Yesterday was our wedding anniversary, and one of the gifts Deborah got for me was Little Worlds, the Flecktones album I blogged about last week (even though I forgot to publish until today).

It takes a while to assimilate three discs of new material, but so far it’s excellent. I’m particularly fascinated, though, by the introduction. Pop disc one in the player and it starts straight in with music. But then hit the reverse-scan button and keep going past (that is, prior to) the beginning of track one. Keep going until you’ve rewound to the -2:40 point and let go. There’s a humorous introduction featuring David St. Hubins and Harry Shearer of Spinal Tap.

The booklet inside the CD case explains that not all CD players support that “feature”. Ours at home does, but (as you might expect) the one in my laptop doesn’t.

I don’t know much about the CD format specs, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that such things are documented features of the way the CD format is supposed to work, and not just bugs found in many CD players. Still, though, it feels like exploiting a bug—or at least a quirk—in a particular medium for art’s sake. (Or maybe it’s just entertainment.)

It’s cool, and funny, but it leaves me with a very strange feeling. I’m old enough to remember vinyl LPs all too well. From the very beginning, CDs were appreciated for their physical durability, and also because the digital recording didn’t degrade. It’s nice to know that those CDs will still sound pristine after quite a few years, and it’s also nice to know that (copy protection measures aside, which is a different debate) I can convert the music and it will continue to be viable after media has changed and CDs have become obsolete.

Except, it seems, for the intro to Little Worlds. I’ve ripped the CDs into iTunes (and thence to my iPod) but the intro is missing. Even if that feature really is a documented part of the CD-audio spec, it’s a quirk that’s not likely to be duplicated by future media formats. I rarely play physical CDs anymore, but if I want to hear that intro again, apparently that’s how I’ll have to do it.

But anyway, like I said: it’s cool, and funny, and leaves me with a very strange feeling. I have a sneaking suspicion that Béla and the band would love that reaction.