Compact Disc

150px
The readable surface of a Compact Disc includes a spiral track wound tightly enough to cause light to diffract into a full visible spectrum
Media type	Optical disc
Encoding	Various
Capacity	Typically up to 700 MB (up to 80 minutes audio)
Read mechanism	780 nm wavelength (infrared and red edge) semiconductor laser, 1200 Kb/s (1×)
Write mechanism	1200 Kb/s (1×)
Developed by	Philips, Sony
Usage	Audio and data storage

The Compact Disc (also known as a CD) is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and play back sound recordings only, but the format was later adapted for storage of data (CD-ROM), write-once audio and data storage (CD-R), rewritable media (CD-RW), Video Compact Discs (VCD), Super Video Compact Discs (SVCD), PhotoCD, PictureCD, CD-i, and Enhanced CD. Audio CDs and audio CD players have been commercially available since October 1982.

Standard CDs have a diameter of 120 millimetres (4.7 in) and can hold up to 80 minutes of uncompressed audio or 700 MB (700 × 2²⁰ bytes) of data. The Mini CD has various diameters ranging from 60 to 80 millimetres (2.4 to 3.1 in); they are sometimes used for CD singles, storing up to 24 minutes of audio or delivering device drivers.

CD-ROMs and CD-Rs remain widely used technologies in the computer industry. The CD and its extensions are successful: in 2004, worldwide sales of CD audio, CD-ROM, and CD-R reached about 30 billion discs. By 2007, 200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide.^[1] Compact Discs are increasingly being replaced or supplemented by other forms of digital distribution and storage, such as downloading and flash drives, with audio CD sales dropping nearly 50% from their peak in 2000.^[2]

History[link]

This section may be confusing or unclear to readers. Please help clarify the section; suggestions may be found on the talk page. (January 2010)

The Compact Disc is an evolution of LaserDisc technology. Sony first publicly demonstrated an optical digital audio disc in September 1976. In September 1978 they demonstrated an optical digital audio disc with a 150 minute playing time, and with specifications of 44,056 Hz sampling rate, 16-bit linear resolution, cross-interleaved error correction code, that were similar to those of the Compact Disc introduced in 1982. Technical details of Sony's digital audio disc were presented during the 62nd AES Convention, held on March 13–16, 1979, in Brussels.^[3] On March 8, 1979 Philips publicly demonstrated a prototype of an optical digital audio disc at a press conference called "Philips Introduce Compact Disc"^[4] in Eindhoven, Netherlands.^[5] On March 6, 2009, Philips received an IEEE Milestone with the following citation: "On 8 March 1979, N.V. Philips' Gloeilampenfabrieken demonstrated for the international press a Compact Disc Audio Player. The demonstration showed that it is possible by using digital optical recording and playback to reproduce audio signals with superb stereo quality. This research at Philips established the technical standard for digital optical recording systems."^[6]

Sony executive Norio Ohga, who later became the CEO and chairman of Sony, was convinced of the format's commercial potential, and pushed further development despite widespread skepticism.^[7] Later in 1979, Sony and Philips Consumer Electronics (Philips) set up a joint task force of engineers to design a new digital audio disc. Led by Kees Schouhamer Immink and Toshitada Doi, the research pushed forward laser and optical disc technology that began independently by Philips and Sony in 1977 and 1975, respectively.^[4] After a year of experimentation and discussion, the task force produced the Red Book, the Compact Disc standard. Philips contributed the general manufacturing process, based on video LaserDisc technology. Philips also contributed eight-to-fourteen modulation (EFM), which offers both a long playing time and a certain resilience to defects such as scratches and fingerprints, while Sony contributed the error-correction method, CIRC. The Compact Disc Story,^[8] told by a former member of the taskforce, gives background information on the many technical decisions made, including the choice of the sampling frequency, playing time, and disc diameter. The task force consisted of around four to eight persons,^[9][10] though according to Philips, the Compact Disc was thus "invented collectively by a large group of people working as a team."^[11]

The first test CD was pressed in Langenhagen near Hannover, Germany, by the Polydor Pressing Operations plant. The disc contained a recording of Richard Strauss's Eine Alpensinfonie (in English, An Alpine Symphony), played by the Berlin Philharmonic and conducted by Herbert von Karajan.^[12] The first public demonstration was on the BBC television program Tomorrow's World when The Bee Gees' album Living Eyes (1981) was played.^[13] In August 1982 the real pressing was ready to begin in the new factory, not far from the place where Emile Berliner had produced his first gramophone record 93 years earlier. By now, Deutsche Grammophon, Berliner's company and the publisher of the Strauss recording, had become a part of PolyGram. The first CD to be manufactured at the new factory was The Visitors (1981) by ABBA.^[14] The first album to be released on CD was Billy Joel's 52nd Street, that reached the market alongside Sony's CD player CDP-101 on October 1, 1982 in Japan.^[15] Early the following year on March 2, 1983 CD players and discs (16 titles from CBS Records) were released in the United States and other markets. This event is often seen as the "Big Bang" of the digital audio revolution. The new audio disc was enthusiastically received, especially in the early-adopting classical music and audiophile communities and its handling quality received particular praise. As the price of players gradually came down, the CD began to gain popularity in the larger popular and rock music markets. The first artist to sell a million copies on CD was Dire Straits, with its 1985 album Brothers in Arms.^[16] The first major artist to have his entire catalogue converted to CD was David Bowie, whose 15 studio albums were made available by RCA Records in February 1985, along with four Greatest Hits albums.^[17] In 1988, 400 million CDs were manufactured by 50 pressing plants around the world.^[18]

The CD was planned to be the successor of the gramophone record for playing music, rather than primarily as a data storage medium. From its origins as a musical format, CDs have grown to encompass other applications. In June 1985, the computer readable CD-ROM (read-only memory) and, in 1990, CD-Recordable were introduced, also developed by both Sony and Philips.^[19] The CD's compact format has largely replaced the audio cassette player in new automobile applications, and recordable CDs are an alternative to tape for recording music and copying music albums without defects introduced in compression used in other digital recording methods. Other newer video formats such as DVD and Blu-ray have used the same form factor as CDs, and video players can usually play audio CDs as well. With the advent of the MP3 in the 2000s, the sales of CDs has dropped in seven out of the last eight years. In 2008, large label CD sales dropped 20%,^[20] although independent and DIY music sales may be tracking better according to figures released March 30, 2009.^[21]

Physical details[link]

It has been suggested that Blu-spec CD be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) Proposed since May 2011.

Diagram of CD layers.
A. A polycarbonate disc layer has the data encoded by using bumps.
B. A shiny layer reflects the laser.
C. A layer of lacquer protects the shiny layer.
D. Artwork is screen printed on the top of the disc.
E. A laser beam reads the CD and is reflected back to a sensor, which converts it into electronic data

A CD is made from 1.2 millimetres (0.047 in) thick, polycarbonate plastic and weighs 15–20 grams.^[22] From the center outward, components are: the center spindle hole (15 mm), the first-transition area (clamping ring), the clamping area (stacking ring), the second-transition area (mirror band), the program (data) area, and the rim. The inner program area occupies a radius from 25 to 58 mm.

A thin layer of aluminium or, more rarely, gold is applied to the surface making it reflective. The metal is protected by a film of lacquer normally spin coated directly on the reflective layer. The label is printed on the lacquer layer, usually by screen printing or offset printing.

CD data is stored as a series of tiny indentations known as "pits", encoded in a spiral track moulded into the top of the polycarbonate layer. The areas between pits are known as "lands". Each pit is approximately 100 nm deep by 500 nm wide, and varies from 850 nm to 3.5 µm in length. The distance between the tracks, the pitch, is 1.6 µm.

Scanning velocity is 1.2–1.4 m/s (constant linear velocity) – equivalent to approximately 500 rpm at the inside of the disc, and approximately 200 rpm at the outside edge. (A disc played from beginning to end slows down during playback.)

The program area is 86.05 cm² and the length of the recordable spiral is (86.05 cm² / 1.6 µm) = 5.38 km. With a scanning speed of 1.2 m/s, the playing time is 74 minutes, or 650 MB of data on a CD-ROM. A disc with data packed slightly more densely is tolerated by most players (though some old ones fail). Using a linear velocity of 1.2 m/s and a track pitch of 1.5 µm yields a playing time of 80 minutes, or a data capacity of 700 MB. Even higher capacities on non-standard discs (up to 99 minutes) are available at least as recordables, but generally the tighter the tracks are squeezed, the worse the compatibility.^{[citation needed]}

A CD is read by focusing a 780 nm wavelength (near infrared) semiconductor laser through the bottom of the polycarbonate layer. The change in height between pits and lands results in a difference in the way the light is reflected. By measuring the intensity change with a photodiode, the data can be read from the disc.

The pits and lands themselves do not directly represent the zeros and ones of binary data. Instead, non-return-to-zero, inverted encoding is used: a change from pit to land or land to pit indicates a one, while no change indicates a series of zeros. There must be at least two and no more than ten zeros between each one, which is defined by the length of the pit. This in turn is decoded by reversing the eight-to-fourteen modulation used in mastering the disc, and then reversing the Cross-Interleaved Reed-Solomon Coding, finally revealing the raw data stored on the disc.

CDs are susceptible to damage from both normal use and environmental exposure. Pits are much closer to the label side of a disc, enabling defects and contaminants on the clear side to be out of focus during playback. Consequently, CDs are more likely to suffer damage on the label side of the disk. Scratches on the clear side can be repaired by refilling them with similar refractive plastic, or by careful polishing.

Disc shapes and diameters[link]

Comparison of several forms of disk storage showing tracks (not-to-scale); green denotes start and red denotes end.
* Some CD-R(W) and DVD-R(W)/DVD+R(W) recorders operate in ZCLV, CAA or CAV modes.

The digital data on a CD begins at the center of the disc and proceeds toward the edge, which allows adaptation to the different size formats available. Standard CDs are available in two sizes. By far, the most common is 120 millimetres (4.7 in) in diameter, with a 74- or 80-minute audio capacity and a 650 or 700 MB data capacity. This capacity was reportedly specified by Sony executive Norio Ohga so as to be able to contain the entirety of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on one disc.^[7] This diameter has been adopted by subsequent formats, including Super Audio CD, DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc. 80 mm discs ("Mini CDs") were originally designed for CD singles and can hold up to 24 minutes of music or 210 MB of data but never became popular.^{[citation needed]} Today, nearly every single is released on a 120 mm CD, called a Maxi single.^{[citation needed]}

Novelty CDs are also available in numerous shapes and sizes, and are used chiefly for marketing. A common variant is the "business card" CD, a single with portions removed at the top and bottom making the disk resemble a business card.

Logical formats[link]

Audio CD[link]

The logical format of an audio CD (officially Compact Disc Digital Audio or CD-DA) is described in a document produced by the format's joint creators, Sony and Philips in 1980. The document is known colloquially as the "Red Book" after the color of its cover. The format is a two-channel 16-bit PCM encoding at a 44.1 kHz sampling rate per channel. Four-channel sound was to be an allowable option within the Red Book format, but has never been implemented. Monaural audio has no existing standard on a Red Book CD; mono-source material thus is usually presented as two identical channels in a standard Red Book stereo track.

44.1 kHz sample rate[link]

The selection of the sample rate was based primarily on the need to reproduce the audible frequency range of 20 Hz – 20 kHz. The Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem states that a sampling rate of more than twice the maximum frequency of the signal to be recorded is needed, resulting in a required rate of at least 40 kHz. The exact sampling rate of 44.1 kHz was inherited from a method of converting digital audio into an analog video signal for storage on U-matic video tape, which was the most affordable way to transfer data from the recording studio to the CD manufacturer at the time the CD specification was being developed. The device that converts an analog audio signal into PCM audio, which in turn is changed into an analog video signal is called a PCM adaptor. This technology could store six samples (three samples per stereo channel) in a single horizontal line. A standard NTSC video signal has 245 usable lines per field, and 59.94 fields/s, which works out to be 44,056 samples/s/stereo channel. Similarly, PAL has 294 lines and 50 fields, which gives 44,100 samples/s/stereo channel. This system could store 14-bit samples with some error correction, or 16-bit samples with almost no error correction.

There was a long debate over the use of 14-bit (Philips) or 16-bit (Sony) quantization, and 44,056 or 44,100 samples/s (Sony) or approximately 44,000 samples/s (Philips). When the Sony/Philips task force designed the Compact Disc, Philips had already developed a 14-bit D/A converter, but Sony insisted on 16-bit. In the end, 16 bits and 44.1 kilosamples per second prevailed. Philips found a way to produce 16-bit quality using its 14-bit DAC by using four times oversampling.

Storage capacity and playing time[link]

The partners aimed at a playing time of 60 minutes with a disc diameter of 100 mm (Sony) or 115 mm (Philips).^[9] Sony vice-president Norio Ohga suggested extending the capacity to 74 minutes to accommodate Wilhelm Furtwängler's recording of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 from the 1951 Bayreuth Festival.^[23][24]

The additional 14-minute playing time subsequently required changing to a 120 mm disc. Kees Immink, Philips' chief engineer, however, denies this, claiming that the increase was motivated by technical considerations, and that even after the increase in size, the Furtwängler recording would not have fit on one of the earliest CDs.^[8][9] According to a Sunday Tribune interview,^[25] the story is slightly more involved. In 1979, Philips owned PolyGram, one of the world's largest distributors of music. PolyGram had set up a large experimental CD plant in Hannover, Germany, which could produce huge numbers of CDs having, of course, a diameter of 115 mm. Sony did not yet have such a facility. If Sony had agreed on the 115-mm disc, Philips would have had a significant competitive edge in the market. Sony decided that something had to be done. The long playing time of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony imposed by Ohga was used to push Philips to accept 120 mm, so that Philips' PolyGram lost its edge on disc fabrication.^[25]

The 74-minute playing time of a CD, which was longer than the 20 minutes per side^[26][27] typical of long-playing (LP) vinyl albums, was often used to the CD's advantage during the early years when CDs and LPs vied for commercial sales. CDs would often be released with one or more bonus tracks, enticing consumers to buy the CD for the extra material. However, attempts to combine double LPs onto one CD occasionally resulted in the opposite situation in which the CD would actually offer fewer tracks than the equivalent LP.

