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In Praise of the Compilation CD
I bought my first CD player in 1987, using money I saved from my 16th birthday and working as a stock boy at the local Party Fair store. I could only afford to buy two discs to try out on my new purchase, owing to the fact that new CDs cost about $15.99, roughly $37 in 2021 dollars, or about 3.5 hours of my teenaged labor.
Arguably I was ahead of the curve, especially for a 16 year-old. CD players wouldn’t be in even half of all US households for another six years. I fashioned myself a bit of a burgeoning audiophile, though I don’t think I knew the word. I voraciously consumed Stereo Review magazine every month and pored over the multi-page J&R Music World adverts in the New York Times. I was more than ready to take the leap into “perfect sound forever” by the time players’ price came into reach – for me, that was under $300 ($700 in 2021, or maybe 12 weeks of my part-time labor).