O, CD!

Friday is fun because it’s about music, so links and playlists. Today, a shoutout to the CD. A growing presence in my home!

Link below at the bottom of the newsletter to Ben Living’s Bandcamp where this CD can be purchased, or you can stream his Camp Crystal Lake album.

It was about a year ago that I first admitted to the fact that CDs were sneaking massively back into my life:

I said I had a couple of hundred, out of ‘nowhere’. Well, of course I started buying things online during the lockdown of the pandemic — like everyone. Mostly records still, from memory, but when I couldn’t find certain soundtracks on vinyl, or the price was just absurd, I decided to get them on compact disc.

Shortly after making my confession here, I devised a new series:

The nostalgia I felt for finding Suzanne Vega’s Nine Objects of Desire for $1 in a music store in a tiny town in America was close to overwhelming. This was a road trip must — I first bought the album when it was released while on holiday in the Bay of Plenty one summer. And it was the number one car CD. I had probably once thought I’d buy the album on vinyl, but why? It’s whole vibe had been the portability of listening on the go, coupled with the possession of, yeah, ‘owning’ it. A day after buying it for the second time, I was road-tripping on the other side of the highway on the other side of the world, and once again Nine Objects of Desire was the most sublime soundtrack.

Some albums just feel better — sound better; play better — on CD. As nostalgic now as any vinyl fetish. You can also tell yourself you’re a hero for rescuing all that plastic and paper from the skips, those shiny discs living their best second life.

And obviously soundtracks are better on CD than vinyl, no interuptus in the middle for those full-flowing scores.

The pause in the middle might have been the place to roll the second joint when Tubular Bells, Dark Side of the Moon and War of the Worlds and such were first released, but that was never really my thing, so I’ve bought them all on CD again instead of the cliche LPs. Anyone can get away with owning Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of The Worlds on vinyl — it takes a true nerd to owning up to the somewhat-shame/absolute-trophy of having the double compact disc sitting somewhere in your house.

At first, my new series of odes to the CD — and rediscovering key albums via that format — was slow to get going. Slow on my part I mean. I couldn’t just write about every CD I listened to, I’d be back in the realm of when I literally started a Vinyl Countdown, documenting my records from 2000 down to 0 as some homage to Prince, or the band Europe, or both. And had myself hamstrung by such homework from roughly 2010 until about 2018 or whenever it was. Then I also felt strangely bereft when it was over. And no one cared of course. Which is the correct response by the way.

Probably, it was an act of self-preservation, at least slightly, to eke out the CD column.

But then I felt the rush of finding The Necks on CD. Some of my favourite music to listen to when I’m up in the house first, and early, and on my own for an hour or two — writing. Also, there’s no proof, but I’m pretty sure I found my exact copy, like literally the disc I used to own. There’s nothing that tells you you’re a giant nerd more than thinking you might have bought the same exact copy of something twice. And of course paid for it twice! But again, $1 bargain for a charity shop.

That was it — for a bit. And then a few months later, I was wondering how I could write about finally giving Metallica’s Master of Puppets full respect. I had never not liked it. But I’d always been a Ride The Lightning guy, and figured everyone talking up Master of Puppets was, well, a puppet, um, being…mastered?

At the start of the year, and on my own for a few weeks, I really got my Metal on. Perfect music for when you’re not sharing the house!

And Master of Puppets made more sense than it ever has. So I was able to use the column for that little confession — to an audience of who cares of course :)

But about four months ago, the column really clicked. I wrote about an all-time guilty pleasure for me:

I absolutely first owned God Shuffled His Feet by Crash Test Dummies on cassette tape. That was the medium of the moment for me — and actually it was right as I was transitioning to a CD-buyer. Nervously. Thinking it would never catch on, or I would never catch up. Already way behind. I did buy it on CD a few years later and it was also the secret-trash amongst my treasures. People would see it and laugh — Oh you like them!? — Hell yeah, I did. But said more as, “I don’t like THEM — Just THIS album, okay?!”

I probably tried with a few more albums, but not very hard, and certainly not for long. I filed this next to my Spin Doctors album (just the one, natch) and was happy. But listening to it again in 2024 felt like part revelation, part excavation, prime for the CD column too — I was never going to have this on vinyl or any other format, I wasn’t going to stream this album. It was about the badge. Honour or otherwise.

And so from there, runs were added to the board.

The FREE CD that was actually the scam that bumped the price of Rip It Up magazine from ‘free’ to paid. Where I first learned about the band Morphine. Ahhh.

The second Rage Against The Machine album, which had always felt like the poor cousin to the debut, but now feels, if anything, better, or at least the album I want to hear more often.

And the Beach Boys’ original greatest hits album, Endless Summer, because, well Beach Boys…and also part of a run of going through all of their albums (again), and also because I own most of them on vinyl but this feels like the right CD to have; something cool about distilling such a giant catalogue down to a single disc. Not even a double.

More nostalgia when I found a cheap copy of Essence by Lucinda Williams. A lot of magic in that catalogue, but this album is absolutely my favourite, and weirdly just one of those albums where I remember everything about where I was and what I was doing when it first came into my world.

