What is the oldest compact disc in your collection and how is it holding up these days?

From Wiki:

The first test CD was pressed in Langenhagen near Hannover, Germany, by the Polydor Pressing Operations plant. The disc contained a recording of Richard Strauss's Eine Alpensinfonie (in English language, An Alpine Symphony), played by the Berlin Philharmonic and conducted by Herbert von Karajan.[11] The first public demonstration was on the BBC television program Tomorrow's World when The Bee Gees' album Living Eyes (1981) was played.[12] In August 1982 the real pressing was ready to begin in the new factory, not far from the place where Emil Berliner had produced his first gramophone record 93 years earlier. By now, Deutsche Grammophon, Berliner's company and the publisher of the Strauss recording, had become a part of PolyGram. The first CD to be manufactured at the new factory was The Visitors (1981) by ABBA.[13] The first album to be released on CD was Billy Joel's 52nd Street, that reached the market alongside Sony's CD player CDP-101 on October 1, 1982 in Japan.[14] Early the following year on March 2, 1983 CD players and discs (16 titles from CBS Records) were released in the United States and other markets. This event is often seen as the "Big Bang" of the digital audio revolution.

So the oldest CDs are approaching 30 years old now. At the time, they told stories about how the compact disc would last forever! This is what I found on the subject with a quick Google search:

[q]A CD consists of a polycarbonate top layer, an aluminum (or gold) metal reflective layer, a polycarbonate bottom layer, and some miscellaneous printing ink. Of these materials, polycarbonate seems to be extremely stable with time provided that it is well cared for. Do not use any liquids on a CD that contain silicone or solvents. Do not leave CDs in sunlight or other bright light. Do not stick labels on CDs. Do not write on CDs. Do not expose CDs to temperatures higher than normal room temperatures. Don't leave a CD under water. Even the top side of a CD is critical and subject to damage.

Some pressings from the early 1980s used ink which damaged the polycarbonate top layer and eventually got into the aluminum. These inks are not in use today. Some earlier discs were made with imperfect sealing around the perimeter of the disc. This was evident because the aluminum in the disc extended all of the way to the disc edge. These discs were known to fail due to moisture getting to the aluminum and causing it to oxidize. Modern CD factories have solved this problem as well.

With those cautions, modern CDs will last for more than 30 years without deterioration. Most of the CDs which were made in 1983 are still around today and still sound good.

WikiFAQ

Bearing all of this in mind, what CD in your collection is the oldest and how has it held up?

I purchased a lot of used CDs and it's possible a purchase I made relatively recently could be something that was manufactured earlier than the first CD I owned...

Still, I will use that as my starting point: The first CD I owned was Living Colour's 'Vivid,' a gift from my sister Christmas of 1988. It accompanied the gift from my brother of my first CD player.

This is later in the game than I expected! However I am able to say that this 22+ year old CD still sounds good to my ears.

Anyone else have any adventures with their oldest CDs that are the opposite of mine?

I don't. My oldest CD is "Starfish" by The Church, going back to '87 or so, and it still plays the same. (It never was a great pressing, but it doesn't seem to have lost anything over time.)

I think it's the first Superchunk record, which must be 21 years old now, unless I bought a second hand one that is older that I don't know about, hard to tell really. Will give it a spin.

great question.

I no longer have the first disc I bought (Mothers Of Invention's "We're Only In It For The Money", but I do have the second one (Biota's "Tumble"). It plays fine. Another early purchase, Throbbing Gristle's CD1 on Mute, has oxidized and spiderwebbed something awful, but amazingly the whole thing still ripped into my computer!

One other casualty is a Coil CD, but that ripped as well. Even my stuff on World Serpent seems to have held up fine.

btw that Biota disc is now 21 years old.

fear of a black planet, 1990...still plays fine

I'm playing the oldest one I can think of (Herbie Hancock - Quartet) right now, and so far so good. I believe I got it in 1986.

i've had great success ripping cds that skip/ don't play in a cd player. is this just because my computer has better technology than my cd player, or is it a different process?

you need to oversample that shit imo

I've thrown out most of my CDs, but my copy of Vivid (also one of my first cds!) still played well.

my cd of introspective still plays fine. was that 87 or 88 it came out? The U2 cds from the same time play ok too.

i've had great success ripping cds that skip/ don't play in a cd player. is this just because my computer has better technology than my cd player, or is it a different process?

Your average CD player only has one chance of reading the data correctly, but a computer CD-reader will be able to read it over again and again until it gets what it thinks is the correct data.

Oldest I can see at the moment is:

Hüsker Dü - Flip Your Wig (1985)

It looks in really good shape.

I have a few from the early nineties which have gone really bronze though.

xp you made me go check my TG CD1 which looks the same as always

my first discs were Mark Mothersbaugh's Muzik for Insomniaks Vols.1 & 2 in 1989. both oxidized a while back so they're bronze and sticky but still play ok

i have my parents' copy of the bob dylan box set "biograph" which they bought probably in 1988? those were the first CDs in our household afaik. last time i played them they played fine.

My oldest is REM's Document, bought when it was their newest album.

I'm waiting to see if all the Columbia House & BMG cds I bought in the late 80s/early 90s are going to go bad first. At the time they felt flimsier than other disks I'd been getting, but chalked that up to my disbelief at how good those record club deals were.

The first cd I ever bought was Samantha Fox "I wanna have some fun" but it is long gone.
I have no idea what the oldest disc in my collection is.

probably the world won't listen, or Sister, both 1987, both play fine.

my oldest record is from 1927 and it plays graet!

I have a bunch of early industrial CDs (C93, NWW, DIJ) which succumbed to the famous disc rot but they actually play fine.

AR Kane's "i" - bought late '89 (it was another four years until I actually had a CD player but it was going cheap in Penny Lane Records in Liverpool). Plays fine.

Another question: what's the oldest CD-R/CD-RW you have and can you play it/get data off it? I must have a few from around 1997 somewhere.

Brian Eno "Desert Island Selection" and it's still just fine. '86 I think.

My oldest CD, well, CDs, are the Springsteen Live 75-85 set, from 1986. They still play great.

Found a sealed copy of an '83 or '84 Sony Classical disc, Horowitz's '71 Chopin recordings, a Japanese pressing. Did a little looking around and boy, are those things desirable. Put it on eBay and clearly underpriced it at 40 bucks because I sold it in about an hour.

Ministry's Land of Rape and Honey from 1988. Still plays fine.

Oldest purchase still in my collection is the first Suede album, which is covered in scratches but looks/plays fine. However the second-oldest is His 'N' Hers by Pulp which has oxidised a fair bit (actually I think that still plays too).

It's either Wire, 154 (which has a cat no of Har 03 or something like that), or Meat is Murder on Rough trade, both play fine.

a smokey robinson's greatest hits from the mid-80s... nicked from my parent's colection. still played ok a couple of years ago, iirc.

Another question: what's the oldest CD-R/CD-RW you have and can you play it/get data off it? I must have a few from around 1997 somewhere.

― Michael Jones, Monday, February 7, 2011 9:11 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark

these seem to go to shit after about 4 years... all my old pr0n and mp3 ones have, anyway.

either new order substance or sonic youth sister -- both from 1987 and both play great!

on the other hand, i have two cds from the early 90s that have started to deteriorate: stereolab's jenny ondioline ep and a melody maker comp called gigantic! 2. they play ok as of a few months ago but you can see the oxidation spreading through them.

i think my dexy's 'don't stand me down' disc is from 86 and ripped a-ok last time, which was a year or so ago

the oldest CDR i can still get data off is from the early 00s. some of my master discs are probably unplayable now but i haven't tried to get anything off them in years.

only have one pressed CD that is entirely dead - 'blonder tongue audio baton' by swirlies will not rip or play at all. fortunately they put the whole album up for free a couple of years ago so no great loss, also i don't like it much these days anyway

new order substance

ah yes my copy of this is still going strong

and my Gigantic! 2 comp also is deteriorating! but only the birdland track is unplayable, so wtfever

curiously the two discs that have the most obvious deterioration - PDO pressings of pulp's his & hers and intro - still play fine despite having huge oxidation dots all over them.

