Around 1993 I went to Service Merchandise and bought a wooden unit that held five hundred CD’s. It cost $175 and that thing took over an entire wall.
By then most of my record albums were long gone. In a matter of eight years I went from six milk crates of vinyl to a book shelf of plastic containers holding small silver discs.
I’m embarrassed to tell you the last album I bought. It was at Val’s shop on South Boulevard. It was that Outfield album where Josie went on her long distant vacation. The first CD I bought was SuperTramp’s “Breakfast in America.”
If you look back at it now the CD era lasted about eighteen years. 1986 to around 2004ish. That was around the time of Napster and the iPod. In a matter of twenty years I went from milk crates of albums to a shiny little box that fit in my pocket.
The Service Merchandise shelving unit hit the garbage when I performed Exile East of Mannheim. One Saturday afternoon during Covid I took all my CD’s and put them in a binder and put all the cases in the recycle bin.
The six CD changer that I bought at MusicCraft in 1989 rarely plays music. Sitting on top of it is a record player.
All the music I ever owned is on my phone….
We can’t cure cancer or end hunger. We can’t stop hating each other, but we figured out how to fit six milk crates of record albums into our pocket.
And my dad who thought he was cool when he bought a car with an eight track player. Judy Collins and Barry Manilow are not cool dad!
