When CDs were introduced in the 1982, they were presented as a huge leap forward for the music industry. In this delightfully weird ten-minute ad for compact disc technology made by CD co-developer Philips, Alan Parsons
gripes that "for too many years, we've had to work in the dark, knowing
that nobody would be able to hear the music as we made it in the
studio," and then promises that "with the coming of compact disc, this
is no longer a problem." News stories from 1984 and 1985 - when CD players dropped from $1000 to around $300 (that was considered cheap, but it's over $650 in 2014 dollars!)
and the format actually started to take off - breathlessly explain
that the discs are "made by computers" and "played by lasers," and that
they sound better than anything out there.
But as
great as the technology was for audiophiles and for the record industry,
retailers were not happy with the new format. First, record stores
were full of display stands custom-built to hold 12 inch by 12 inch
vinyl records. But CDs were 5 inches by 5 inches, which looked small
and weird on the racks. Buying all new display equipment and
rearranging layouts for an unproven format was a nonstarter for record
stores. Second, CDs were just small enough that enterprising
shoplifters could fit them in pockets and down pants without much
trouble. Anti-theft measures like plastic cages or electronic sensors
would cost money and be a hassle to implement. Because retailers were,
obviously, critical to record sales, the industry placated them with a
packaging solution: the "CD Longbox." (Remember those?)
Longboxes
were basically just extra cardboard built around the CD case so that
the package grew from 5 inches by 5 inches to 6 inches by 12 inches.
Two longboxes next to each other would fit in the exact space that one
vinyl record took up, so the transition from vinyl to CDs would be
simple. And the bigger package was also harder to steal. As a result
of those two thing, retailers loved them. For their part, record
companies did too. Longboxes added between 25 and 50 cents to the
manufacturing cost, but added up to $1 to the retail price of a disc.
Essentially, the record company built an expensive an unnecessary
package around their CDs, purely to benefit cheap record store owners,
and then everyone down the line marked up their cost and made a profit
selling the cardboard to consumers.
As you might
guess, longboxes were not very popular with the record-buying public.
The boxes were almost always simply ripped in half to get to the actual
product, and then thrown away - sometimes right at the register. That
waste became hard to ignore, and as CD sales grew exponentially in the
late 1980s and early 1990s longboxes were increasingly criticized for
their environmental impact. This 1990 Entertainment Weekly article
notes that 200 million longboxes were trashed in 1989, which created
18.5 million pounds of waste. By mid-1990, every other country but the
US had done away with the packaging; despite the environmental pressure the record companies and record stores weren't ready to give in.
All of that history is interesting (well, to me it is), and sets the scene for today's TMFW. In 1991, REM released its record Out of Time. REM at that time was at the height of its powers; Green had featured their biggest single yet ("Stand," which reached number 6 and which complemented "Pop Song 89" and "Orange Crush" on the record), and college rock was breaking out into the mainstream. REM, who were a environmentally-conscious group, were
concerned about having their record marketed with a longbox in the US,
and initially refused to allow it. But their label Warner Brothers knew that their sales would be hurt if
they insisted on going without the longbox, and so they had to find a
way to convince the group that the environmental impact was worth it.
Warner
Brothers came up with a genius solution: use the extra packaging for a
political movement. REM's lead singer Michael Stipe was outspoken
politically, and was keenly interested in the "Rock the Vote" campaign
that was founded in 1990. Rock the Vote came partially in response to Tipper Gore's Parents Music Resource Center,
which pushed for censorship of music that they deemed inappropriate.
The PMRC freaked out the record labels and infuriated artists, who
rightfully felt that having a panel of middle-aged, right-wing, upper-
upper-class politicians' wives judging the content of their music was
totally inappropriate and would lead to horrific results. So Rock The
Vote was born, with a stated aim of engaging young people in the
political process so that the value of free expression would be
well-represented at the polls.
This is where the Out of Time longbox comes in. This excellent episode of the "99% invisible" podcast tells the story well:
Warner Brothers convinced REM to use the longbox by promising to put a
postcard on the back that record buyers could fill out and send in to
their senators (c/o Rock the Vote.) The postcard urged the senators to
support the "Motor Voter Act," which made registering to vote much
easier by allowing people to register when they applied for drivers'
licenses at their state DMVs.
Out of Time was
a breakout record for REM; behind "Losing My Religion," "Shiny Happy People," and "Radio Song," it hit number 1, won three Grammy Awards,
and sold 4 million copies. And the postcard gambit worked well, too:
during Senate hearings on the Moter Voter Act, supporters brought in a
shopping cart filled with 10,000 signed cards to demonstrate public
support for the bill. Ultimately, Motor Voter passed Congress in 1992.
Despite efforts from Michael Stipe and Rock the Vote to urge signing,
President George H.W. Bush vetoed the bill during the 1992 campaign
season. His rival Bill Clinton seized on that veto and promised to
support the bill if he was elected; in May, 1993 - just four months into his first term - Clinton kept his promise and signed the Act.
As the 99% invisible entry suggests, Out of Time is likely the most politically significant record of all time. And it's all due to some wasted cardboard.
++++++++++++++++++++
BONUS FACT: Longboxes didn't last very long after Out of Time. In 1992, David Byrne put a sticker on each copy of his album Uh-Oh that read "This is garbage.
This box, that is. The American record business insists on it,
though. If you agree that it's wasteful, let your store management know
how you feel." By the end of 1993, CDs were by far the most dominant format, vinyl was dead, and longboxes became effectively extinct. Ever the dinosaurs, record stores mourned the loss.
BONUS
FACT 2: Frank Zappa, who was an interesting enough dude to merit about
a dozen TMFWs, was a leader in the resistance against Tipper Gore's
PMRC music censorship campaign. His testimony before a Congressional subcommittee 1985 was one of his great all-time performances. You can read a transcript here and an appreciation of his anti-censorship efforts here.
BONUS
FACT 3: One of PMRC's "filthy fifteen" - the 15 most objectionable
songs that PMRC targeted for censorship - was Cyndi Lauper's "She Bop," for lyrics about sex and masturbation. I had no idea what I was listening to as a kid.
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