Recorded Music

Wow, you have a lot of albums

This post was first published on 15-OCT-2020 and was my 20th post. It was reposted on 25-FEB-2021

I think the last twenty years have seen a revolution in music and how it is delivered. In 2001, Apple launched the very first version of the iPod. A portable music player which you could download songs from a private internet site owned and operated by Apple (iTunes in 2003). It was an amazing success. While people could buy singles in the traditional music store (on vinyl) the dominant format was an LP (long-play) album for a very long time.

It all started with the device shown above called a phonautograph which appeared in 1857. Sound could be recorded onto glass or special paper. If I ever see one at a garage sale I will definitely scoop it up! While metal pin rotating head music boxes had appeared in 1811, the device above started to resemble a recording device. By 1887 Edison introduced the phonograph. People were excited and innovations followed. By 1920, the first commercial radio station, KDKA in Pittsburgh was launched. Pittsburgh was a hub of innovation at that time. Here is the audio of the first broadcast. Ah, we never know where a story may lead. Music and the pursuit of the joy it brings to so many of us is the perfect vehicle to present a repeating pattern that my love and exploration of history bring me over and over.

We have been refining recordings on discs since 1878. Cassettes did not begin broad availability till the 1960s. Compact discs arrived in the 1980s and were, at the time, the cause of steep declines in vinyl and cassette popularity. Each of the technologies starting with cassettes provided unprecedented freedom and portability. Unfortunately, the “pirating” of music became more and more prevalent each time new technology made it easier. By the time the MP3 format emerged as a digital standard, the days of physical media were numbered. In rapid succession, “breakthroughs” were quickly cast aside to the ash heap. Apple introduced the iPod device in the early 2000s and refined it a number of times. These were “indispensable” items yet today, we do not even see them anymore. Creative destruction can be merciless as we pursue a better way of doing most everything. Today our phones, home speakers, and televisions are gateways to almost everything that has ever been recorded. We all live in interesting times.

The rapidity that a breakthrough as significant as recorded music has changed is sobering. It seems to me, we have reached the point of it no longer being reasonable to be an “early adopter”. If you were buying each new innovation and were loathe to downsize you might have a storage locker full of equipment and devices by now. Technology is now a juggernaut. Music is everywhere, anytime and it is hard to imagine what comes next.

If you were born in 1900, it is possible and likely that you were exposed to a phonograph at an early age and may have continued to use a similar device for the rest of your life. A person born in 1975 has seen at least five major shifts and perhaps more in the recording and delivery of music. It is reasonable to assume that there will be many other parts of their daily lives that will do the very same in their lifetimes. To return to one of my opinions, life gets better and we are blessed to be here as it changes right before our eyes. Simply being alive at this time makes me happy. Here’s a song for that. I think most everyone cannot avoid a smile sometimes while listening to this song with the video accompaniment. The girl dancing at 1:10 is my favorite. Leave a comment for the part when the song gets the best of you. I believe almost anyone will decide it was 4 minutes well spent. There has never been a better time to be alive. Pass it on.

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