For those about to rot, we salute you
Anyway, there were these strange new things on the market called “CDs.” They were small and shiny and supposed to be better than records, because as science has proven, better things are almost always smaller and shinier. Also, CDs were supposed to be worth paying a lot more money for, since their resilience made them the musical equivalent of cockroaches; that Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam CD would still be playing long after a nuclear war.
As I recall, some guys in my college dorm actually tested that theory by taking a Rick Astley CD and playing Ultimate Frisbee with it, and sure enough it still played afterwards. Then they took it and lit it on fire on the quad. Not to see if it would still play — they just hated Rick Astley.
I bring this up because I recently discovered that reports of CDs’ indestructibility may have been greatly exaggerated. A new study has shown that as many as 20 percent of CDs, most of them manufactured in the ’80s, may actually be suffering from “CD rot.” I don’t know about you, but I feel so ... used. And I also feel a little bloated, although I don’t think that has anything to do with my CDs.
“But I don’t understand,” you might say, casting a distraught look at your carefully stored collection of old Wang Chung and Exposé CDs. Well, let me explain it to you this way: Do you know how on the Enterprise, after they got hit by a photon torpedo, they’d talk about how they’d lost a certain percentage of their “shields”? You do? Geek!
Personally, I always thought CDs sounded too good to be true, even as I relegated my massive and lovingly assembled record collection to my parents’ garage. I always figured that if CDs didn’t work out I could go back and get the records, little knowing that they would one day fall victim to a parental cleaning frenzy that also claimed my old “Conan” novels and the T-shirt from my college newspaper softball team. (Although in retrospect, the less record there is of that the better.)
Fortunately (and conveniently) for the music industry, CD rot has come along just in time for the advent of Super Audio Compact Discs (SACD), which are said to sound oodles better than conventional CDs. Forget what they said in the ’80s about how CDs were supposed to have the absolute best sound ever heard by anyone ever — with SACDs the sound is so good, you don’t even need ears!
And the best part is, SACDs are guaranteed never to rot, decompose or spontaneously combust. (Wink, wink.) Unfortunately, they also require an expensive new player, so I don’t think I’ll be switching anytime soon — that’s a tough item to shoehorn into the old household budget over, say, diapers.
So what are my other options? I could go all digital, but since I also can’t afford an iPod, that would entail only listening to music in front of my home computer, surrounded by dormant exercise equipment and yet-to-be-filed bill stubs. Then there are those who insist that with proper care, you still get the best sound out of a vinyl record. Unfortunately, proper care entails never, ever listening to them.
The whole thing is very disconcerting, but I suppose what it comes down to is that even the smallest, shiniest new technology is not perfect — and we’ll never be overly disappointed if we can just accept the fact that nothing lasts forever. Well, with the possible exception of skinny leather ties.
Which reminds me, I hope those are still in my parents’ garage. I smell a comeback.