On my thirteenth birthday, I had the surprised of my life. My mother’s boss gifted me a Sony Discman. Before that, I had only seen CDs and bulky CD players used by my older cousins, but nothing this small and sleek. We still hadn’t had that technology in our own home. We had a turntable (with a very limited record collection) and what looked like an endless collection of cassette tapes. The Discman I received looked beautiful despite the box it came in. It was to my knowledge the most expensive gift I had ever received. I knew I had to take care of it. I also knew that it meant that I was old enough to be in charge of the music I listened to. Receiving and taking care of that Discman was in a sense a right of passage.
There were a small but growing number of record stores in Bahrain that sold CDs at the time (ca. 1995). At a standard 6.700 Bahraini Dinars (or approximately US$18) per album in the case of single discs and 14.100 Bahraini Dinars (or approximately US$37) in the case of double-disc releases, CDs were expensive. All record stores sold a cassette version of the same albums that were on CD for a maximum of BD2 (approx. US$5.30) in the case of a single-tape release or BD4 (approx. US$10.6) in the case of a double-tape release. One could potentially buy three album in cassette form for the price of one CD.
When I received the Discman, I remember asking my parents for permission to buy a CD. The price of an album, especially by the standards of the time, was very expensive. I knew that I would need to be very careful in choosing that first CD. About a kilometer and a half from where I lived was a video/record store called Budaiya Video. They had - at least in my memory - a sizable collection of CDs. The first time I walked in there to browse their CDs and make my pick, I panicked. There was so much music there that I didn’t know. I wanted to pick the best album possible, and I didn’t know how to know what that best album was. I was so overwhelmed on that first visit, that I walked back home empty handed. For a 13 year-old to walk 3km in the heat felt like quite an odyssey, and a bitter one for that matter given that I was empty-handed. I decided to go back the next day, and just look for an album I knew nothing about with a great cover. As soon as I walked back in, I made my choice.
“A Kind of Magic” (1986) by Queen was that album. I couldn’t stop looking at the cover. I remember two of my older cousins talking about Queen as being one of their favorite bands, but I never remember seeing this album in their collections. I skipped back home after getting that CD with joy. The Discman I had come with earbuds (which I was familiar with in design because the Nintendo Gameboy came with something similar albeit in a different color). As soon as I got back home, I plugged in the Discman into the electricity socket (the Discman could run on both batteries and AC adaptor). I placed the Discman carefully on my desk, and inserted the disc after struggling with the nylon wrap it came in. The opening sound was clear, and it sounded crisper than the sounds from the cassette tapes I was used to. Now that I think about it, I don’t know if it’s just me imaging or if I had bought the marketing catchphrase behind CDs - that they were the best possible way to experience music. I was giddy with excitement.
There was just one problem. Every time I moved the Discman while it was playing, the music would skip. The Discman still didn’t have a skip-protection function yet, which made it something that wasn’t very portable. I suddenly realized that I couldn’t listen to the Discman in the car or while out and about. Plus it didn’t come with a comfortable way to carry it with me such as a belt-clip or protective case. I had no choice but to get speakers, and create a corner in my room where I could place my Discman and listen to music freely and untethered in my room. I asked my father if he could get me a small pair of speakers to plug into my Discman. He agreed. On Friday morning, which was at the time the second day of the weekend in Bahrain, we went to the Souq Al-Magasis - the local flea market. I got a small pair of inexpensive speakers there, and I was over the moon. The speakers probably cost less than a CD.
When I got home that Friday, some of my older cousins came over for lunch and I was jumping all over the place in excitement. I thought that by having a CD player of my own, with speakers, and by owning my first album, they would somehow consider me as being one of them - one of the big kids. When they asked me what album I got, I told them. They responded in unison saying, “Queen? Yuck.”
Nearly 30 years later, I listen back to that album as I type this text. I must admit, it’s actually quite fascinating in its own way. The opening “sounds” of the first song, One Vision, always gives me chills. The standout track for me in that entire album, however, has to be Princes of the Universe. I learned later that it was part of the soundtrack for Highlander (1986), and when I accidentally watched that movie a few years later on TV one night, I was proud that I recognized the music it immediately. It was my own little discovery.
Now that I think about all this, I realize that the Discman - with its earphones and my flea market-purchased speakers - was where I had one my first spaces that belonged solely to me. I didn’t need to listen to music with anyone else or in the family car. I could listen to anything I wanted again and again, savoring each of the details as I zoomed in to hear what each instrument was doing. I became hooked to the idea of listening to music that wasn’t played on any of the local radio stations. I picked the music I wanted to listen to. I suppose I’m still like that today, all those years later.