CD Rot

‘WHILE Posh tries to destroy music from within, something called ‘CD Rot’ is worming its way into your collection from without.

‘Ah! B*Witched’s Greatest Hits!’

The Mail has identified a condition that is rendering CDs – mostly those produced in the later 1980s – unplayable.

A failure in the lacquer coating on the first ever CDs means that many of the first batch of aluminium discs are oxidising, leading to what appear to be patches of rust on the recordings.

But why is this happening? When the discs came out, we were invited to test their indestructible properties.

You could smear them with butter and jam, toss them under Fred Dibnah’s steam-engine and still put them under the laser beam and dance away to Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill.

But now we learn that things are not as promised. The works of Bruce Springsteen, Big Audio Dynamite and Gary Numan are rotting away quicker than the actual artistes.

And Jerry Hartke, who runs something called Media Sciences, believes he knows why.

‘If people treat these discs rather harshly, or stack them, or allow them to rub against each other, this very fragile protective layer can be disturbed, allowing the atmosphere to interact with the aluminium,’ says he.

And it sounds even worse when you turn to the Express and hear Simon Fayle, of CD duplication firm Spool Multi Media, say that he’s had discs bought just three years ago that are now unplayable.

We know what he means – when we put Victoria Beckham’s eponymous 2001 album on the stereo just the other day, we too found it utterly unplayable – even more so when the next door neighbour came round and smashed our machine to bits with a sledgehammer.

And if that happens to you, Steve Redmond, of the British Phonographic Industry, has some words to the wise.

‘I would advise anyone with a CD that isn’t working to return it,’ he tells Express readers.

However, if you are seeking a refund on Posh’s original recording, as we shall be, best wear a balaclava to the record shop, lest you be recognised and shamed for all eternity…’

Posted: 25th, May 2004 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink