I was out taking a 3.5 mile run yesterday with my dog. As usual, I had my MP3 player on, shuffling a base of well over 1000 tracks. One of the tracks that came up was “Smooth Operator” by Sade, and it knocked my socks off. It is one of the tracks on “Diamond Life,” Sade’s debut album. Though the album was released in 1984, it’s totally fresh today.
But there is more to this story. “Diamond Life” was the first CD that I ever bought. I had just purchased one of those new-fangled CD players and the knowledgeable guy at the audio store said that there weren’t that many CD’s to choose from at that time, but that the Sade album was the one to buy to show off the new “CD sound.” He wasn’t lying. The sound was, and still is, immaculate, and the musicians are so tight and balanced it’s a pleasure to hear them even now. And of course, Sade is so laconically sexy! Every track on that album is terrific, but my favorite is “Hang On To Your Love.” Check it out if you have not heard it for a while. You can get the original remastered version (I guess it has gotten even better) on Amazon for a mere $7.98.
By the way, her new album “Soldier of Love” (released almost 10 years since her last album) is excellent. The lady just keeps bringin’ it.
A question: Do you remember the first CD you bought?
3 comments:
Hey Dad- nice post! I remember that moment well too. I even remember the box the CD was in and that there was a very limited selection of CDs that first came out. Funny - I still remember clearly how your whole stereo setup looked like with the LP collection.
Hey man, I can't remember what my first CD was. I've been trying to figure out what it may have been since you posted this, but no luck remembering. I know it was something I didn't have on an LP because I was still mainly using the turntable and the CD thing was new and "experimental" etc. I don't even remember what my first record was, or first LP. I remember the first LP that meant something, that changed the way I heard music and played it was simply titled Ahmad Jamal with a shot of his profile on a black background. That had his version of "Surrey with the Fringe on Top" that to this day I still play on the piano myself. I was years before I finally bought the CD version of that LP, with all the extras. And of course now it's on my itune library on my laptop.
woops, that "flynn" should say "lally"—my youngest obviously didn't sign out when he used this last night!
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