Top Menu

Steal This Disc

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). 

Because of CDs’ relatively high cost, I took advantage of the public library’s small, but growing selection, taping selected discs. I only added new titles maybe once a month, at most.

Then one day I was browsing the music section at my local Bradlees discount department store when I saw the display for a CD compilation enticingly titled, “Steal This Disc.” Most of the artists were a mystery to me – Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, The Residents, Schooly D – but I’d heard of a few, like Frank Zappa, Devo, George Thorogood and Jimi Hendrix. Priced at just $5.99, it sure did seem like a steal, so I picked it up. 

At home, I was in for a sonic adventure. The blues of Josh White Jr. and Johnny Adams then takes a sharp left turn into Zappa’s Synclavier orgy of “G-Spot Tornado,” only to veer into Sugar Minott’s reggae, followed by McLaughlin’s cover of Glenn Miller’s “Something Spiritual.” This was a kind of eclecticism wholly unaccustomed to this exurban New Jersey kid raised on classic hard rock, new wave and the pop edge of punk. 

Digging into the extensive 18-page booklet I learned that “Steal This Disc” was a label sampler for Rykodisc, the first CD-only record label. Most of the tracks were taken from first-time CD releases for these albums and artists. Clocking in at 70 minutes – just four shy of the format’s limit at the time – it sure felt like a bargain, compared to the more typical 40-minute run time of 1980s albums. As one of the few compact discs in my collection, that comp saw a lot of spin time for a few years. 

Of course, compilation albums, as well as label comps, were nothing new. Back in the 1970s Warner / Reprise records advertised double album “Loss Leaders” on the inner sleeves of their releases, originally costing as little as $2 by mail order. And we can’t leave out the “as seen on TV” K-Tel records stuffed with a selection of the recent Top 40, with names like “Full Tilt” and “Music Machine.” (Not coincidentally, I own both of those.)

But with new LPs or cassettes still priced around eight or nine bucks in the late 80s, laying down only six buckeroos for more than an hour of pure digital music was a revelation. As the 80s turned into the 90s, the compilation CD earned a growing space in my musical life. You see, the dirty little secret of compact discs is that even by 1990s they became cheaper to produce than vinyl LPs, but labels kept their prices artificially higher in order to support and justify their reputation as a premium product. However, that also meant that when labels wanted to put out cheap surveys of their roster or genres, CDs were actually preferable to vinyl. I started finding more discount priced compilation CDs in the record store aisles, and was more than happy to snap them up when it seemed like more than a few tracks would suit my taste. Plus, I enjoyed the surprise of hearing something new and reliving that “Steal this Disc” experience over and over again.

College Radio Disc-overy Mechanism

Arriving in college radio in 1989, by 1991 the majority of new releases were arriving on CD. Our “new rack” housed a growing stack of comps made just for college radio. From CMJ’s “Certain Damage” series to major label entries, like Warner Brother’s “Follow Our Trax,” sometimes they allowed a lazy DJ (or one busy studying for mid-terms) to program an entire shift with just a few discs. More importantly, they were designed to place new artists next to more established ones, enticing a listen by proximity. Because they often arrived at the station in multitudes, extras were given away to DJs – most certainly by design.

After getting turned on to an artist from a compilation, I often learned that was their only good track. The one I most vividly remember is the minor college radio hit, “Three Strange Days,” by School of Fish. I thought the track was unique, fuzzy, catchy and still rocking, seeking out their self-titled debut. I gave the disc a number of tries, but found the songs mostly all sounded like the single, only not as good. I kept the comp, ditched the album. I have many, many sampler CDs I’ve kept because they perform the vital function of serving up the wheat, not the chaff.

As the 90s wore on, it seemed like label comps featured more exclusive tracks, live versions or remixes you wouldn’t or couldn’t find elsewhere. And then there were the tribute albums. Inspired by underground indie and punk rock tributes that were more than a little tongue-in-cheek, discs like 1994’s “If I Were a Carpenter” let alternative bands on the cusp of the mainstream sneak into your ears on the back of familiar middle-of-the-road tunes.

