What, rot? What rot!

Not a new "One record at at time" post but a another random bank holiday ramble full of rot.

When CDs were becoming 'mainstream' in the late eighties I felt very smug with my Sony CDP-M35 player and I took every opportunity to remind my teenage friends that I was part of the digital music revolution (I'd saved up very hard for my CD player you understand).

During this period, one ill informed cynic informed me that I wouldn't be so smug in twenty years time when all of my CDs had become subject to "oxidisation" and I was left with a pile of dust. How I laughed at her folly! How I scorned the fact that every time she played her cassettes or records she took a little bit of life out of them. CDs were indestructible and she was wrong. Well sort of.

I posted ten years ago (gulp) about the issue of bronzing or 'CD rot' and I wondered how much damage would be done to my collection. Well, as it turns out there has never been too much damage and last week I discovered what is only the second casualty in a collection of over 2500. Well, in truth I have two copies of this CD and they have both bronzed, so that makes three. But still, it remains at a tolerable level.

All three of my bronzed discs were pressed at PDO in the UK, so there was obviously something wrong at this plant in 1991. I have recently thrown out a blu-ray of a-ha "Ending on a high note" as it was subject to the manufacturing issues that affected a French production plant. This disc became unreadable as the resin used to bind the layers of the disc oxidised. I wonder if the same thing is happening here. I'm going to keep an eye on PDO manufactured discs from now on that's for sure.

CD Rot

A few weeks ago I wrote about the idea of buying music largely as mp3's rather than in any physical format. I am failing miserably in this endeavour as the ever growing pile of amazon packages my postman is delivering testify. 

 

Now, the idiocy of my expanding CD collection is no longer solely limited to lack of space. I have begun to encounter the first incidence of what I think is CD rot in my collection. On opening up an Eurythmics CD I must have bought sometime in the late 80's, I noticed it had a distinct brown/copper tinge that I do not remember it having. I can find no pictures of the actual CD of this release on the net and am slowly convinced it is succumbing to bronzing. The disc does have a tendency to produce read errors but is also scratched a little so I can't identify if the problem is the scratches or the presumed bronzing. 

Either way the CD is easily replaced and is not especially significant. However, if one day I open up the cupboard and find a few hundred CD's unreadable and brown, I am not going to be impressed. If these discs are bronzing because of a known manufacturing error should the record company not offer us recompense? Faulty workmanship of any other sort would demand redress.

Whilst a blown hard drive may wipe out my music collection, I can at least make multiple copies of my music to offer some sort of safety net. If my CD's rot and become unplayable I am stuffed. This digital collection idea makes increasing sense. Anyway must go. Postman is at the door with a package from amazon.