Music Players

In todays lesson we looked at how the changes in technology have changed the way we listen too music.

-Gramaphone

• Thomas Edison (1880s).



• Created culture of private music listening experience.



• Now considered 'cult' and 'retro'.



• No longer had to go to live performances to listen to music.



• Gave birth to Vinyls and record players.

-The Cassette

• 'Phillips' introduced the compact audio cassette.



• Became popular in the late 1970's, there was now a portable way of litening to music in the car or walking around.



• Links to the 'boombox' and the 'walkman'.



• Frowned upon by the music industry as they were easily copied and were responsible for the start of music piracy.



• Created underground scenes and punk movement.



• 'Sony' pressured 'Phillips' to licence the format for free and therefore it became popular.



• Cassettes decline in early 1990's due to arrival of CD's.

-The CD (compact disk)

• Remains the standard physical system to listen to music.



• Quality better than cassettes and more information can be held on them.



• Represents music industry trying to get music hardware back but failed.



• Example of Vertical Integration.



• Loss some popularity, beggining in the early 2000's.

Key Findings

• Technology and hardware greatly influenced music institutions and audiences over the last 4 decades.



• The issues present today (file sharing, piracy, ownership, control) have been around for decades.



• What is important is that the music industry responds and adapts to these issues and changes.

Self Produced bands and artists-

Arctic Monkeys-free demos, web 2.o (myspace).

Lily Allen-SNS & web 2.0 (myspace and twitter).

Sandie Thom-webcast from home, Global village, social networker, web 2.0.

Enter Shikari- created own record label ('ambush reality'), web 2.0, global village.

Hadouken!- USB mixtapes (convergence and digital technology), social networkers, global village.

Key problem is the fact you cant control how people access and listen to music so record labels are having to adapt and change.