Tuesday Bird is 360°Sound‘s latest CD junkie. Shoutout to our friend and CD junkie Alex Aubuchon for tipping us off to Bird being an enthusiastic collector. Aubuchon recently had Bird as a guest on The CD Collectors Podcast.
Originally from Tokyo, Bird currently lives in Ontario, Canada. The 27-year-old has been collecting CDs for two decades. She got her first CD, Avril Lavigne’s Let Go, when she was 7.
“This is the one hobby I’ve consistently and happily dedicated myself to,” Bird told 360°Sound.
Bird is also co-host of the popular podcast Noughty Girls, which focuses on the pop culture of the early 2000s aka the noughties or aughts. Noughty Girls is available wherever you get your podcasts.
360°Sound: Approximately how many discs do you have in your collection?
Tuesday Bird: I’m scrolling through my Discogs quickly…a little over 200. Great, I have plenty of room for more! I say this having bought a new shelf last year to house my ever-expanding collection. And no, they’re not alphabetized or organized in a way that makes sense.
What do you love about the CD format?
I love everything about how a CD is packaged. Flipping through the liner notes, noticing the little personalized details and reading through the lyrics and credits as the songs play is an entirely different experience than listening to an album on a streaming service.
I have a story about how I acquired each CD in my collection and how I got into that artist or album, so I look at these discs as mementos of different moments in my life. I’m also just a very nostalgic person who refuses to give up on physical media.
Tell us about your podcast Noughty Girls.
This project is another passion of mine that’s essentially fueled by nostalgia. Every episode deep dives into a topic that was definitively popular at that time. It’s been a great way for me and Morgan to spend more time together and talk about things we’re genuinely interested in, and we learn a lot about our subjects as we go.
There’s a lot more information available about prominent 2000s celebrities and scandals today that we weren’t privy to 20 years ago. We try to take a compassionate approach when we discuss these. Our episodes have caught the attention of Paris Hilton and JoJo, which has been really cool.
What are some of your all-time favorite CDs?
First, Stakes Is High by De La Soul. Important and underrated hip hop album. I found a sealed CD for very cheap at the now-closed HMV flagship store in Montreal, Quebec. Side note, I really miss that place—they had an incredible inventory. Anyway, I’ve spun my Stakes disc so many times that it no longer plays past track 11, if that’s any indication of how great I think it is. Thankfully, I made a backup copy!
Next is Glistening Pleasure by Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head, who later changed their name to Brite Futures, supposedly at the request of Ms. Portman herself. This is a hilarious, upbeat indie pop album that I discovered on MySpace in 2009 and cemented them as my favorite band until they broke up in 2012. A few years after disbanding, one of the members tweeted he’d found a few extra CD copies of Glistening Pleasure in his basement. I bought one from him and he mailed it over with a little thank-you note. I still smile so wide when I listen to it.
Esthero’s Breath from Another is a record that I think has fallen off the map since its release in the late ‘90s but still holds up beautifully. Actually, beabadoobee’s single from earlier this year, “the perfect pair,” sounds very close to “Heaven Sent,” the second track on this album. I was really excited when I found a copy at a thrift store for about $2. It’s a mesmerizing trip-hop album.
I also have to give a nod to Strange Flower by Aya. I discovered Aya Trenier through a radio show based in Beijing called The Groove Sessions. The host often plays obscure acid jazz and brokenbeat, and until recently, Aya was about as obscure as it got. This was her only record, released via Naked Music Recordings in 2001, and you could only buy the CD on Amazon. That’s what I ended up doing to get this album in my hands. I find her voice and style so enchanting. Now she’s a yoga instructor and started releasing meditative music in 2020.
I have to mention Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge by My Chemical Romance. I was obsessed with this band for years and Three Cheers is without a doubt their best record. My wee emo heart picked up this CD in 2006 at a music store while visiting my grandparents in Japan. I remember playing “Give ‘Em Hell Kid” at the lowest volume possible on the stereo system in their apartment because I didn’t want to startle my grandma. Since my copy is a Japan-exclusive edition, it came with a bonus track, “Bury Me in Black.”
And on that note, I’ll cap this off with Sounds of the Far East by producer Soichi Terada, who pioneered Japanese deep house and jungle. This is a compilation CD released in 2015 of some of his best works recorded in the early 1990s. Terada is easily one of my favorite producers of all time. He did the soundtracks for a number of video games, too, including the Ape Escape series, which is how I was exposed to his music.
Is there a particular genre or artist that you’re currently trying to add to your collection?
I’ve been revisiting a lot of ‘90s alternative rock that I grew up loving when I was younger and realized that’s probably the biggest gap in my collection at the moment. I recently picked up Foo Fighters’ debut, Dirt by Alice In Chains, and Core, Purple, and Tiny Music… by Stone Temple Pilots. I’m on the hunt for some Soundgarden and Smashing Pumpkins to add to the shelves!
What are your favorite online and brick-and-mortar CD retailers?
My favorite online retailer is Juno Records based in the UK. I’ve ordered more vinyl than CDs from them, but that’s where I got my Soichi Terada disc. They’ve got a great stock of rare groove and any genre imaginable, really. Otherwise, you’ll find me browsing local thrift stores or Sonic Boom in Toronto for CDs whenever I can make it down there.
What are your thoughts on the future of the CD? Do you think the CD could see a resurgence?
I think it’s great that artists are still putting out new music on CD, but we need to see a resurgence in the technology that supports it in order to make CDs accessible and fun for everyone again. I have CD players at home and in my car, plus I still have a laptop with a disc drive. Most people nowadays don’t! If some billionaire mogul could invest in bringing these things back instead of, I don’t know, colonizing outer space, that would be awesome.
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