Interesting Facts

18th August 1982 - The first CD was produced at Philips' factory in Germany.

The average CD (compact disc) can hold 74 minutes’ worth of recorded sound. (What's interesting about this is why they chose 74 minutes.  Why not 60 or 120?  Well allegedly, when CDs were developed by Philips and Sony in the 70s, one of the developers,  Norio Ohga,  decided that a single CD should be able to contain the longest recorded version of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which is 74 minutes long. Luckily they didn't decide on the symphony Victory at Sea, by Richard Rodgers, it is 13 hours long!)

According to figures from the British Phonographic Industry, digital music sales now exceed sales of CDs and records. (Digital sales have risen to £86.5 million/year, whilst revenue from physical formats, such as CD and vinyl, slumped by 15%, and now represents just £69.3 million. BTW - for the younger generation, CDs are small, round, flat shiny things that play music, and records (aka vinyl) are large, round, flat, black things that play music too.)

The Duke of Edinburgh was given a baby elephant when visiting Sri Lanka. (In fact, the Royal family usually receive presents when they go on holidays (sorry - state visits), and some of them are quite ridiculous. Princess Anne was given a brown Syrian bear by the then Soviet Union. Prince Andrew was given a newborn Gambian crocodile. The Queen was given a pair of sloths in Brazil in 1968. It's not always animals either. Prince Andrew was given two bags of basmati rice by the Pakistan High Commission 2008 the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall were given two wristbands, two baseball caps, four T-shirts and 18 CDs by the Bob Marley Museum in Jamaica. When the Prince of Wales married Lady Diana Spencer, she received a pair of 100-year-old silk mittens, a silver-plated mousetrap and, most esoteric of all, a piece of crocheted lace made from yarn spun by Mahatma Gandhi. Other gifts have included a box of volcanic ash from Montserrat, a yellow metal hatpin from J...

Laws in the UK that make it illegal to rip (copy) content from CDs and DVDs onto computers, iPods, iPads and other devices are set to be scrapped. (Millions of people routinely transfer music and films they have bought on CD and DVD onto such devices for personal use, but under current copyright rules, this copying, or ‘format shifting’, is technically illegal. The music industry has accepted the proposals, but has suggested that some companies and artists should be compensated for any income lost as a result of copying through a levy applied to the price of iPods and similar devices, or CDs, DVDs and downloads. Show me the money! They cried. Well I would like to be compensated for my husband having to buy CDs of LPs and Tapes he had already bought.) Source

According to the record industry, global music sales fell by more than 8% in 2008. (The sale of CDs and vinyl actually fell by 15% globally (31% in the US). Sales of digital music rose by 24%, but didn't take up the shortfall. Maybe we'll see musicians going back to being wandering minstrels.)

In 2000 global sales of CD albums peaked at 2.455 billion. In 2006 that figure was down to 1.755 billion. (So does that mean 700 million CDs have been downloaded illegally?)

In 1985 Dire Straits' Brothers In Arms became the first CD to sell more than one million copies. (Unbelievably, it is still the world's most successful CD album.)

The names considered for the CD included; Mini Rack, MiniDisc, and Compact Rack. (Complementing a girl on her mini rack could have unfortunate consequences.)

The first CD ever produced was "The Visitors" by Abba. (Of course it was also Abba's swan song, so you could say this was first and last.)

Since 1982 more than 200 billion CDs have been sold worldwide. (I think half of them have turned up in junk mail from AOL.)