An Evolution of Music from Vinyl Records to Cell Phones
As a music lover, it is very interesting to know how devices used to listen to our favorites tunes have evolved from vinyl records, to cellphones that allow you to access any song at the touch of a button. These technology devices are evolving even today, making music more accessible to us by the day.
Vinyl records hit the market and became a popular commodity in 1887. These were devices that contained "recordings etched onto a disc." You would put this on a record player and music would fill a room. Vinyls went through a multitude of advances during their time of popularity, including 2-sided vinyls that allowed for more song storage. A two sided vinyl could contain up to 20 minutes of sound on each side, and became extremely popular among artists who wanted to sell their songs and livelihood to the public. Vinyls have recently seen a comeback, especially among younger generations. I myself have a record player and love to collect vinyls and vinyl covers. Although, my record device is slightly more advanced and allows me to also bluetooth stream music through its loud speaker. This bit of technology allowed the evolution of music to really take off.
Cassette tapes were invented in 1962 and hit the market in 1963 to be mass produced and sold after being officially introduced at the Berlin Radio Show in Europe. These devices, also referred to as the "compact cassette" and "the tape," was a "little bit larger than a credit card but much thicker and stored sound on a magnetic tape wound around two wheels inside." Cassette tapes were much smaller than vinyls and were much more accessible and easier to transport. They also made it so that people could record their own sounds and create their own tapes. Prior to their release, there were reel-to-reel recorders which were extremely expensive and "required training and knowledge on how to use." Due to this, the emergence of cassette tapes took off and were very popular because they didn't require this prior training. Just like the vinyls, many advancements were made to these tapes in their time improving performance and sound quality.
Cassette tapes saw a drastic decline in sales when the compact CD was introduced. People were able to easily burn music onto discs and they were even easier to use and transport. Songs and content could be held on the smallest compact device. With the emergence of CDs came CD players which were used by inserting the disc allowing music to be read from the device and then played. Headphones could be attached letting consumers to plug away and listen to songs personally with their own ears. "By the late 80's CDs had exploded in popularity, with the cost of the players coming down and an increasingly large number of artists converting their back catalogs to the new digital format." The music industry really took off and artists were able to mass produce their albums and sell them to the public to listen to.
The game really changed when CD players evolved and MP3s were introduced. MP3 players hit the market in 1998 and allowed for hundreds of songs to be at the fingertips of consumers. Music lovers no longer had to listen to whole albums on CD's and replace a disc when they were through with all the songs. They could stream songs from various artists and play them when they wanted. "The history of MP3 is a fascinating one. It began in 1982, when Karlheinz Brandenburg was an electrical engineer PhD student. His thesis advisor issued him a challenge: find a way to transmit music over digital phone lines." This idea is what led us to these devices and the technology that has become some commonplace in our society today. Apples I-Pod was the device that really put them on the map. It allowed users to possess and shuffle between thousands of songs.
I remember being so excited one Christmas when I was younger and opened an electric blue I-Pod nano. Now, I couldn't even tell you where it was. Every song I need is accessible to me right on my cellphone. Its hard to think about a time when music was not that easy to access and have at my fingertips whenever I want. With my cellphone, I am able to look up any song, by any artist, at any time with ease. This evolution of music has led to this point. New technological advances from the vinyl to cellphones have allowed us to listen to music whenever we please, and technology is only advancing from here. We can't really imagine a time when we had to have vinyls and a record player to listen to music. I wonder what my great great grandkids will say about iPhone 11 device I used to listen to my favorite toons.
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