Playing times beyond 74 minutes are achieved by decreasing track pitch beyond the original red book standard. Most players can accommodate the more closely spaced data.^[28] Christian Thielemann's live Deutsche Grammophon recording of Bruckner's Fifth with the Munich Philharmonic in 2004 clocks at 82:34.^[29] The Kirov Orchestra recording of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker conducted by Valery Gergiev and released by Philips/PolyGram Records (catalogue number 462 114) on October 20, 1998, clocks at 81:14.^{[citation needed]} Disc two of Gold (Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Classics 477 743) by Herbert von Karajan clocks in at 81:21.^{[citation needed]} Zubin Mehta's 1975 recording of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 with the Vienna Philharmonic released on Decca Legends clocks at 81:11.^{[citation needed]} The Mission of Burma compilation album Mission of Burma, released in 1988 by Rykodisc, previously held the record at 80:08.^[30]

Data structure[link]

The smallest entity in a CD is called a frame, which consists of 33 bytes and contains six complete 16-bit stereo samples (two bytes × two channels × six samples = 24 bytes). The other nine bytes consist of eight CIRC error-correction bytes and one subcode byte, used for control and display. Each byte is translated into a 14-bit word using eight-to-fourteen modulation, which alternates with three-bit merging words. In total there are 33 × (14 + 3) = 561 bits. A 27-bit unique synchronization word is added, so that the number of bits in a frame totals 588 (which are decoded to only 192 bits music).

These 588-bit frames are in turn grouped into sectors. Each sector contains 98 frames, totaling 98 × 24 = 2352 bytes of music. The CD is played at a speed of 75 sectors per second, which results in 176,400 bytes per second. Divided by two channels and two bytes per sample, this results in a sample rate of 44,100 samples per second.

For CD-ROM data discs, the physical frame and sector sizes are the same. Since error concealment cannot be applied to non-audio data in case the CIRC error correction fails to recover the user data, a third layer of error correction is defined, reducing the payload to 2048 bytes per sector for the Mode-1 CD-ROM format. To increase the data-rate for Video CD, Mode-2 CD-ROM, the third layer has been omitted, increasing the payload to 2336 user-available bytes per sector, only 16 bytes (for synchronization and header data) less than available in Red-Book audio.

"Frame"[link]

For the Red Book stereo audio CD, the time format is commonly measured in minutes, seconds and frames (mm:ss:ff), where one frame corresponds to one sector, or 1/75th of a second of stereo sound. In this context, the term frame is erroneously applied in editing applications and does not denote the physical frame described above. In editing and extracting, the frame is the smallest addressable time interval for an audio CD, meaning that track start and end positions can only be defined in 1/75 second steps.

Logical structure[link]

The largest entity on a CD is called a track. A CD can contain up to 99 tracks (including a data track for mixed mode discs). Each track can in turn have up to 100 indexes, though players which handle this feature are rarely found outside of pro audio, particularly radio broadcasting. The vast majority of songs are recorded under index 1, with the pre-gap being index 0. Sometimes hidden tracks are placed at the end of the last track of the disc, often using index 2 or 3. This is also the case with some discs offering "101 sound effects", with 100 and 101 being indexed as two and three on track 99. The index, if used, is occasionally put on the track listing as a decimal part of the track number, such as 99.2 or 99.3. (Information Society's Hack was one of very few CD releases to do this, following a release with an equally obscure CD+G feature.) The track and index structure of the CD carried forward to the DVD as title and chapter, respectively.

Manufacturing tolerances[link]

Current manufacturing processes allow an audio CD to contain up to 80 minutes (variable from one replication plant to another) without requiring the content creator to sign a waiver releasing the plant owner from responsibility if the CD produced is marginally or entirely unreadable by some playback equipment. Thus, in current practice, maximum CD playing time has crept higher by reducing minimum engineering tolerances; by and large, this has not unacceptably reduced reliability.

CD-Text[link]

CD-Text is an extension of the Red Book specification for audio CD that allows for storage of additional text information (e.g., album name, song name, artist) on a standards-compliant audio CD. The information is stored either in the lead-in area of the CD, where there is roughly five kilobytes of space available, or in the subcode channels R to W on the disc, which can store about 31 megabytes.

CD + Graphics[link]

Compact Disc + Graphics (CD+G) is a special audio Compact Disc that contains graphics data in addition to the audio data on the disc. The disc can be played on a regular audio CD player, but when played on a special CD+G player, can output a graphics signal (typically, the CD+G player is hooked up to a television set or a computer monitor); these graphics are almost exclusively used to display lyrics on a television set for karaoke performers to sing along with. The CD+G format takes advantage of the channels R through W. These six bits store the graphics information.

CD + Extended Graphics[link]

Compact Disc + Extended Graphics (CD+EG, also known as CD+XG) is an improved variant of the Compact Disc + Graphics (CD+G) format. Like CD+G, CD+EG utilizes basic CD-ROM features to display text and video information in addition to the music being played. This extra data is stored in subcode channels R-W. Very few, if any, CD+EG discs have been published.

Super Audio CD[link]

Super Audio CD (SACD) is a high-resolution read-only optical audio disc format that was designed to provide higher fidelity digital audio reproduction than the Red Book. Introduced in 1999, it was developed by Sony and Philips, the same companies that created the Red Book. SACD was in a format war with DVD-Audio, but neither has replaced audio CDs.

Titles in the SACD format can be issued as hybrid discs; these discs contain the SACD audio stream as well as a standard audio CD layer which is playable in standard CD players, thus making them backward compatible.

CD-MIDI[link]

CD-MIDI is a format used to store music-performance data which upon playback is performed by electronic instruments that synthesize the audio. Hence, unlike Red Book, these recordings are not audio.

CD-ROM[link]

For the first few years of its existence, the CD was a medium used purely for audio. However, in 1985 the Yellow Book CD-ROM standard was established by Sony and Philips, which defined a non-volatile optical data computer data storage medium using the same physical format as audio Compact Discs, readable by a computer with a CD-ROM drive.

Video CD (VCD)[link]

Video CD (VCD, View CD, and Compact Disc digital video) is a standard digital format for storing video media on a CD. VCDs are playable in dedicated VCD players, most modern DVD-Video players, personal computers, and some video game consoles.

The VCD standard was created in 1993 by Sony, Philips, Matsushita, and JVC and is referred to as the White Book standard.

Overall picture quality is intended to be comparable to VHS video. Poorly compressed VCD video can sometimes be lower quality than VHS video, but VCD exhibits block artifacts rather than analog noise, and does not deteriorate further with each use, which may be preferable.

352x240 (or SIF) resolution was chosen because it is half the vertical, and half the horizontal resolution of NTSC video. 352x288 is similarly one quarter PAL/SECAM resolution. This approximates the (overall) resolution of an analog VHS tape, which, although it has double the number of (vertical) scan lines, has a much lower horizontal resolution.

Super Video CD[link]

Super Video CD (Super Video Compact Disc or SVCD) is a format used for storing video media on standard Compact Discs. SVCD was intended as a successor to VCD and an alternative to DVD-Video, and falls somewhere between both in terms of technical capability and picture quality.

SVCD has two-thirds the resolution of DVD, and over 2.7 times the resolution of VCD. One CD-R disc can hold up to 60 minutes of standard quality SVCD-format video. While no specific limit on SVCD video length is mandated by the specification, one must lower the video bit rate, and therefore quality, to accommodate very long videos. It is usually difficult to fit much more than 100 minutes of video onto one SVCD without incurring significant quality loss, and many hardware players are unable to play video with an instantaneous bit rate lower than 300 to 600 kilobits per second.

Photo CD[link]

Photo CD is a system designed by Kodak for digitizing and storing photos on a CD. Launched in 1992, the discs were designed to hold nearly 100 high quality images, scanned prints and slides using special proprietary encoding. Photo CDs are defined in the Beige Book and conform to the CD-ROM XA and CD-i Bridge specifications as well. They are intended to play on CD-i players, Photo CD players and any computer with the suitable software irrespective of the operating system. The images can also be printed out on photographic paper with a special Kodak machine. This format is not to be confused with Kodak Picture CD, which is a consumer product in CD-ROM format.

CD-i[link]

The Philips "Green Book" specifies the standard for interactive multimedia Compact Discs designed for CD-i players (1993). This format is unusual because it hides the initial tracks which contains the software and data files used by CD-i players by omitting the tracks from the disc's TOC (table of contents). This causes audio CD players to skip the CD-i data tracks. This is different from the CD-i Ready format, which puts CD-i software and data into the pregap of track 1. CD-i was the leading format of its time but was supplanted by the politics of competition. Philips Interactive Media lead the way in producing breakthrough titles, including the first interactive coloring book, Sesame Street Disc and children's programs, Groliers and Comptoms encyclopedias and many more pathbreaking programs.

Enhanced CD[link]

Enhanced CD, also known as CD Extra and CD Plus, is a certification mark of the Recording Industry Association of America for various technologies that combine audio and computer data for use in both Compact Disc and CD-ROM players.

The primary data formats for Enhanced Compact Disc's are mixed mode (Yellow Book/Red Book), CD-i, hidden track, and multisession (Blue Book).

VinylDisc[link]

VinylDisc is the hybrid of a standard Audio CD and the vinyl record. The vinyl layer on the disc's label side can hold approximately three minutes of music.

Bootable CD[link]

A bootable CD, or Live CD, is a CD that can be used to boot a computer system. The CD can contain an operating system installer (e.g. Windows 2000, Windows XP), or even a full usable operating system, very common in the Linux world, with most distributions, like Ubuntu or Fedora offering fully usable Live CDs.

Manufacture[link]

Replicated CDs are mass-produced initially using a hydraulic press. Small granules of heated raw polycarbonate plastic are fed into the press. A screw forces the liquefied plastic into the mold cavity. The mold closes with a metal stamper in contact with the disc surface. The plastic is allowed to cool and harden. Once opened, the disc substrate is removed from the mold by a robotic arm, and a 15 mm diameter center hole (called a stacking ring) is created. The time it takes to "stamp" one CD, is usually 2 to 3 seconds.

This method produces the clear plastic blank part of the disc. After a metallic reflecting layer (usually aluminum, but sometimes gold or other metal) is applied to the clear blank substrate, the disc goes under a UV light for curing and it is ready to go to press. To prepare to press a CD, a glass master is made, using a high-powered laser on a device similar to a CD writer. The glass master is a positive image of the desired CD surface (with the desired microscopic pits and lands). After testing, it is used to make a die by pressing it against a metal disc.

The die is a negative image of the glass master: typically, several are made, depending on the number of pressing mills that are to make the CD. The die then goes into a press and the physical image is transferred to the blank CD, leaving a final positive image on the disc. A small amount of lacquer is applied as a ring around the center of the disc, and rapid spinning spreads it evenly over the surface. Edge protection lacquer is applied before the disc is finished. The disc can then be printed and packed.

Manufactured CDs that are sold in stores are sealed via a process called "polywrapping" or shrink wrapping.

Recordable CD[link]

700 MB CD-R next to a mechanical pencil

Recordable Compact Discs, CD-Rs, are injection molded with a "blank" data spiral. A photosensitive dye is then applied, after which the discs are metalized and lacquer-coated. The write laser of the CD recorder changes the color of the dye to allow the read laser of a standard CD player to see the data, just as it would with a standard stamped disc. The resulting discs can be read by most CD-ROM drives and played in most audio CD players.

CD-R recordings are designed to be permanent. Over time the dye's physical characteristics may change, however, causing read errors and data loss until the reading device cannot recover with error correction methods. The design life is from 20 to 100 years, depending on the quality of the discs, the quality of the writing drive, and storage conditions. However, testing has demonstrated such degradation of some discs in as little as 18 months under normal storage conditions.^[31][32] This failure is known as CD rot. CD-Rs follow the Orange Book standard.

Recordable audio CD[link]

The recordable audio CD is designed to be used in a consumer audio CD recorder. These consumer audio CD recorders use SCMS (Serial Copy Management System), an early form of digital rights management (DRM), to conform to the AHRA (Audio Home Recording Act). The Recordable Audio CD is typically somewhat more expensive than CD-R due to (a) lower volume and (b) a 3% AHRA royalty used to compensate the music industry for the making of a copy.^[33]

High-capacity recordable CD[link]

A higher density recording format that can hold:

• 98.5 minutes of audio on a 12 cm (5 in) disc (compared to about 80 minutes for Red Book audio).
• 30 minutes of audio on an 8 cm (3 in) disc (compared to about 24 minutes for Red Book audio).

ReWritable CD[link]

CD-RW is a re-recordable medium that uses a metallic alloy instead of a dye. The write laser in this case is used to heat and alter the properties (amorphous vs. crystalline) of the alloy, and hence change its reflectivity. A CD-RW does not have as great a difference in reflectivity as a pressed CD or a CD-R, and so many earlier CD audio players cannot read CD-RW discs, although most later CD audio players and stand-alone DVD players can. CD-RWs follow the Orange Book standard.

High-speed ReWritable CD[link]

Due to technical limitations, the original ReWritable CD could be written no faster than 4x speed. High Speed ReWritable CD has a different design that permits writing at speeds ranging from 4x to 12x.

Original CD-RW drives can only write to original ReWritable CDs. High Speed CD-RW drives can typically write to both original ReWritable CDs and High Speed ReWritable CDs. Both types of CD-RW discs can be read in most CD drives.

Higher speed CD-RW discs, Ultra Speed (16x to 24x write speed) and Ultra Speed+ (32x write speed), are now available.

ReWritable Audio CD[link]

The ReWritable Audio CD is designed to be used in a consumer audio CD recorder, which won't (without modification) accept standard CD-RW discs. These consumer audio CD recorders use the Serial Copy Management System (SCMS), an early form of digital rights management (DRM), to conform to the United States' Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA). The ReWritable Audio CD is typically somewhat more expensive than CD-RW due to (a) lower volume and (b) a 3% AHRA royalty used to compensate the music industry for the making of a copy.^[33]

Copy protection[link]

The Red Book audio specification, except for a simple 'anti-copy' bit in the subcode, does not include any copy protection mechanism. Starting in early 2002, attempts were made by record companies to market "copy-protected" non-standard Compact Discs, which cannot be ripped, or copied, to hard drives or easily converted to MP3s. One major drawback to these copy-protected discs is that most will not play on either computer CD-ROM drives, or some standalone CD players that use CD-ROM mechanisms. Philips has stated that such discs are not permitted to bear the trademarked Compact Disc Digital Audio logo because they violate the Red Book specifications. Numerous copy-protection systems have been countered by readily available, often free, software.

See also[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Ecma International. Standard ECMA-130: Data Interchange on Read-only 120 mm Optical Data Disks (CD-ROM), 2nd edition (June 1996).
• Pohlmann, Kenneth C. (1992). The Compact Disc Handbook. Middleton, Wisconsin: A-R Editions. ISBN 0-89579-300-8.
• Peek, Hans et al. (2009) Origins and Successors of the Compact Disc. Springer Science+Business Media B.V. ISBN 978-1-4020-9552-8.
• Hans B. Peek, "The emergence of the compact disc", IEEE Communications Magazine, Jan. 2010, pp. 10–17.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Compact Disc

• Video How Compact Discs are Manufactured
• CD-Recordable FAQ Exhaustive basics on CDs
• Philips history of the CD (cache)
• Patent History (CD Player) - published by Philips 2005
• Patent History CD Disc - published by Philips 2003
• Sony History, Chapter 8, This is the replacement of Gramophone record ! (第8章 レコードに代わるものはこれだ) - Sony website in Japanese

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (April 2010)

Barbara Ruth Dickson, OBE (born Dunfermline, Fife, 27 September 1947)^[1] is a Scottish singer whose hits include "I Know Him So Well" and "January February". Dickson has placed fifteen albums in the UK Albums Chart from 1977 to date, and had a number of hit singles, including two which reached the Top 10 in the UK Singles Chart.^[2]

She is also a two-time Olivier Award-winning actress, with roles including Anita Braithwaite in TV's Band of Gold and she was the original Mrs. Johnstone in Willy Russell's long-running musical Blood Brothers.^[3]

Early years[link]

Dickson went to Woodmill High. Previously she lived in "Dolly Town", which no longer exists as it was demolished in the early 1970s. Her father was a cook on a tugboat at Rosyth Dockyard and her mother was from Liverpool. She went to Camdean Primary School. An exhibition was held at Rosyth Parish Church, Fife, which had a section from Camdean concerning Dickson attending Camdean Primary School.

The 1960s[link]

Dickson's singing career started in folk clubs around her native Fife in 1964. Her first commercial recording was in 1968. Her early work included albums with Archie Fisher, the first of which, The Fate O' Charlie, a collection of songs from the Jacobite rebellions, was released in 1969. Her first solo album was Do Right Woman in 1970.

The 1970s[link]

She became a well-known face on the British folk circuit of the late 1960s and early 1970s, but changed her career course after meeting Willy Russell. He was at that time a young student running a folk club in Liverpool. He showed Dickson the first draft of what later became the award winning musical, John, Paul, George, Ringo … and Bert, and asked her to perform the music. The combination of fine writing, a superb cast of young unknowns, (including Antony Sher, Bernard Hill and Trevor Eve), and Dickson’s idiosyncratic interpretation of Beatles songs made the show hugely successful.^{[citation needed]}

The show’s co-producer, Robert Stigwood, signed Dickson to his record label, RSO Records, where she recorded the album Answer Me, arranged and produced by Junior Campbell, the title track becoming a Top 10 hit in 1976. This led to her guest residency on The Two Ronnies, which brought Dickson’s singing to the attention of more than ten million BBC Television viewers every week.^{[citation needed]}

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice also spotted Dickson in John, Paul, George, Ringo … and Bert, and invited her to record "Another Suitcase in Another Hall" from their new musical Evita, which became her second hit in 1977. She contributed two tracks to Scouse the Mouse a children's album (1977) with Ringo Starr and others. Other hits including "Caravan Song" and "January February", followed in 1980. During the late 1970s, Dickson also contributed backing vocals to two best-selling albums by the Scottish singer-songwriter, Gerry Rafferty: City to City (1978) and Night Owl (1979).

The 1980s[link]

In 1982, Russell invited Dickson to star in his new musical Blood Brothers in the pivotal role of the mother, Mrs. Johnstone. Although at first reluctant to accept, having never acted before, she garnered critical acclaim as well as 'Actress of the Year in a Musical' from the Society of West End Theatres in 1984. She has reprised the role many times, the latest being 2004 at the Liverpool Empire Theatre.

Later that year, Tim Rice approached Dickson to take part in the cast album recording of the musical Chess, which included the song "I Know Him So Well", a duet sung with Elaine Paige. The song was a worldwide hit, and remained at number one in the UK Singles Chart for four weeks.^[2] It is still cited in the Guinness World Records as the best-selling female duet of all-time.^{[citation needed]}

The 1990s[link]

During the 1990s, Dickson appeared in various television dramas including Taggart, Band of Gold and The Missing Postman. The writer and director Chris Bond created a stage show for Dickson in 1996 called The Seven Ages of Woman, which won her the Liverpool Echo 'Actress of the Year Award'. It premiered at the Liverpool Playhouse and toured extensively in 1997 and 1998.

In 1999, Dickson starred in Spend Spend Spend, a new musical by Steve Brown and Justin Greene. The show, based on the rollercoaster life story of pools winner, Viv Nicholson, played in the West End to capacity audiences. For her portrayal of Nicholson, she was awarded ‘Best Actress in a Musical’ at the 2000 Laurence Olivier Awards. She went on to star in the UK tour of the show.

Further theatre work followed in Friends Like This, the Heather Brothers musical A Slice of Saturday Night and Fame. During 2006, Dickson appeared as the Timekeeper in Alan Ayckbourn and Denis King’s fantasy musical play Whenever for BBC Radio 4. She has returned to TV recently in the BBC daytime drama series Doctors and her episode, "Mama Sings The Blues", was broadcast in March 2008.^[4]

The 2000s[link]

In 2003, Dickson worked with Russell again, providing backing vocals for his album Hoovering the Moon. In 2004 The Platinum Collection, featuring some of her most successful recordings, reached number 35 in the UK Albums Chart.^[2] Her 2004 album, Full Circle, was produced and arranged by Troy Donockley, and saw Dickson returning to her folk roots. In 2006, she issued a collection of the songs of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, Nothing's Gonna Change My World.^{[citation needed]}

Dickson's twenty fourth studio album, Time and Tide, was released in January 2008 featuring a mix of contemporary and folk songs, including "Palm Sunday", which marked Dickson's return to songwriting after a break of almost twenty years. A live DVD, Into the Light, was released to coincide with the release of Time and Tide and included, as well as some of her best-loved hits, several tracks from her new album. A double live CD, Barbara Dickson In Concert, was released in April 2009 and was followed later in the year by her autobiography, A Shirtbox Full of Songs. Between February and March 2011, Dickson undertook a tour of the UK and Ireland to promote her new studio album, Words Unspoken. Arranged and produced by Troy Donockley, the album included tracks such as "Bridge Over Troubled Water", "Jamie Raeburn" and "The Trees They Do Grow High".^{[citation needed]}

Awards[link]

^[5] Married with three sons, Dickson lives in Lincolnshire.^[5] She was awarded an O.B.E. in the Queen's New Year Honours in 2002 for her services to Music and Drama.^[5]

Selected discography[link]

Archie Fisher and Barbara Dickson

• The Fate o' Charlie (also with John MacKinnon) (1969)
• Thro' the Recent Years (1970)

References[link]

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2011)

This article may be written from a fan's point of view, rather than a neutral point of view. Please clean it up to conform to a higher standard of quality, and to make it neutral in tone. (September 2010)

Steven Wilson
Steven Wilson onstage with Blackfield, Bowery Ballroom, NYC, March 2007.
Background information
Birth name	Steven John Wilson
Born	(1967-11-03) 3 November 1967 (age 44) Kingston upon Thames, England
Genres	Progressive rock, progressive metal, psychedelic rock, art rock, ambient, krautrock, alternative rock, post-punk, jazz fusion, experimental rock.
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, producer
Instruments	Vocals, guitars, bass, piano, keyboards, mellotron, hammer dulcimer, flute, banjo, sampler, organ, harp, programming
Years active	1983–present
Associated acts	Porcupine Tree, Blackfield, No-Man, Incredible Expanding Mindfuck, Bass Communion, Opeth, Continuum, Storm Corrosion
Website	Steven Wilson Headquarters

Steven John Wilson (born 3 November 1967) is an English musician, best known as the founder, lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of progressive rock band Porcupine Tree. He is involved in many other bands and musical projects both as musician and producer (including No-Man and Blackfield) and also maintains a solo career.

Wilson is a self-taught producer, audio engineer, guitar and keyboard player, playing other instruments as and where required (including bass guitar, concert harp, hammered dulcimer and flute).

He used to split his living time between Tel Aviv and London, England,^[1] but he no longer holds a permanent residence in Tel Aviv.^[2]

Biography[link]

Background and early years[link]

Born in Kingston upon Thames, London, England^[3] (but brought up in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England from the age of 6)^{[citation needed]}, Wilson discovered his love for music around the age of 8. It began one Christmas when his parents bought presents for each other in the form of LPs. His father and mother received Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon and Donna Summer's Love to Love You Baby, respectively. The young Steven spent much of his childhood listening to these albums in "heavy rotation", as he once commented.

Both LPs would influence his future song writing. He claims "...in retrospect I can see how they are almost entirely responsible for the direction that my music has taken ever since." His interest in Pink Floyd led him towards experimental/psychedelic conceptual progressive rock (as exemplified by Porcupine Tree and Blackfield), and Donna Summer's trance-inflected grooves inspired the initial musical approach of No-Man (Wilson's long-running collaboration with fellow musician and vocalist Tim Bowness), although the band would later develop a more meditative and experimental Talk Talk-esque approach.

As a child, Steven was forced to learn the guitar, but he did not enjoy it; his parents eventually stopped paying for lessons. However, at the age of 11 Wilson rescued a nylon string classical guitar from his attic and started to experiment with it; or in his own words, "...scraping microphones across the strings, feeding the resulting sound into overloaded reel to reel tape recorders and producing a primitive form of multi-track recording by bouncing between two cassette machines." At the age of twelve, his father, who was an electronic engineer, built him his first multi-track tape machine and a Vocoder so he could begin experimenting with the possibilities of studio recording.^[4]

Early bands[link]

It didn't take long before he began to form bands with his friends from school and play live. However, the activity which kept him satisfied the most was that of experimenting with sounds and producing the recordings he made. Between the years 1983 and 1986 he began to record material for release. Some of those tapes have recently resurfaced due to the increasing popularity of Porcupine Tree. Wilson describes it as "...a bit like a painter having his nursery school paint blots on display..."^{[citation needed]}

One of these projects was the psychedelic duo Altamont (featuring a 15-year-old Wilson working with synth/electronics player Simon Vockings). Their one and only cassette album, Prayer for the Soul, featured lyrics by British psychedelic scenester Alan Duffy, whose work Wilson would later use for two Porcupine Tree songs: "This Long Silence" and "It Will Rain for a Million Years". Around the same time that Wilson was working as Altamont, he was also in a teenaged progressive rock band called Karma, who played live around Hertfordshire and recorded two cassette albums, The Joke's On You (1983) and The Last Man To Laugh (1985). These contained early versions of "Small Fish", "Nine Cats" and "The Joke's On You", which were subsequently resurrected as Porcupine Tree songs.

Wilson went on to join the New Wave/AOR band Pride of Passion as keyboard player, replacing former Marillion keyboard player Brian Jelliman (another former Marillion member, Diz Minnitt, also played in the band). Pride of Passion would later change their name to Blazing Apostles and alter their lineup and approach, finally coming to an end in 1987.^[5][6]

Breakthrough work[link]

Up to this point Wilson's diverse musical experiments had contained avant-garde and industrial recordings, psychedelia and progressive rock. He was, however, also becoming more interested in songwriting and pop music, something that would manifest itself in his next developments.

In 1986, Wilson launched the two projects that would make his name. The first of these was initially called "No Man Is An Island (Except The Isle Of Man)", although it would later be renamed "No-Man." This began life as a solo Wilson instrumental project blending progressive rock with synth pop, subsequently moving towards art-pop when singer/lyricist Tim Bowness joined the project the following year. The second project was "Porcupine Tree", which was originally a full-on pastiche of psychedelic rock (inspired by the similar Dukes of Stratosphear project by XTC) and which was carried out for the mutual entertainment of Wilson and his schoolfriend Malcolm Stocks.

Over the next three years, the projects would evolve in parallel. No Man Is An Island (Except The Isle Of Man) was the first to release a commercial single (1989's "The Girl From Missouri", on Plastic Head Records), while Porcupine Tree built an increasing underground reputation via the release of a series of cassette-only releases via The Freak Emporium (the mail-order wing of British psychedelic label Delerium Records).

By 1990, No Man Is An Island (Except The Isle Of Man) had fully evolved into No-Man and was a voice/violin/multi-instrument trio which had incorporated dance beats into its art-pop sound. The second No-Man single – a crooned cover of the Donovan song "Colours" arranged in a dub-loop style anticipating trip-hop - won the Single of the Week award in Melody Maker and gained the band a recording contract with the high-profile independent label One Little Indian (at the time, famous for The Shamen and Björk). Their debut One Little Indian single, "Days In The Trees", won the same Single of the Week award the following year. The single also briefly charted and, although sales were not outstanding, Wilson had now gained credibility in the record industry (as well as enough finance to fit out his home studio with the equipment he’d need to advance his music). By this time, he’d also released the official, lavishly packaged Porcupine Tree debut album, On the Sunday of Life... (which compiled the best material from the underground tapes).

No-Man's debut full-length release – a compilation of EP tracks called Lovesighs – An Entertainment – followed in 1992, as did Porcupine Tree's infamous LSD-themed maxi-single "Voyage 34" which made the NME indie chart for six weeks.^[7] No-Man also toured England with a six-piece band including three ex-members of the glam-pop band Japan – Mick Karn, Steve Jansen and (most significantly) keyboardist Richard Barbieri. 1993 saw Wilson consolidating his initial success with albums from both Porcupine Tree (Up the Downstair) and No-Man (Loveblows And Lovecries – A Confession). At the end of 1993, Porcupine Tree was launched as a four-piece live band featuring Wilson, Barbieri, bass player Colin Edwin and former No-Man live drummer Chris Maitland.

From this point onwards, Wilson would alternate between Porcupine Tree and No-Man releases. Although No-Man retired from live performance in 1994 (and would not return to the stage until 2006), the band continued to release a steady stream of albums featuring guests such as Barbieri, Steve Jansen, Robert Fripp, Theo Travis and Pat Mastelotto, and has maintained a healthy cult following as well as continued critical acclaim. Porcupine Tree, meanwhile, toured frequently (steadily gaining credibility as a consistent band) and passed through various overt phases of different musical stylings (including psychedelia, progressive rock, modern guitar rock and heavy metal) while retaining the core of Wilson's sonic imagination and songwriting. By the mid-2000s Porcupine Tree had become a highly successful rock band with albums on major labels such as Atlantic and Roadrunner, with Wilson's singing, songwriting and frontman skills increasing by the year. Also by this time, Wilson had become in-demand as a producer and was being cited as an influence by various up-and-coming musicians.

Diversification[link]

During the late 90's Wilson's love of experimental, drone and ambient music began to manifest itself in a series of new projects, notably Bass Communion and Incredible Expanding Mindfuck (also known as IEM). He also began to release a series of CD singles under his own name.