For a while those “unlicensed” tapes/CDs were everywhere, and I had a few of them but my favourite was always this. Arguably also my favourite Smashing Pumpkins album. Been looking for it for a while, to add (once again) to my collection. And what a treat to find it on TradeMe just recently. Still a gem too. Mostly.

I’ve also got a bit of a thing for what I call “the fat double”. You know, Pink Floyd’s The Wall and The Beatles’ The Beatles (aka White Album) are the shining examples. The old double duel-case CD. They went ‘slimline’ sometime in the early 00s. And I am still thinking about penning a very strongly-worded, if not downright angry letter…but where to send it?

Anyway, saves of nostalgia around finding The Orb’s big, pulsing double album, on the ‘correct’ fat-double format. Waves I tell ya. Synth-waves, primarily.

I’d been thinking a lot about the Finn Brothers’ Everyone Is Here album, and how I needed to write something about it — probably their best shared album. Actually no question (though I love the rougher charms of the Finn album too). And maybe the last time Tim was great. And one of the last times Neil was hit-it-out-of-the-park great right across a full album. It was probably on my mind in some way that the album was around about 20, but it then turned 20 right as I wrote about it. Timing. It had also made me write a poem about my relationship with my brother. So, there’s that too.

It’s been a tough time for me and The White Stripes. Went from denial to full fan, to back again. And now, correctly, I see them as an interesting footnote or fable within a specific time of the music industry. But I’d always thought Get Me Behind Me Satan was the strange peak — not their absolute peak of course, but for me the best thing they ever did. Their most band-like record too. The rest is just all Jack White. This is the one that feels as if Meg was crucial musically, just not as the key component of the aesthetic.

Speaking of key times in the industry, eras, etc — what about that debut album by The Strokes? I crushed on it hard. Then moved on. But always knew we’d share a late-night phone call again one day. And when a friend offloaded some CDs, this one sat in the cupboard for a while. I had to build up to listening to it. And it was perfect. Far better than I had anticipated, if anything, better than I’d remembered it first time around. Just so hooky. I never cared for anything else they did — at all, really. But this actually is it.

And then right back to where this nearly started, and to where it finally started to take off (for me). Guilty pleasures. I’ve carried Yanni’s Live At The Acropolis, like Sisyphus‘ rock, for 30 years. This is the same copy I bought as a nervous, new, naive CD buyer in 1994. I loved this album then and I wouldn’t quite say I love it now, but I’m totally stuck with it. And I feel no shame about that.

So that’s where the “new series” that started basically a year ago:

is, um…at. That’s the 14 so far, and I now see I can use it to ‘review’ any old album but in always new ways. Kiwi musician Greg Malcolm saw some post I made on Instagram about The Necks, and said his favourite album he made, but the one with the worst reception, featured the great Tony Buck, drummer for The Necks. He offered to send me a CD in the post — OLD SCHOOL — and so now I have the ‘homework’ of listening through and reading its booklet and maybe the Only CDs column is the place to work through some thoughts on that. I don’t mind the homework component, I’ve been giving myself homework for close to 30 years. As soon as I could escape the shackles of high school homework, which I hated, and barely did, I celebrated by becoming a freelance writer. lol.

Anyway, I’m still going to drop some CD reviews of new albums — or record reviews, or there doesn’t need to a be a physical product involved. But I’m way more interested in the dredging of feelings that come from looking through the albums of old on the CD format.

So. What does all this mean for you on your Friday? Well, love to know what you think of any of the columns, obviously. But love to know what you think of the format, and do you agree that some things just feel better on CD? Play better? Sound better, work better, etc…

And if you have recommendations for albums to tackle in this way, message me or drop a line below. If you have CDs to donate, including anything you made yourself that you feel wasn’t reviewed at the time or needs a reappraisal, get in touch. And if you’d like to do a guest-post, your thoughts on a CD from your collection, also get in touch. Otherwise, of course, you know I’ll just plough on anyway I don’t need any of those things from you. Was just trying a bit of the old-fashioned, what’s it called? Engagement. That’s it.

And if you clicked on any of those columns, or looked at the thumbnails, you’ll see, in a year, I’ve gone from simple CD player to discman, to trashy fun TradeMe junk stereo, to brand new Tivoli. And, shhh, don’t tell the people I share a house with, but it’s not a couple of hundred CDs. It’s something like 700. Big lol.

Now, you’re probably thinking this is all very obsessive. Compulsive. Well the clue was there today right from the start wasn’t it. Go read the heading again.

Probably up next in the Only CDs column, the self-titled Warpaint album…YAY!

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And it’s Friday (the 13th!) and so I don’t expect you all to listen to the Friday the 13th soundtrack, or any of the volumes — I have the soundtrack to the TV series on CD (a favourite) and the score to the third film on vinyl. But you could check out Ben Living’s great Curse On Crystal Lake:

Or any of his fabulous work. I have his CDs of ‘remixes’ and reworkings of the scores from Halloween and Friday the 13th — available along with all his other brilliant horror extrapolations on his Bandcamp page:

I decided to opt for a non-horror vibe to the weekly playlist (that would be too easy). So here’s some weekend chill for you, just like we usually do: