When the CD format was launched in 1982, a key target audience were audiophiles who were frustrated with the labor and pop and clicks encountered in playing vinyl records and the wear and poor fidelity encountered in playing cassettes. While one could debate the merits and limitations of the various music formats, I will not [...]

Happy New Year!  Welcome to 2012 at keithhirsch.com! Most Target CDs, as early issues, were pressed in West Germany or Japan.  However, perusing this site, you will see a handful of U.S. Target pressings sprinkled about.  The U.S. PDO (Philips-DuPont Optical) plant pressed some CDs early on with the Target motif.  Generally speaking, these U.S. [...]

Happy Holidays!  It’s time yet again to celebrate the holiday season on keithhirsch.com with an early Christmas CD.  This year, we grace this site with a compilation from one of the great crooners — Bing Crosby.  In 1986, MCA Records released Bing Crosby Sings Christmas Songs on CD in the U.S. (catalog number MCAD-5765).  The [...]

1978 saw a three-man band from the U.K. break onto the music scene with a fresh punk/rock/reggae sound and creative, insecure, honest, and sometimes humorous lyrics. That band, of course, is none other than The Police, led by frontman Sting and joined by guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland. Their debut album, the distinctively [...]

1986 saw the release of piano player Bruce Hornsby’s debut blockbuster album with his band, The Range, entitled The Way It Is.  The album is famous for its three hits, “Mandolin Rain”, “Every Little Kiss”, and, of course, the thought-provoking title track.  While you may be very familiar with the album, you may not be [...]

A jazz album that belongs on any enthusiast’s shelf is the 1957 western-themed collection by Sonny Rollins appropriately titled Way Out West. This album is a classic down to the cover photo of Rollins standing in the desert donning his tenor sax and western duds. Fantasy, Inc./Contemporary Records released the first issues of this saxohphone [...]

Over the years, I have featured several rare Target CDs here, including some unusual color variations.  You will find examples both in posts and in the Target CD Galleries.  Two years ago, I posted about a rare “reverse” color variation of U2 War.  A few others exist, and in my experience, reverse Target CDs are [...]

Classical and orchestral music have not gotten a lot of “airtime” on keithhirsch.com, and that’s unfortunate.  It’s not that I am averse to these genres.  I am not.  In fact, I have a fair number of early classical and orchestral CDs and enjoy listening to them.  So it’s high time that I give an excellent [...]