Received 2025 08 18, The first commercial Compact Disc was created 43 years ago today, nearly one billion CDs were shipped per year in the early 2000's

[Colin Howard]

Greetings,

I had nothing to do with cd discs until purchasing my second lot of hi fi
equipment in 1985. One of the first discs I purchased was No Jacket
Required, along with Rumours.

CDs are still popular with some music fans, despite the rise of digital
streaming platforms.

Today marks 43 years since the first commercial Compact Disc (CD) pressing.
Polygram in Germany is credited with pressing the first copies of Abba's The
Visitors on this date, back in 1982. The CD format would take off in a
direction which would have been highly unexpected at the time, ending up as
a foundation of the Multimedia PC age. However, CDs didn't kill the
audiophile thirst for vinyl, and, on the flip side, some artists are still
releasing CDs, even in the 5G and fiber digital streaming age.

While the first commercial CDs were factory pressed some 43 years ago, the
discs were in development for quite some time ahead of this date. According
to various sources, Sony and Philips clubbed together in 1979 to create a
digital music disc.

Beethoven's influence?
Among the first prototype CDs, a format with an 11.5cm diameter which was
capable of storing an hour of music was an early front-runner. Philips
apparently had a production line ready for such silver coasters. However,
the final 12cm diameter and 74 minutes capacity was apparently favored as it
was sufficient for a complete recording of Beethoven's 9th Symphony - Sony
president Norio Ohga's favorite musical opus.

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We must note that there are conflicting 74m CD audio origin stories, though.
Another credits the desire for this particular uninterrupted audio duration
to famed conductor Herbert von Karajan. Similarly, the Wilhelm Furtwängler's
1951 recording of Beethoven's 9th (74 minutes long) is said to be the reason
for this time target.

By June 1980, the CD audio Red Book standard was finalized. Abba's The
Visitors entered production in Aug 1982, though wouldn't hit retail on its
new fangled format until March 1983. Meanwhile, the first CD album released
in the U.S. is thought to be Bruce Springsteen's Born In The U.S.A.,
released in September 1984.

According to Statista, CD album sales peaked in the year 2000, with around
943 million sold in the U.S., alone. The format's fall from grace has been
pretty fast since then, but things have recovered a little since the 2020
low.

Computers and optical media
For computing enthusiasts, like us, the announcement of the CD Yellow Book
standard is probably more important than the audio standard. This new
standard, which would reach the market in 1985, added binary data to CD
storage.

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Yet another significant change came in 1988, however. In this year, the ISO
9660 standard came into being, defining a file structure for CD-ROMs. CD
burners, which created another huge ripple in the PC pond, began to first
become available to the public in 1992. But it would take until the latter
half of the 90s, when pricing, interfaces, and software began to democratize
CDs as digital storage, archiving, and sharing essentials for everyone.

Reading about people using CDs with computers in 2025, as almost as archaic
sounding as the use of floppy disks. Nevertheless, some music fans still
prefer physical CDs to digital platforms (and the vinyl) such desires have
probably spurred the likes of Taylor Swift to release almost 20 physical
variations of her latest release, The Tortured Poets Department - including
CDs, LPs, and even cassettes. If you count digital variants, there are 36
editions of this album you could buy.

Image 1 of 2

(Image credit: Future)

(Image credit: Future)
I still maintain access to CDs and DVDs, and the ability to write various
optical formats, using a simple external USB optical drive like this one
from LG, at $27 on Amazon.com. There are plenty of cheaper, lesser known
brand alternatives, too. It is great for looking through old archives and so
on, as well as (re) ripping choices from the old music collection.

Colin Howard, Southern England.

[ano...@ntlworld.com]

Thanks Colin for this article.

I had my first CD player ,which was part of a midi-system I had for my 18th Birthday in March 1988.

The first CD I bought, was a double CD back in February 1988, which was Hits 7. The next CD I had ,which was another double CD, was Now That's What I Call Music 10.

I then started buying more CD's, mostly artist's albums and some compilations along the way.

I reckon, I must have over a thousand CD's, rock and pop, classical should an dance and instrumental albums, plus loads of CD singles and CD--R's too.

Am not planning to get rid of my collection any time soon, as they're too precious to get rid of.

Paul.

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