Forty Years Of The CD

Nothing will compare to me receiving Relient K’s album Forget and Not Slow Down in the mail and driving around in my 1998 Ford Explorer for a first listen in high school. While I love the convenience of modern streaming I do miss the CD “experience” often.

 

Owning the physical copy of an album now holds a lot more prestige than it ever did in the past. It's like $30 to $40 a record these days. If you want to OWN an album that is both playable and a work of art, you REALLY gotta love it. It doesn't come cheap either.

 

I've had cd's since 1995. Presidents of the United States of America and Nirvana "Incesticide" were the first cd's I bought.

I've purged my cd's twice in my lifetime and sold a lot of rare cd's to fund the vinyl addiction) But I still have a ton of cd's kicking around!

(unfortunately I don't have a cd player in the house, only in my car. But it's to bust out albums that aren't nt on Spotify like Jamisonparker "Sleepwalker", This Day and Age "Always Leave the Ground" and this obscure emo band from Saskatchewan called Filmmaker and their only album "An Invitation To An Accident")

 

Thanks for the recommendations! It reminded me to listen to Rock, Paper, Scissors, I always liked that song.

Were you into the southern Ontario 2000's ska punk scene too? There's a few albums from that scene that I have on CD, but aren't available on streaming services like The Know How - "HappyFunRobotKillTime" and illScarlett - "EPdemic".

Any other forgotten gems you can recommend?

 

I saw Jamisonparker once in Buffalo, can't remember who else was on the tour but I'm sure it was a bunch of similar bands from that era.

I wasn't really into the southern Ontario ska scene but know a lot of the band names. I had the Billy Talent "Try Honesty" ep that was self released back in '01/'02. Pretty sure I sold it for almost $200.

I'm from Brampton so obviously biggest band out of here is Moneen.

If you can find a copy of that Filmmaker album I'd highly recommend that. If you dig Jimmy Eat World "Clarity" or The Weakerthans "Left and Leaving" it's reminiscent of that and one of my favourite albums.

Chore "The Coastaline Fire" was a jam (The Hitchhiker is such a good song!)

Jerk Circus (Shanes band before Silverstein)

Other random local Southern Ontario bands I'm trying to think of: Sinclaire, Sleeper Set Sail, Wheels on the Bus, Rosesdead, Always Outnumbered, Shotgun Rules, Lifestory:Monologue, Straight Reads the Line, Sydney, Everlea. The list goes on

Another band from the prairies was Away From Here. They had one album "Anatomy of a Broken Heart", reminiscent of Senses Fail. The singer went on to front The Holly Springs Disaster.

If it was 2001/2002 I'd suggest Alexisonfire and Boysnightout but I'm sure you know they did alright for themselves lol.

 

Shotgun Rules, that takes me back. They're the band that got me into veganism back in 2005. There's a lot of nostalgia for me in your post. I'm from the Maritimes so I'm familiar with many of the touring Ontario bands from that era.

Moneen is definitely a big one for me too. The first time I saw them was with The Full Blast back in 2004. Them along with Silverstein, Alexisonfire, Boys Night Out and Protest the Hero were the ones I've seen the most.

I checked out that Filmmaker album and I liked it a lot. I love finding forgotten bands from that period so I'm looking forward to going through the other bands on your list and over half are new to me. Another Ontario band that I had never heard of before last year, but have since fallen in love with is The Newfound Interest in Connecticut.

From the Maritimes the big one to recommend is North of America, but there were some local bands like The Letter Unfolds and Syracuse Me that are also worth checking out.

 

Between local shows and the bands getting bigger in the following years Alexisonfire, Moneen and, BNO are the bands I've seen the most live (with the exception of ETID, Death Cab and Jimmy Eat World).

Crazy to see the legacy and the fandom the bands still stir up. I went to night 2 of The Red Tree anniversary shows in Toronto and they had surprise openers. One night was Matt Pryor, the one I went to was Alexisonfire.

Glad you dig Filmmaker. One of my favorite albums ever. Forgot about A Newfound Interest in Connecticut! I'll definitely revisit that album. Great post rock/emo band!

I'll check out your suggestions! Currently checking out North of America. They've got a Jawbox, Cursive, Roadside Monument, Frodus feel to them, which I can get behind!

 

First CD bought for me was some Disney cartoon songs bought at the Disney Studios store when we went on a Cub Scout trip to go watch a taping of Home Improvement.

First time I tried to buy a CD I was denied and had to buy the Toy Story soundtrack.

When I finally was able to buy something that *I* wanted I bought Foo Fighters - The Color And The Shape.

Last CD I bought was Taylor Swift - Lover (Autographed)

So many cd's bought in between, some of my favorite being Jack's Mannequin - Everything In Transit and then buying The Receiving End of Sirens - Between The Heart And The Synapse based off the album cover and just falling in love with that album. Never saw them (TREOS) live, and had tickets to their show in Boston a couple years back but COVID made them cancel the show. Another favorite was buying Sugarcult - Palm Trees And Powerlines on the day of the release (on the good ol' days of Tuesday release days) and just jamming out in the parking lot of the Target afterwards.

Digital media just isn't the same.