Not sure re my oldest CD but the question did remind me of the time when I was amazed that my physics teacher at secondary school told us he had 30 CDs ...

(1988?)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle soundtrack, but I have no idea where the fuck it is.

^^^ my first as well, but I think it was the soundtrack to the second movie. Mine is long gone, think I gave it away shortly after getting it as a gift. Nevermind and Grave Dancer's Union (lol altrock highschool) are the oldest I still own, ripped the former a few years ago without problem but I haven't pulled the other out in a long time.

The first CD I got was "A Broken Frame" by Depeche Mode, which was replaced by the remastered edition a few years ago. However, the second I got was the first "A Very Special Christmas" and even though I hardly play it (not even at Christmas) I have no impression it is in any lesser shape now than it was in December 1987.

Probably Who's Next, bought in 1984, plays great.

Def. true that CD-Rs seems to wear a lot faster. Seems like scratches make them a lot harder to read than regular CDs. Which is one reason I found it baffling when, a few years ago, everyone was backing up their mp3 collections to DVD-Rs (maybe they still do?). Seems like after 5 or 6 years it's hard to get data off them, esp. if they've been scratched at all.

I do that but they never get too scratched cause they just sit there. It was maybe 4 or 5 years ago that I started backing up to them? They've all been ripped into a hard drive w/backup and hopefully I will never have to do it again.

recently I ripped my whole collection of CDRs going back almost 11 years with essentially no problems at all.

First CDs I got as presents, circa 1990, were New Order's Substance (lost to a girlfriend in high school), Joy Division's Substance (stuck behind a door behind an armchair right now) and the Beatles' White Album (looks shiny and OK, but if I play it, then Whiney will win.)

First CD bought myself: Coldcut's What's That Noise?, lost to a girlfriend four-five years ago, was still playing OK then.

Have plenty of local and UK CDs from the 90s that have shat themselves though.

> i have two cds from the early 90s that have started to deteriorate: stereolab's jenny ondioline ep and a melody maker comp called gigantic! 2.

i have both those and, yes, gigantic 2 is toast. will check the other tonight.

other casualties of the bronzing: Orange Juice best of. Altered Images best of.

my earliest though - first smiths lp and that first sundays single (3" cd) - both fine.

quality thread. think my oldest is marrs's 'pump up the volume', possibly s.thing by mbv. gonna dig em out.

First CD - The Cure 'Kiss Me x3' bought in 1989, still sounds ace to me!

I've plenty that are older than it, but the one CD in my collection that is now defunct is The Joint LP (a Suburban Base / Moving Shadow sampler from 1993) - No scratches, disc looks fine, but as soon as it gets to beginning of track 2 loads of background distortion starts up and within a few minutes the disc chokes.

I wonder if there was a particular CD plant in the UK that might be the souce of some of these woes? I wouldn't be surprised if SubBase, Duophonic (Re: Jenny Ondioline) etc used the same pressing facility, probably the cheapest they could find. I'll check the disc itself tonight for any "mastered by Nimbus" style info.

as mentioned above PDO in the UK was the source of the "CD bronzing" problem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_bronzing

Ah, should've read upthread a bit, thx. From memory this disc has no visible "bronzing", but I'm gonna dig it out and see if it's a PDO item.

I'm a late adopter (got my first player in 95) so my first set of CDs are as follows:

TLC - CrazySexyCool, not sure what condition it's in, I haven't played it in years.

Mariah - Daydream, The CD itself is in okay condition but I think it's suffering from rot, I ended up with a bad MP3 rip of 'Looking In' the last time I put it in the computer.

Hootie & The Blowfish - Cracked Rear View, Another one I haven't touched in eons, so I'm not sure about the condition.

