And, since I'm already here, I might as well kick it off.
Pete brings up a good point. Like many others, I had amassed a fairly large collection of vinyl which I was oh-so careful with, holding them by the very edge, replacing them into their covers as soon as I was finished listening to them and before I got another one out. I can't remember the actual number of records I had, but it was well over 300 - all of which were stored in Peaches record crates (there's a blast from the past, huh?
)
The day I bought my first CD was also the day I bought my first CD player. This was in April of 1986. It was a Pioneer 5-disk carousel (which I still have - sentimental reasons, I guess...) and it cost $350.00.
My how times have changed. And, the first CD I bought was Journey ROR.
Side Note: That same day, I also per-ordered the much anticipated Boston: Third Stage. After a decade of waiting and rumors every other month that "Did ya hear, Boston's back in the studio...?" it was actually going to happen. I'll never forget the first time I listened to "Cantcha Say" on my home system, cranked way up and sitting in the "sweet spot" of my living room...... I literally got goose bumps!
Anyway, the change from vinyl to digital disk was bittersweet at first. I hated the thought of updating (which, of course meant replacing) my album collection was daunting and somewhat depressing. However, with every disk I bought, the more I looked forward to replacing them with this new technology that was soooooo crisp and clear with no hiss and most noticeably, no clicks and ticks! Interestingly enough, some of the audio editing software that would come along later featured the addition of those very things to your digital recordings.
I never did replace all of my vinyl. The important stuff of course but I decided to leave some of those memories on their original medium and move on. 2 things happened when I moved into the digital age with my music:
1. The care I used to show my vinyl went out the window for some reason with CD's. Most of my CD's haven't seen their original jewel case since the day I bought them. Strange....
2. I bought CD's like a madman - way more than when I bought vinyl. I now have somewhere in the neighborhood of 750 CD's and approx. 100 live performance DVD's.
OK, so I didn't mean to turn this into a novel but I'm sure many of us share the some of the same stories when it comes to buying our first CD and moving into the digital age.
One of them was the 12" release of Only Solutions. Very cool. For me that part always rises above the loss.
