Re: When did CDs start having a clear backing behind the actual CD?
 

The earliest CD I have with a clear backing tray is "Rock Hard" by the Pandoras from '89. It is just blank underneath. And yes, half the teeth are broken.

I think it just honestly never occurred to early CD package designers that they could use that space. Wasn't there a big uproar when Sonic Youth put a crazy picture behind a black tray? After that, it seemed that designers started using that space a lot.

-jason

Re: When did CDs start having a clear backing behind the actual CD?
 

The only thing I ever saw like this was Century Media released a black metal compilation called Firestarter that had a match in the spine - you know, for setting a church on fire. I can't find a picture of this one either, but I have it, just not sure where it's at.

Re: When did CDs start having a clear backing behind the actual CD?
 

Automatic For the People in 1992 is the first BIG album I can remember that had a clear media holder. It was clear yellow and broke very easily. Maybe there were a few before Automatic for the People, but not by that big an artist released in that many units.

I always repected Pet Shop Boys for the album Very which had an all opaque orange box, media holder, everything. AND IT DIDN'T BREAK. It was actually well engineered and I have it to this day. Held up perfectly.

I love all you people's record store stories. I bought my first CD in a Music Plus in 1990 when I was 12 and I collected a lot of music from then through college, petering out around 2000. What a transformative time for record stores! I can remember spending hours in record stores because every time you went to one so much had changed. I remember long boxes and tapes in those long white theft deterent cases. I can remember browsing aisles of laserdiscs, then seeing them shrink, then disapearing altogether. I can remember going to a Tower for the first time in 1993 and it being the first record store I'd ever been in that didn't have the long boxes. I can remember Blockbuster Music coming to town and taking over Music Plus and implementing their "listening bars". Oh good times.