Questions Re: the History of CD Packaging

I have a Rod Stewart -Sing It Again Rod still sealed in this packaging.

 

Today at lunch for my birthday (which was months ago), I received a pristine, sealed copy of Spinal Tap's "Break Like The Wind" in the hard-to-find promotional 18-inch "EXTRA-LONG BOX".

Here is what it states on the back on the box:
"The Extra-Long Box is an environmentally conscious product which utilizes more of our precious recycled resources than any other compact disc package. It’s very shape pays homage to the trees of our planet's noble forests.”

The catalog number for this release: MCAD-666.

The first chance I get, I will update the photos at Discogs with better and more images.

Spinal Tap - Break Like The Wind

 

Me too! Give me the old jewel cases anytime. They get scratched up, change the outer case and it's just like new(provided you take care of CD's themselves).

 

Cool!

 

Mine too!

 

Good times...

How to open a CD Jewel case quickly »

Curse the locked hinge designs!

 

The first I ever owned was Lindsey Buckingham's Go Insane in 84, but I know there were some before that. Up till then I didn't think I'd ever get a clear cassette.

 

So only thing I would add is - the reason the very annoying stickers (they are known as “dogbones” in the industry) originally came about was in conjunction with the distributors moving to not accepting returns on defective CDs from retail. If the dogbone was missing they knew it was not new stock, had been opened and returned as defective, and therefore would not be eligible for credit if returned by the retailer.

Now the next phase after that was, the distributors moved to one way sales on all CDs, in other words retail could not return any CD to the distributors for stock balancing or any other reason. Retail bought it, and they owned it forever or until it sold.

That was a complete paradigm shift for the industry and looking back it was the beginning of the end for physical media as the dominant product for sales of Music.

 

I worked at Turtles and had the "honor" of inventorying the classical section (twice a year for 4 years), 9 out of 10 classical titles were in those horrid plastic things. They were still using album racks at the time so I had to go through an entire aisle, with two rows of them stacked side by side in each bin to scan them with the little light pen. Not fun.

 

Think the earliest cd single in a cardboard 'slip' I have is a 1987 UK Nimbus OMD- Shame, 3 inch mini cardboard's 88

 

I actually track packaging with my catalog.
I have thousands of cds and my first one with a clear tray was around Oct/Nov of 1993. Pearl Jam Vs. and Bryan Adams So Far So Good were some of the first titles in my collection.

My first digipak was Sting The Soul Cages in Jan 1991.

 

1992 was the first year I started seeing clear trays, if memory serves.

XTC - Nonsuch, Ministry - Psalm 69 and a few others. I think that's the year that Rykodisc started using translucent green trays, too. I'm sure there were clear trays earlier, but I don't have a recollection of any specific titles.

 

The thing that really annoys me with CD packaging is the releases that do no conform to the standard size of the vaste majority of CD's.

A good example is the 3cd remaster of Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti which comes packaged 13.5 x 13.5 cm. The other 2cd remasters come packaged as 14.4 cm (W) x 12.7cm (H)
A standard cd jewell case is 14.2 cm (W) x 12.5 cm (H).
Have a guess which sizing I used in the design of my shelving.

These problems of course do not exist for downloads or streaming which may be one of the reasons that consumers have moved in that direction.

 

The green-tinted Rykodisc ones came earlier. My Bowie Rykos date back from 1990 and I distinctly remember them being the first ones that had these kind-of-translucent trays. The clear trays were introduced in 1993. The first ones I remember were U2's Zooropa and a Mike Oldfield comp called Elements. But I remember the XTC album too, that may have been one of the very first in 1992.

In general I like jewel cases best when it comes to CD packaging. There's a certain uniformity when they're lined up and the offer the best protection to both disc and booklet. And they're easy to replace, but I hate the cheap and flimsy things that are available today. True, the earliest ones were sturdy, but not very flexible, but there has been an era in which cd cases were both sturdy and flexible. As of today, most of them are just flexible...
It's pretty hard to find good jewel cases nowadays. Another object of which you can say - they don't make them like they used to be...

 

Compain about cd cases all you want, but after you bought a couple of these boxsets you will love them.
Try to get cd nr. 3 out.
And then try to put them all back in without breaking anything.

 

I picked up this one when it came out, never heard or seen of it again since purchasing.
You can't really tell in this online pic, but it also had the green trays.
This release also had some video content on it too, that needed Quicktime to run from memory.

 

Does anyone know when cardboard slipcases were introduced ?
ECM uses them a lot . I find them redundant because in most cases they just repeat the design of the booklet and inlay , on a positive note they prevent the jewelcase from getting scratched , still don't do very much for me

 

In Israel (and possibly other countries?) where the local language is read from right to left, the CD cases are switched around so that the hinge is on the right, as the spine of a Hebrew-language book would be too. It feels so strange to handle, if you are accustomed to holding it the "usual" way.

 

these mediabook sets or whatever they're called look good but the cd trays annoy me, i struggle to get the discs out the first time and i am in the dark about how they work going back in, i get paranoid about damaging the discs so i bought a couple of large cd wallets to store discs from these style sets and anything that comes in a tight digipak that seems like one of those cd stuck in glue possibilities.
I honestly can't figure out how some of the mediabook or bookset style holders work, do the small arms clip onto the disc somehow or what, i feel like an idiot when faced with these bad boys....

 

That's literally the only kind of CD case I hold on to. All of my "jewel" cases have been recycled. I'm also a lot less likely to buy a CD if it comes in a jewel case.

 

I posted earlier in the thread that I have "E-Z Listening Disc" by Devo from 1987 with a green-tinted translucent tray. Rykodisc.

 

I always liked the white-spined jewel cases that came with mainly imports from Japan.

 

I wish that cd's were never issued in anything but standard jewel cases. The digipak's screwed up everything with the way I related to cd's, especially when I acquired too many and went with the Jewelsleeves to save space.

 

Yes, most of thse Ryko soundtracks had video content that required Quicktime. I have the 200 Motels reissue (a title thas wasn't re-released again, by the way).

 

Not quite sure what you mean , were you thinking of simple cardboard sleeves with the unprotected cd in it ? - only remember them from cd singles in the 80's . I think they are the worst kind of cd packaging , I admit they save a lot of space (although there are much better options available), but not very healthy for the cd surface.