by ButterflyEffect

Up to that point, the labels wouldn’t cooperate – not even CBS Records, Sony’s longtime partner for years before the electronics company bought it outright in 1987. “If there would have been rotten eggs available, they would have thrown them at me,” recalls Jan Timmer, then head of Philips Worldwide, of an Athens, Greece, music-industry conference where he attempted to introduce the new format to a roomful of defensive record executives. One was Jerry Moss, head of A&M Records, who pounded his fist on a table. Back then, skeptical label salespeople called the CD “Jerry Shulman‘s Frisbee,” a reference to CBS’ market-research director, the label’s top CD evangelist.