Having established himself as a skilled producer with a very high standard of sound engineering, Wilson was invited to produce other artists, notably the Norwegian artist Anja Garbarek and Swedish progressive-metal band Opeth. Though he claims to enjoy production more than anything else, with the demands of his own projects, he has mostly restricted himself to mixing for other artists in the last few years.^[8]

More recently Wilson has become known for his 5.1 Surround Sound mixes: the 2007 Porcupine Tree album Fear of a Blank Planet was nominated for a Grammy in the "Best Mix For Surround Sound" category.^[9] The album was also voted #3 album of the year by Sound And Vision.^[10] Wilson is currently working on several other surround sound projects, including remixing the Jethro Tull and King Crimson back catalogue.^[11]

Steven Wilson has recently begun to write reviews for the Mexican edition of the Rolling Stone magazine. They're all translated to Spanish. Two reviews have been published so far: one for Radiohead's In Rainbows and other for Murcof's 2007 work, Cosmos.^[12] He also contributes to UK magazine Classic Rock as an occasional reviewer.

Group projects (and pseudonymous projects)[link]

Porcupine Tree[link]

Steven Wilson photo of 2007

Porcupine Tree started out as a duo of Wilson and his schoolfriend Malcolm Stocks (with Wilson providing the majority of the instrumentation and Stocks contributing mostly ideas, additional vocals and experimental guitar sounds). Wilson began experimenting by recording music in his home until he had the hunch it could become someway marketable. The material was subsequently compiled into three demo tapes (Tarquin's Seaweed Farm, Love, Death & Mussolini and The Nostalgia Factory). For the first tape, he even wrote an inlay introduction to an obscure (imaginary) band called "The Porcupine Tree", suggesting the band met in the early '70s at a rock festival, and they had been in and out of prison many times. The booklet also contained information about band's obscure members like Sir Tarquin Underspoon and Timothy Tadpole-Jones, and crew members like Linton Samuel Dawson (if put into initials forming LSD). Wilson: "It was a bit of fun. But of course like anything that starts as a joke, people started to take it all seriously!".^[13] When Wilson signed to Delerium label, he selected what he considered the best tracks from these early tapes. All those songs were mastered and made up Porcupine Tree's first official studio album, On the Sunday of Life....

Quickly after, Wilson would release the single "Voyage 34", a thirty-minute long piece that could be described as a mixture of ambient, trance and psychedelia. This was done partly as an attempt to produce the longest single yet released, which it was until it was later exceeded by The Orb's "Blue Room." With non-existent radio play "Voyage 34" still managed to enter the NME indie chart for six weeks and became an underground chill-out classic.^[7]

The second full-length album, Up the Downstair (though Wilson considers it the first 'proper' PT album since it was made as such and not simply compiled), was released in 1993 and had a very good reception, praised by Melody Maker as "a psychedelic masterpiece... one of the albums of the year".^[14] This was the first album to include ex-Japan member, keyboardist Richard Barbieri and Australian-born bassist Colin Edwin. About the end of the year, Porcupine Tree became a full band for the first time with the inclusion of Chris Maitland on drums.

Wilson continued exploring the ambient and trance grounds and issued The Sky Moves Sideways. It also entered the NME, Melody Maker, and Music Week charts^[7] and many fans started hailing them as the Pink Floyd of the nineties, something Wilson would reject: "I can't help that. It's true that during the period of 'The Sky Moves Sideways', I had done a little too much of it in the sense of satisfying, in a way, the fans of Pink Floyd who were listening to us because that group doesn't make albums any more. Moreover, I regret it".^[13]

The band's fourth work, Signify, included the first full-band compositions and performance, which resulted in less use of drum machines and a more full-band sound. It can be considered a departure from its predecessors for a more song-oriented style.^[15] After the release of the live album Coma Divine concluded their deal with Delerium in 1997, the band moved to Snapper and issued two poppier albums, Stupid Dream in 1999 and Lightbulb Sun in 2000. Both were critical successes and only increased their popularity in the underground music scene.

Two years would pass until their sixth studio album, and in the meantime the band switched labels again, this time signing to Lava, and drummer Chris Maitland was replaced by Gavin Harrison. Now with the support of a major label, In Absentia saw the light of day in 2002, featuring a heavier sound than all the group's previous works. It charted in many European countries and remains one of the top-selling Porcupine Tree albums by now; it was also their first record to be released in 5.1 Surround Sound, in a special edition of 2004 that shortly after won the "Best Made-For-Surround Title" award for the Surround Music Awards 2004. Another two years elapsed before its follow-up, Deadwing, an ambitious and very cohesive record inspired by a film script by Steven Wilson and his friend Mike Bennion, was released in May 2005. This became the first Porcupine Tree album to chart the Billboard 200, entering at #132. The album was prizewinning for the "Album of the Year" award on the Classic Rock magazine awards^[16] and its surround version received the "Best Made-For-Surround Title" once again.^[17]

Steven Wilson started writing Porcupine Tree's next album in early 2006 in Tel Aviv, Israel, alongside work on the second album for his side-project Blackfield. Writing sessions finished in London, UK, in June 2006, then in August of the same year, the band released their first live DVD, titled Arriving Somewhere... and started a tour between September and November to promote it, during which the first half of each show was made up of all-new material. When the tour concluded the band went to studio and finished recording and mastering and added the last touches to the album. In early January 2007, the band revealed the album title was going to be Fear of a Blank Planet (a deliberate reference to Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet), and the concept was influenced by the Bret Easton Ellis novel Lunar Park. The album hit the shops on 16 April 2007 in Europe and April 24 in USA. The lyrics revolve around common 21st Century issues such as technology alienation, teen violence, prescription drugs, attention deficit disorder and bipolar disorder.

Fear of a Blank Planet resulted in the most successful album to date in terms of market and sales, and also received the most favourable reviews of the band's whole career. It entered the Billboard 200 at #59, and charted in almost all European countries, peaking at #31 in the UK. It was nominated for a US Grammy, and won several polls as the best album of the year (e.g. Classic Rock magazine, Aardshock, The Netherlands). In July 2007 the Nil Recurring EP was released, containing other material that hadn't made it onto the album for one reason or another.

At a European show in August 2008, Wilson said that Porcupine Tree was beginning work on material for their next album with an eye toward a release in 2009.^[18] Consisting of one long 55 minute song along with 4 shorter songs on the second disc, The Incident was released on September 14, 2009.

The Incident is a double CD set containing the self-titled 55 minute song cycle on disc 1. It has received significant attention and media coverage, and achieved for the band their highest chart positions to date, reaching 5 in The Netherlands, 9 in Germany, 23 in the UK, and 25 on the Billboard 200 in the USA. The subsequent tour of the US and Europe highlighted a large increase in the band's following, with many shows sold out. The single from The Incident, "Time Flies" was available as the free download from iTunes for one week in October 2009.^[19] A new DVD release is expected in Spring 2010, and a preview appeared on the band's website in April 2010.

No-Man[link]

No-Man is Wilson's long term collaboration with singer and songwriter Tim Bowness. Influenced by everything from ambient music to hip-hop, their early singles and albums were a mixture of dance beats and lush orchestrations. However, after a few years the duo started to create more textural and experimental music, most comparable with later Talk Talk. Beginning with Flowermouth in 1994, they have worked with a very wide palette of sounds, and many guest musicians, blending balladry with both acoustic and electronic sounds. No-Man was the first Wilson project to achieve any degree of success, signing with UK independent label One Little Indian (the label of Björk, The Shamen and Skunk Anansie among others), and releasing a string of critically acclaimed singles. The band remains an ongoing, predominantly studio-based project and continues to produce material, although it has never achieved the same level of commercial success as Porcupine Tree.

