In 1982, no one knew if Compact Discs were going to be a flop or fad or just something audiophiles with $1,000 stereos bought. Music retail was dominated by independent shops and regional chains back then, and they were loathe to spend tens of thousands on new display racks on a format that might tank.
So record companies introduced the longbox. For most of the 80s and into the early 90s, CDs were sold in long cardboard boxes:
Some folks say the longbox was to “help endcap marketing” with big graphics or “to cut down on shoplifting” by making it harder to stuff into your trousers undetected.
The longbox did help those 2 things, but its primary use was for display in stores. Two longboxes side by side were exactly 12″x12″, the same size as an LP. So record stores could display them in existing LP bins and not have to order special CD bins. And they could transition from LPs to CDs (or back again) simply by altering the ratios of each format from the distributor when ordering.
Ironically, some artists (especially R.E.M.) loudly decried the waste of cardboard longboxes were. So they were largely ditched. Some places switched to lockable, reusable plastic versions… but most just broke down and bought all new display cases instead. So hard to tell what was the bigger waste: all that cardboard, or all the particle board that made CD bins.
I mentioned R.E.M. because their album “Out of Time” was due for release in ’91, but there was a feud between R.E.M. (who were ADAMANTLY against it coming out in a longbox) and their record label (who genuinely didn’t have time to come up with an alternative).
Virgin Records US executive Jeff Ayeroff was pissed by censorship of 2 Live Crew and so formed “Rock the Vote” to get young adults to register to vote. The campaign was pretty famous in its day: seems like all the big stars made “Rock the Vote” public service announcements, which were heavily promoted on MTV.
Ayeroff saved the day when he got R.E.M. to allow Out of Time to come out in a longbox if it included a detachable postcard petitioning Congress for the Motor Voter bill and if Warner Brothers promised to come up with a “solution” to the longbox issue before the release of R.E.M.’s next album:
Both things were successful: Rock The Vote’s petition generated tens of thousands of responses, which were displayed in mail bags on the floor or the US Senate. And with other Motor Voter campaigns pushing, Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act of 1993… and longboxes quietly went away.