Reality Bites Pulp Fiction on Judgment Night

I’d be remiss not to include the rising prominence of soundtrack albums bring together nostalgic classics, alongside contemporary artists. The best had high concepts matching, or exceeding the ambitions of the film. I’m thinking about the indie rock / new wave hybrid of “Reality Bites,” the emerging Seattle grunge scene survey of “Singles,” or “Pulp Fiction,” which is arguably the ultimate expression of this pastiche, an auditory mirror of Tarantino’s then-fresh genre-bending style. The trailblazing hip-hop and rock crossover of “Judgment Night” is one where the soundtrack was a greater artistic success than the lackluster exploitation movie it ostensibly supported. All of these discs see semi-regular play when I dig into my CD collection.

Of course, aside from the shiny plastic disc, there’s little to differentiate a compilation CD from a playlist. Many an ungracefully aging music commentator has lodged complaints about the decline of the album with the rise of the streaming playlist. But rarely acknowledged are the tens of minutes of “bonus track” filler, or the one outstanding hit surrounded by meandering soundalikes crowding albums since the compact disc let albums grow past vinyl’s hard 40-minute limit. The compilation was a brilliant, and artistic solve to that problem, which playlists bring into the present.

Vinyl Carries Forward the Flag

While this piece may seem like a eulogy, I acknowledge the compilation has gone nowhere. In fact, I’d argue that the vinyl LP stepped back into the take on the mantle, as every Record Store Day list is piled high with rarities and dusties comps sources from tapes and acetates buried in garages, basements and attics from around the world. For many of these artists probably one track suffices, and we should be grateful we can have it. 

But gone are the bargain prices. The 21st century economics of vinyl make these $30 or $40 outlays. Even though that’s less real-world scratch than it was in the 1990s, it’s still more of a gamble than that five-buck CD comp. 

Hard Limits and Editing

Playlists, for all their compilation-like appearances, can also suffer from their near infinity. I’ve enjoyed many a three-, four- or even ten-hour playlist employed as enjoyable background music. But I’d be hard pressed to say I’ve paid focused attention to them. 

A CD’s hard limit of 80 minutes forces an edit. Not everything can be included, so choices must be made. No doubt, many playlists are just as carefully curated, but sometimes function follows form. 

I was inspired to write this ode because I dug out my two editions of “Steal This Disc” the other day on the occasion of buying a new CD player (yes, you can still do that), to replace an aging and finicky, and once-expensive, Blu-Ray player that never quite lived up to the promise of being a “universal” player, only becoming universally glitchy and annoying. Today the “Steal This Disc” sequence still feels familiar and right – it’s the only way I expect to hear “G-Spot Tornado.”

The Comp of 2055

Will a playlist last 34 years? This is not rhetorical question. I won’t predict that Spotify won’t be here in 2055, holding intact our digital crates of tracks, albums and playlists accumulated over decades of listening and gathering. I can say with certainty that when 16 year-old me bought “Steal This Disc” I gave no thought to whether or not I’d be listening to it in middle-age. I also didn’t necessarily think that I wouldn’t. CDs were the format of the future, I’d never seen the internet, and had no reason to think my future wouldn’t have CDs. It was nary a concern as I plunked down my six bucks.

I have no problem finding on Spotify many of the compilations I cited, including the Carpenters tribute. But “Steal This Disc?” It’s not there. Possibly a victim of multiple ownership changes for parent label Rykodisc, combined with its very essence as a demonstration of the new physical format. Its materiality is entirely irrelevant with streaming. Can you “steal this stream?”

For the intrepid music hunter tiring of the cost and competition involved in uncovering obscure sounds on vinyl, I suggest plunging into the “Various Artists” section of your local compact disc vendor (or Goodwill). There’s gold to be found in those silver stacks.

Support from readers like you make content like this possible. Please take a moment to support Radio Survivor on Patreon!
Become a patron at Patreon!
Share

, , , , , , , , , ,

Powered by WordPress. Designed by WooThemes