Written by: Abby Johnson
Over the course of 153 years, the music industry and how we as consumers listen to music has rapidly expanded into what we experience now. Today, we’re going to dive into how we used to listen to music and the growth of technology to get us to where we currently sit technologically.
Our journey begins in 1870 when the cylinder was developed as the first recording technology to ever exist. In seven years' time (1877), Thomas Edison used the cylinder to capture the first recording of the human voice. His technique to do such innovative work was patented later that same year. The increased use of the cylinder led to the recording of music and eventually led to the development of record labels by 1900, prompting the creation of the recorded music industry.
Shortly after the cylinder came into popularity, the gramophone was invented. Three years after the notable start of the music industry, in 1903, a record label under the name of Monarch created and released the first pre-recorded music on a disc. These discs were 78 RPMs on the standard 7-inch shellac disc.
Radio broadcast was developed in 1906, but it wasn’t until the 1920s that music became popular for radio broadcasts. The increased consumer use of radio was initially seen as a threat by record labels before they came to the conclusion that radio was one of the best promotional tools available.
The first time that music was considered for consumer consumption was in 1948 when Columbia introduced and released 33 RPM 12-inch Long Play (LP) discs, aka vinyl discs. This led to the development of stereo LPs in 1950.
It wasn’t until approximately 30 years later that the first Compact Disc (CD) was released. In the late 1970s, Sony and Phillips teamed up to develop the CD, and in 1982 the first CD was released for consumer consumption. Sales for CDs didn’t peak until 2000 when global units sold peaked at 2.45 billion.
Fun Fact: The first CD that was released for consumer purchase was ABBA’s ‘The Visitors’.
In 1989, Sony released Digital Audio Tape (DAT) technology. This was the first technology to allow the recording of music multiple times without losing the sound quality. DAT never took off, especially commercially, mostly due to piracy concerns.
Ten years later a German company under the name Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, developed the MP3 file format. Fun fact: Today, all developers of MP3 encoders and decoders must pay a licensing fee to Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.
Released in 2001, Apple’s iPod could store approximately 1,000 songs. Due to illegal peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing, in 2003, Apple opened the iTunes store, where iPod users could legally download music to their device by purchasing the download.
The user-generated video content platform was developed and became available in 2006. This platform quickly became a place where artists, new and established, could post their music and music videos. Youtube is now the number one site for listening to music online.
Two years later, in 2008, Spotify became the leading music streaming platform in Sweden. In 2011, the platform integrated its services with Facebook and made itself available for use in the United States. Spotify now has over 100 million subscribers globally.
Today there are now several ways to listen to music whether it be digitally or in a physical format, but now you know how the industry developed to get where it is today.
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