To Our Stunning Miscalculation in 1987 That CD’s Would Never Catch On

By Feelthelie (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Home computers? Obviously. Who wouldn’t need a computer in their house? The games seemed reason enough. But compact discs? For music? That’s crazy talk.

I’m sitting with Mike and Steve and Ben in our living room. We are listening to REM’s Reckoning. Listening to an album meant we all sat together and did nothing but listen to the music. Sure, we talked a bit, mostly about the music: what the lyrics meant, what Stipe was singing, what we thought thought he was singing when we first heard it. Listening to the whole collection at once, the progression from one song to the next, was like reading a book together or watching a movie. An experience of the whole.

Mike, holding the cardboard album cover in his hands, talks about CD’s. He’s read about them. Steve says they talk about it at the radio station. They will last longer; they are indestructible. And the sound quality is much better, cleaner. Clear.

Steve on drums

But we don’t believe it. For one, everyone will have to buy a cd player and obviously that’s not going to happen. Really, this is like Betamax: maybe the technology is good, but it won’t catch on. Second, better sound quality doesn’t mean better music. Don’t you want it a bit gritty? Doesn’t it sound more real? It will be fake, hyper-clean. Unnatural.

Mike on guitar

The little house on Parson’s street we live in is next door to a family. We can hear the boys playing in the backyard. In 10 years, they will consider their parents’ vinyl quaint but useless.

Mike looks at the cover in his hands. The real reason, he says, it will never catch on is because cd’s are so small. What will people look at and read when they are listening to an album? Will it all just become background music?