The Budget of Paradox

Sophia,

Some random thoughts… 34 years ago this weekend, I bought my first CD.

Music delivery technology changed a lot in the 20 years before you were born. When I was your age, if you bought music, it came on a vinyl record (big round black disks; I’m sure you’ve seen a photo of them, but I’m also sure you’ve never held one). Music also came on cassette tapes. When I was really young, it was still possible to buy music on reel-to-reel tapes. That’s really old technology.

When I was in high school, the compact disc (CD) was introduced. It was a revolution because it was digital music, and digital never degrades. Vinyl records and tapes degrade over time.

There was a time when I had a huge collection of CDs. Hundreds of them. I enjoyed collecting rare and hard-to-find CDs, especially imports from Japan. The cool import CDs were always from Japan for some unknown reason. I’m not talking about Japanese bands. In fact, if you were into a band from Belgium (such as Front 242), you’d expect their rare CDs to be from Belgium. But nope. Japan.

Anyway, by the time you were born, almost all music was streamed over the internet. You can still buy CDs (and even vinyl records). But it’s all streaming now.

So, getting back to 1989. I was living in upstate New York and getting ready to move to Hawaii for the first time. I bought a CD player and my first CD. It was “Blind Man’s Zoo” by 10,000 Maniacs. I bought it on the strength of the song “Trouble Me”. The lead singer, Natalie Merchant, is also from upstate New York. She’s only a few years older than me.

It’s funny that I remember all these dumb little details.

Link to “Trouble Me”. Natalie wrote it as a love letter to her father who was dying in a hospital at the time.

I love you and miss you. I’d love to tell you more stories from my youth.

Dad

p.s. if you liked that song, here is one more.