I also have a copy of Phil Collins' No Jacket Required that I bought back in 2000 that was in bad condition to start with. It's hard to rip the CD and it refuses to do the seek function properly when played. I think it has a severe case of disc rot or the foil was glued improperly.

one of my first cds i bought was the Success cd-single by Sputnik
(i didn't even have a cd player, but a friend did, so it made sense as i could tape the cd and enjoy the clean sounds on my walkman !).
loved the clear see through label.

http://s.dsimg.com/image/R-603069-1137286704.jpeg

still plays great.
however, my oldest cd is probably from before that time.
i have one of the rare AOC cd-singles for don't Get Mad .. , which was promo only and never officially released - which would have been pressed in 87.
again, its still perfectly fine.
i am of course in possession of several PDO pressings, many of which are indeed rotting away nicely (worst one being a Wiseblood/FOETUS ep, Dirtdish)

aforementioned altered images and gigantic 2 are both pdo discs (92 and 90 respectively)

So, The Joint LP's centre proclaims Mastered By Nimbus which I am guessing means it's not PDO? The disc is still bright silver, no deep scratches or scuffs, a couple of tiny flecks near the outer rim but the first track (Foul Play's sublime "Open Your Mind") plays perfectly. There's occasional popping and odd noises throughout tracks 2 to 6 but it's actually track 7, Omni Trio's "Mystic Stepper (Feel Better), which is the point where it becomes unlistenable. This wasn't the first CD I ever bought, but it was certainly the first jungle comp I got (all vinyl and pirate tapes before then) and I really love it so ;_;

The oldest CD I've found in the collection is King of The Slums's Dandelions from 1989. Still plays fine!

> a couple of tiny flecks near the outer rim but the first track plays perfectly

cds play from the inside outwards - otherwise 3" cds would never work.

1984 - Malcolm McLaren "Fans" (bought it used a few years ago - still plays fine)

I remember a Bloom County comic where, since the new compact disc industry was an Investment Opportunity, Opus "invests" in buying a stack of discs and one of them was "Fans" for some reason.

I found my wife's copy of Brothers in Arms (bought 1985) but can't bring myself to listen to it.

Hootie & The Blowfish - Cracked Rear View, Another one I haven't touched in eons, so I'm not sure about the condition.

man... too bad you'll never be able to replace that one if it's ruined. (on the other hand if it's in good condition, you should throw it up on ebay asap, i've seen that cd go for hundreds, HUNDREDS of dollars!)

Which - as sucky as it is - I guess means it'll soon be available again. Surely, if nobody else does, I would guess a label like Wounded Bird or something could easily see that one as being a profitable title to reissue.

jenny ondioline is a PDO disc but sounds like faust fine btw, and no visible bronzing. is a year or so newer than the others and has more of a printed label, i wonder if that makes a difference.

>I also have a copy of Phil Collins' No Jacket Required that I bought back in 2000 that was in bad condition to start with. It's hard to rip the CD and it refuses to do the seek function properly when played. I
>think it has a severe case of disc rot or the foil was glued improperly.
>― Has No Shame (MintIce), Tuesday, February 8, 2011 3:31 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark
So a jacket was required after all, eh Phil? Eh??

First CDs I bought in the early 90s are all fine, except for the ones that got chewed by my over-excited terrier puppy Iggy (also liked to eat glass, cotton wool, etc. etc.).

^^dog's name is very appropriate then!

My parents bought a cd player in '84/'85, first cd's in the house (gift with the player) were by dutch reggae/ska pop band Doe Maar (last time I checked it played fine) and Born In The USA (last time I checked the case was empty! misplaced probably...). First cd I bought myself was The Stone Roses, no problems there. Apart from the odd cd-r, I don't think I've ever encountered a cd that's gone bad.

I wonder if the first CD I ever got (Philip Glass, Songs from Liquid Days) still exists in somebody's collection or if it's in a landfill somewhere.

Fuck, I think Born In The USA was the first CD I ever heard IRL. I've got a vivid memory of being round at a friend of my Dad's and he was all "get ready to be blown away, lads!!!" then proceeded to put it on at deafening volume until his wife made him turn it down.

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/c057820eccc70b64a8565452079ffd81/1968.jpg

Bought in 1985 - still plays fine. Still fucking rocks too.

I bought the LP in 1985 , still fucking rocks too.

I just read that that Doe Maar album was the first (March 83) dutch album to be released on http://www.tiednote.co.nz/images/cd_audio_logo.jpg.