I.E.M.[link]

In 1996 came the first in a series of albums by I.E.M. (The Incredible Expanding Mindfuck, a name which had also been considered for Porcupine Tree in its infancy), dedicated to exploring Wilson's love of krautrock and experimental rock music. Initially Wilson had planned for the project to be anonymous, but then label Delerium Records published a song on their Pick N Mix compilation with the composition credited to "Steven Wilson" and so attempts to pass off the project in this way were abandoned.^[20] The project released 2 more albums Arcadia Son, and IEM Have Come For Your Children, both in 2001. A box set of 4 CDs, consisting of everything Wilson recorded under the name - billed as "an homage and a final farewell to I.E.M." - was released in June 2010.

Bass Communion[link]

In 1998 Wilson launched another solo project Bass Communion, dedicated to recordings in an ambient, drone, and/or electronic vein. The atmosphere of the music has tended towards the dark and melancholic, but expressed with an almost Zen-like beauty. More recently Wilson has also started working with a guitar and laptop configuration to create fuzzy power drones. So far there have been several full length Bass Communion CDs, vinyl LPs, and singles, many of them issued in handmade or limited editions (which sell out very quickly) in elaborate packaging. Bass Communion has collaborated with many leading experimental musicians such as Muslimgauze, Robert Fripp, Vidna Obmana (on the ongoing Continuum project), Jonathan Coleclough, Colin Potter, Andrew Liles, and several others.

Steven Wilson during a Blackfield performance at New York, in 2005

Blackfield[link]

In 2001 Wilson met and began to collaborate with Israeli rock star Aviv Geffen, with whom he created the band Blackfield. Since then the duo have released three highly acclaimed albums of what they refer to as "melodic and melancholic rock". The albums spawned several hits, notably "Blackfield", "Pain" and "Once". The band has toured several times, and a live DVD of their show in New York was released in 2007. A third album, titled "Welcome to my DNA" was released on 28 March 2011 with a European and American tour to follow.

Storm Corrosion[link]

In March 2010 Wilson and Mikael Åkerfeldt, the front man of Opeth decided to work on a new project as a collaboration under the name of Storm Corrosion. The self-titled album is set to be released in April 2012 on Roadrunner Records. It has been described as being "the final part in the odd trilogy of records completed by (Opeth's) Heritage and Steven Wilson's brand new solo album Grace for Drowning.^[21][22]

Solo career[link]

Cover Versions[link]

Between 2003 and 2010 Wilson released a series of six two-track CD singles under his own name, each one featuring a cover version and an original Steven Wilson song. The choice of covers is unpredictable, featuring songs by Canadian singer Alanis Morissette, Swedish pop group Abba, UK rock band The Cure, Scottish songwriter Momus, Prince, and Scottish singer/songwriter Donovan.

Separate from the Cover Versions series, Wilson has also contributed a cover version of the Cardiacs song "Stoneage Dinosaurs" to Leader Of The Starry Skies: A Tribute To Tim Smith, Songbook 1 (a fundraising compilation album released in December 2010 to benefit the hospitalised Cardiacs leader Tim Smith, whom Wilson has cited as a major inspiration spiritually, if not necessarily in style).^[23]

[edit] Insurgentes

In November 2008 Wilson released his first official solo album, Insurgentes, recorded all over the world between January–August, as a double CD plus a DVD-A (limited to 3,000 copies) and a 4 x 10 inch vinyl version (limited to 1,000 copies), both with hardback book featuring the images of acclaimed and long time collaborator Danish photographer Lasse Hoile. A standard retail CD version (also including the 5.1 DVD-A) was released on 9 March 2009.^[24]

Lasse Hoile's full length feature version of the film based on the recording of the album was premiered at the CPH:DOX international film festival in Copenhagen in November 2009. The film will also be screened at film festivals in Sweden, Germany, Mexico, USA, and Canada. The film is described as part documentary / part surreal road movie. Lasse also directed a video for the song Harmony Korine from the Insurgentes album - the video was a homage to some of Steven and Lasse's favourite European art house films, and has been nominated for Best Cinematography Award and Best Music Video Award at the prestigious Plus Camerimage - International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography Awards.

A remix mini album was released in November, featuring remixes of material from Insurgentes by TV on the Radio's David A. Sitek, Dälek, Engineers, Pat Mastelotto, and Fear Falls Burning.

[edit] Grace for Drowning

Wilson's second album, Grace For Drowning, was released in September 2011 in CD, vinyl and Blu-ray formats.^[25] It is a double album, with the individual parts named Deform to Form a Star and Like Dust I Have Cleared From My Eye.^[26] He also announced his first solo tour, in Europe and North America, to promote his solo albums. The tour took place in October and November 2011 and contained songs from both Insurgentes and Grace for Drowning.^{[citation needed]}

On December 16, 2011, Wilson announced on his Facebook page new European tourdates for the second leg of his Grace for Drowning tour, running in April and May 2012. South American dates were later added and announced in February 21, 2012, including Venezuela, Chile, Argentina and Brazil^[27].

Third solo studio album[link]

Wilson has announced plans to do a third solo studio album, with the members of the touring band for Grace for Drowning.^[28]

Collaborations[link]

He produced and contributed backing vocals, guitar and keyboards for Opeth on the albums Blackwater Park, Deliverance, and Damnation. In addition to this, he has collaborated on many projects with Belgian experimental musician Dirk Serries of Vidna Obmana and Fear Falls Burning, most notably on their collaboration project Continuum which has so far produced two albums. Wilson is also featured on a Fovea Hex EP "Allure" (Part 3 of the "Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent" trilogy of EP's) on bass guitar. This EP was released in April 2007 through Die-Stadt Musik.

Steven Wilson has also worked with OSI, Marillion, JBK, Orphaned Land, Paatos, Theo Travis, Yoko Ono, Fish, Cipher and Anja Garbarek performing songwriting duties as well as performing musically. Most recently, Wilson is featured on the Pendulum album "Immersion", with his vocals featuring on "The Fountain".^[29] He made a guest appearance on Dream Theater's 2007 album, Systematic Chaos on the song "Repentance", as one of several musical guests recorded apologizing to important people in their lives for wrongdoings in the past.

Wilson did an interview with German musician and composer Klaus Schulze. Schulze was an important figure of the Krautrock movement. This interview is featured as bonus material in Schulze's Live DVD, Rheingold.^[30]

The Anathema album, We're Here Because We're Here, was mixed by Wilson in a period beginning January 2010 and he is thanked in the album liner notes.^[31] A current ongoing project for Wilson is remixing the back catalogue of King Crimson from 1969 to 1984 into MLP (Meridian Lossless Packaging) 5.1 and new stereo mixes.^[32] The first three new editions were issued in October 2009, with more emerging in batches over the coming years.^[33]

Performance style[link]

For live shows Wilson plays with bare feet. This particular custom goes back to his early childhood, where he remembers: "I always had a problem wearing shoes and I've always gone around with bare feet".^[34] He also adds that another factor on performing barefoot is the advantage it gives in operating his diverse guitar pedals.^[35]

Wilson:

"I’ve stepped on nails, screws, drawing pins, stubbed my toe, I’ve come off stage with blood just coming out… I mean, I’ve had it all mate, but to be honest, nothing's going to stop me."^[34]

Discography[link]

See also[link]

• List of hammered dulcimer players

References[link]