Thank goodness the administrator had backups off site. If you walk into a computer superstore, you're likely to see a wide variety of brands of blank CDs. About five manufacturers in Taiwan make most of them. After manufacture, the discs are graded A, B or C, with C being the lowest quality. Those are the cheapest CDs you'll see.
CDs are sandwiches of technology.
One layer, the reflective layer, can use a range of components to produce the desired reflection, and some of these ingredients can oxidize more easily than others. Better CDs use a gold alloy in the reflective layer to increase longevity and reliability. But if you are just burnin' some tunes for a drive to Florida, use the cheap stuff. The worst thing to happen is listening to AM radio in rural Georgia. On second thought, go with the good stuff.