I bought 6 or 7 from Columbia CD club in 1987, including Sinead's "Lion & Cobra" and the Smiths "Strangeways Here We Come". I think the first two Chameleons CDs were pressed in '85 and I only recently replaced those with reissues. I've lost a half dozen CDs due to PDO rot. At one point in the late 90s you could send it back and PDO would replace it, I did that for the Orange Juice best-of but there were others they couldn't replace. My 10-year old CDrs are all failing rapidly, but I've ripped just about all of them or replaced them with proper CDs. Last year I migrated my CDr archives going back to the beginning of Napster to an external drive - best decision I ever made, not that I access that stuff much but it's handy to have near-line instead of strictly off-line!

I can't remember the exact order of purchase but the first few included:
- Beethoven's 9th, Berlin Phil./von Karajan on Deutsche Grammophon
- Bach Brandenburg Concertos 1-3, English Concert/Pinnock on Archiv Produktion/Polygram
- Cocteau Twins, The Pink Opaque compilation
- Durutti Column, Valuable Passages compilation

all bought in 1986, although some of these had already been out a year or two then. As far as I know, all play OK although the Durutti does complain now and again (but then it always did, possibly because Factory crammed too much data on the CD).

I have a number of 'bronzed' discs but again I think they still play. The one CD I have where the ink ate through the polycarbonate and damaged the disc is the original pressing of Global Communication's 76:14 (or whatever it's called).

At one point in the late 90s you could send it back and PDO would replace it,

unfortunately this didn't work for KLF Communications releases

drag

This is my Jenny Ondioline ep below. Other than that Gigantic comp, I've never seen cds look like this. Is this what the other PDO discs looked like?

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5252/5432065211_4d4967f9cd_d.jpg
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5296/5432674886_c00e474ba0_d.jpg

yeah, my pulp cds look like that. clearly i need to go & check my JO disc

my copy of VU Another View, from 86 or so, when held up to the light, has all these tiny pinpricks appear. haven't played it though.

A copy of Rolling Stones Hot Rocks that, it turned out, my brother shoplifted for my birthday.
Stealing music was different then.
It's still in pretty good shape. A few slight scuffs but playable.

lol ilxor and geir made me go look up the amazon new price for that fuggin Hootie CD

Was there 15 million of them selling for $1?

1,344 used from $0.01

My first CD was Gish by Smashing Pumpkins, purchased in early 92 (since lost) & the second was She Hangs Brightly by Mazzy Star - tho I'm sure I many discs, purchased used, that are of earlier manufacture.

Mazzy Star still sounds great! (and that is after countless spins over the years - for a long time, I would fall asleep every night to that record or Slowdive'sJust For a Day)

Traded my first CD, Tracy Chapman self-titled, for a roommate's Blowout Comb in 1998, so that's gone, but otherwise the olded one is Lou Donaldson, Blues Walk. Still plays.

L.L. Cool J's Radio in '88 (I was a vinyl holdout). Liner notes by Nelson George call L.L. "one of the best young talkologists around."

The first CD I received as a gift was Talking Heads' Naked. The first one I bought with my own money was Frank Zappa's Apostrophe'/Over-Nite Sensation (two albums jammed onto one CD by Rykodisc). I acquired both in 1988; I don't know which one came first.

I played both of them last week; they played fine. They look unchanged.

For that matter, the CD player I played them on (purchased used in 1990) still runs fine, mostly.

Reading this article in Vice made me think of this thread.

I seem to have escaped the oxidation/CD Rot that others seem afflicted with. My first CD, Vivid by Living Colour, was a Christmas gift from my sister in 1988 so it's 28 years old. It looks fine. The jewel case is actually worse because I used to smoke a lot in small Brooklyn apartments and the case - like many of the ones I had for years - is stained a sickly yellow.

I'll play it in the next day or two to see how it sounds but my guess is it sill sounds great.

