s Achtung Baby. It's all intentionally distorted at the beginning -- and I panicekd and almost returned the CD player as defective! Now I listen to much more jazz and vocals (partly because that's what sounds good on my system!), but I still have and like that CD, and actually use it to audition new gear (sounds weird because it's so distorted in places, but one of the early songs starts with the drummer (Larry Mullen) clacking his drumsticks together, and I swear I can tell a lot about a system by how well it reproduces that "clack".

Recently got an LP player and starting playing my old LPs. Man, that resonates in every sense of the word.

- Eric
The first CD I bought was:
The Police-Zenyatta Mondatta in the Summer of 1984.
First CD was Abby Road by The Beatles. Played it on my first CD player - a Sony 5 disk unit. Recently pulled it out of a closet to use when the CD player in my office system went down.

First LP was Iron Butterfly's In-A-Godda-De-Vida, bought in 1969 when I was 12. Still have the album.
Metallica "And justice for all" I used to ride bus to work and would play it on my $300.00 Sony portable CD, now its worth about $20.00 and still turns a profit!