Post Up: Happy Birthday Compact Disc. Now Go Away!

I wrote this piece of half-assed homage for Wired on Sunday, but it was a hit far and wide. Maybe people are as sick of CDs as they are of bottled water, both of which are wasteful phantoms of a previous life where mass consumption supposedly didn’t murder innovation or the environment. Those days are long gone, so it’s good to get some positive feedback, and not just on Wired. Prefix Mag sent me a shout-out as well. It takes a village, people, especially to unplug from a consumerist fantasy that has no place in the 21st century.

Happy Birthday Compact Disc. Now Go Away
On this day in 1982, Sony and Philips Consumer Electronics released the first CDs to the German public, forever changing the way music would be distributed, marketed, consumed and appreciated. Now would be a great time to change it all again.

Yes, the compact disc is celebrating its birthday of sorts, and it’s been a good run. As cool as vinyl was (and is), it was big and required a delicate machine that demanded human interaction, especially if you wanted to skip a tune. CDs were smaller, faster and digital, the perfect product for a new era of hyperconsumption and hyperspeed. But that era has come to an end.

Because there is nothing faster, or better, than purely digital music fired across the internet’s synaptic network. Here are three reasons why. MORE

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