The first CDs I ever owned—Sinéad O'Connor's The Lion and the Cobra and Frank Zappa's Jazz From Hell—are long gone, but I have plenty of discs that are more than 20 years old. I've never had a CD rot on me. But I never strewed loose CDs on the floor of my car, or spilled bongwater on them, or anything else. I've always taken good care of them.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle soundtrack, but I have no idea where the fuck it is.

― door to door legume salesman (San Te), Monday, February 7, 2011 5:20 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

still have no idea

First CD I bought was in 1988, an Italian bootleg of a '68 Who show (planned but scrapped live album, widely booted). Still plays great.

i still have two of the first ten CDs i bought back in 1990: black sabbath "paranoid" and beastie boys "paul's boutique" (the rest of the list is pretty embarassing)

still play great

I've never experienced any problems with CDs - including ones that are 25-30 years old. I do try to take good care of them. Which leads me to...:

A question: Does it matter if you store CDs upright or stacked flat? I've run out of shelf space and have been keeping quite a few CDs stacked on the floor etc. Is that a bad thing?

it was only cds from one factory that had the bronzing problem, and only then for a certain time

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc_bronzing

i have a few... Gigantic 2 compilation, an Altered Image best of, an Orange Juice best of...

I have only ever stacked CDs flat, never had a place to display them on their sides like books. I can't imagine it hurting the discs, at least not those in standard jewel cases. I guess maaaaybe stacking them puts pressure on digipacks and such, but I can't imagine that would really affect their longevity or anything. I'd be curious about what others think, though

My first, a 1987 U.S. 'Darklands' (that came in a long box) still looks and plays great.

The only one that's gone bad was VA - 'Retro Techno / Detroit Definitive - Emotions Electric' on Network from 1991 that went bad within a couple years.

six years after the thread was started, my 1990 copy of Biota's Tumble still plays just fine.

I have only ever stacked CDs flat, never had a place to display them on their sides like books. I can't imagine it hurting the discs, at least not those in standard jewel cases. I guess maaaaybe stacking them puts pressure on digipacks and such, but I can't imagine that would really affect their longevity or anything. I'd be curious about what others think, though

― Wimmels, Wednesday, 8 February 2017 01:41 (twenty-one hours ago)

Cheers. I remember reading some article suggesting that CDs ought to be stored upright, but I can't think why stacking them would be damaging.

Something about gravity warping the disc in the long term because it's only supported by the centre and making it unplayable iirc. Whether that's bs or a genuine concern remains a mystery to me.

I've known only one cd that all but disintegrated, and that was the 1985 Virgin cd of TD's 'Phaedra'. It had rot and became unplayable.

I still have my 1985 cds and they're exactly the same...
so basically, that CD deteriorating with time theory is bullshit, right ?

there were a couple cd production plants that made bad cds for a while, poisoning the perception of the format for years

the only way to truly protect them is to use a green marker

what koogs said, that is

cdrs might be another matter though

the only other cds i've had go bad are the ones that got scratched by a closing cd drawer as i was trying to extract them (which is v annoying). (3EF: Semtex, Lee Perry: Dub Triptych)

i have loads of PDO cds rotting ...
and not just the Foetus stuff that i mentioned upthread ..
other than PDO stuff though, no problems.
my first cd, sputnik cd single, is perfectly fine.

A lot of my early CDs are unplayable, but that's a matter of taste rather than deterioration.

~ proper chuckle ~

My oldest CD is the Born in the USA by The Boss. Tried it out recently; still plays and looks fine. Believe it was issued in '87.

My first purchase was Never Mind the Bollocks, but that got sold off.

The oldest CD in my collection is Cocteau Twins, Treasure, UK CD purchased used in 1987. Completely unscratched and rarely played since 1995. Worked fine on the PC recently when I reripped it for FLAC.

All of my contemporaneous Some Bizzarre label discs (Cabaret Voltaire, Coil, Einstürzende Neubauten, Test Dept., etc.) have some CD rot. A huge problem for Some Bizarre and World Serpent disks of that certain age. I felt no guilt about pirating higher bitrate rips.

https://blog.discogs.com/en/say-no-to-disc-rot-how-to-look-after-cds

A recent Discogs piece on caring for CDs that insists CDs should be stored upright like LPs and never stacked.