Very First CD Purchase

[SunRunner2]

This is primarily for individuals born well before the advent of CD's, say before the late 1960's. If you are like me in this regard, you may recall the specific time and circumstances which surrounded that fatal first step into CD media land. Initially, there was a very limited selection available, so that limitation played a big part in your first CD purchase. I was fascinated with what I read about the technology and anxious to dive headlong into it. This is my story:

Relocated to a new job in Chicagoland on January 2, 1986.

Received a relocation bonus from my employer and decided to buy two big ticket items, a waterbed and a newly released Pioneer CD player.

Went to Rose Records in suburban Chicago and bought my first two CD's in late February, 1986.

They were:

Lyle Mays - Self Titled
Hiroshima - Another Place

Needless to say, I still have and play the Lyle Mays solo release. The Hiroshima CD is gone. The waterbed is also long gone (I should have bought CD's instead).

[Lopez]

I fought the urge to abandon vinyl for years until I saw at a used record store in Boston in 1995 or so Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac Live at the Marquis (with Bob Brunning on bass). Just had to have it. I had a friend record it onto a cassette for me so I could listen to it as I didn't have a CD player.

[Fracktured]

I think it was 1984 when I got Bruckner Symphony no 7 Herbert von Karajan

[Morphy65]

ABWH - so it must have been sometime in 1989. I bought it from Our Price Records, a long defunct music chain in the UK, in Salisbury, just after I purchased my first CD player which lasted until 2019!

[nosebone]

ABWH - so it must have been sometime in 1989.

Same CD, same year, from a CD/record club.

[JKL2000]

First was the Manzanera & Mackay offshoot The Explorers. Soon after was Roger Waters’ Radio KAOS. My college brainiac roommate had gotten a CD player. He was deadly serious that no one was to leave it paused too long so as to not wear out the laser. Circa 1987.

[ronmac]

Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture performed by the Chicago Symphony.

Real canons, of course.

[Munster]

El Corazon by Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell, in 1987. My first CDs were all on the ECM label; CDs were made for the shimmering silences recorded by Manfred Eicher!

[progcd54]

Back in the early '80's (1984), I was told to "invest in CD's". So I bought "Dark Side Of the Moon" by Pink Floyd (of course...DAH!!) It was a Japanese import on the Harvest/EMI label and cost $28.00. I still have it though later releases sounded much better.

At that time CD's were not manufactured in the US. Interesting to note that I did not own a CD player yet. I can't remember the first one of those that I bought. Oh...and of course the CD's I was told to "invest in" were actually "Certificates of Deposit" at a bank...LOL. Too bad I didn't as those earned a VERY high rate of interest back then. Not any more....

[Koreabruce]

Mine was also the Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture but performed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra led by the late Erich Kunzel. This was summer 1985, I think. I loved the note on the label: "WARNING! Digitally Recorded LIVE Cannons!" This was a 1978 recording made by Telarc International, and if you're familiar with their output, you'll know that the fidelity of all of their recordings was superb. Interestingly, I had purchased this same release on vinyl the year before, but my turntable wouldn't track the cannon shots.

[Mister Triscuits]

My first CDs were a Christmas gift from my wife to be, who had bought us a CD player. They were King Crimson's Discipline and Marillion's Fugazi. The year was 1984.

[walt]

If memory serves, it was Soft Machine 7.

[Steve983]

Mine was the first cd version of Fragile by Yes, I think in 1989 when I first got a cd player. The first new album that I bought was the ABWH album which I still have.

[Halmyre]

I won a 4 CD box set of Peter Greenaway/Michael Nyman soundtracks c.1988, so went out a bought a CD player. Still got it (Philips CD610). First CD I bought was Born to Run. Didn't buy a lot of CDs at first, they were too bloody expensive - about £12-£15 IIRC. Around the mid 90s a local CD shop did a 3 for £20 deal and my collection expanded rapidly.

[progmatist]

My first CD was Scatterbrain Scamboogery in the late 90s, real cheap from a thrift store. CD players were still fairly expensive at the time. I added a CD-ROM drive and sound card to my computer, and was finally able to play CDs from the computer to the stereo.

[Vic2012]

I resisted CDs until the early 2000s. I couldn't find vinyl anywhere in the 90s so I bought cassette albums. Don't remember the first CD I bought but might have been a used CD.

[SunRunner2]

My first CD was Scatterbrain Scamboogery in the late 90s, real cheap from a thrift store. CD players were still fairly expensive at the time. I added a CD-ROM drive and sound card to my computer, and was finally able to play CDs from the computer to the stereo.

Come on, progmatist, you're making that one up, aren't you? If not, it's the greatest and worst band name ever (at the same time)! I guess I better look it up.

[Brad 2 the Bone]

A very scratched used copy of Boston's "Third Stage" at a pawn shop in October or November 1991. I didn't own a CD player yet but already knew I was getting one for Christmas.

[Digital_Man]

I don't really remember for sure but it might have been Big Generator by Yes in late 1987. I remember at that time only the eighties Yes(except for Drama), Fragile, CTTE, TYA and Classic Yes were available on cd. Eventually the others started trickling in one by one a couple of years later.

[arturs]

I resisted buying a CD player as long as I could, but great stuff started coming out that *I thought* was CD-only. I bought my CD player in 1990 specifically because I wanted Renaissance Tales of 1001 Nights Vols. 1 and 2. Later I realized that the Renaissance compilations were available on cassette as well.

Throughout the 1990s though I bought a lot CDs I also kept buying cassettes of pop and world music and the like that I was taking a chance on because cassettes were much cheaper at the time. I only bought CDs of music I was really sure I wanted, and thought I would want for a long time.

[MudShark22]

Asia - Asia

It was first vinyl I bought with my own cash.
First cassette when I got my car in 86
And first CD in 89 (longbox) when I got my Technics CD player

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

[progmatist]

Come on, progmatist, you're making that one up, aren't you? If not, it's the greatest and worst band name ever (at the same time)! I guess I better look it up.

They were a real band. A metal comedy/political satire band. Their song Don't Call Me Dude received regular airplay on MTV's Headbangers Ball.

[chalkpie]

I got into CDs right in the beginning around 1983 or 84 or so (I was 11 or 12)...first was Lionel Richie Can't Slow Down. No joke. No Jacket Required was very close next too.

[Dave (in MA)]

My wife bought me a CD player for Christmas in 1984, an ADC CD-100x that I still use.

I went to the record store and saw the small selection of CDs that they had available. I picked Al Di Meola - Tour de Force Live and Oregon's self-titled ECM release, having never actually heard them before but remembered reviews that I'd read. I now have everything they've released.

[UnephenStephen]

i do remember the first player i owned - a Sony single disc player.
as far as CD's, in and around 1988, i bought 6 at the same time at a place called Nobody Beats the Wiz as a result of a sale so there wasn't one in particular. at one time i could remember 3 of the 6 but now it's down to one.. Nursery Cryme by Genesis so at least it's pertinent to this forum.