Music Player Evolution

1887

Record+PlayerThe gramophone, the first flat record player is invented by Emile Berliner.

1963

Cassette Tape + Player
Philips introduces the audio cassette tape for storing audio in Europe. (1964 in the US, under the trademark name Compact Cassette.)

1982

CD + PlayerFirst compact disc introduced in Japan. Billy Joel’s “Joel’s 52nd Street”. (1983 in the US, the first CD released.)

2001

NapsterFirst official online music downloading program is created.

2003

iPod + iTunes
Apple introduces its online music store iTunes along with portable music player iPods.



Music is not a dimensional object that can be preserved in a safe glass box, or in volumes as poetry can be in writen form. It has rhythms, dynamics, addictive melodies, and requires animated audio player to bring it alive. It’s hard to imagine that unless played live physically in front of the viewer, music could only be saved through human recorders, orally passing down to become of family or cultural value. When Emile Berliner invented the first record and its player, new aspect of music admiration was introduced. Everyone was able to individually own their singers and their music. Listening to music no longer had to be a social event with visual entertaining performances, but an individual’s hobby alone in private rooms and homes. With the evolution of music recording technology, no one longer needed to purchase and carry around huge black discs. Inside a tiny clear box with rolls of strips, the record was able to save itself an eventful worth of music. Development in technology allowed the memory of the small cassette tape to be further shrunken down into a flat donut shaped, compact discs. Although the aesthetics and feel of the physical music recordings changed over the century, the value of having music recordings did not change a lot from the primary purpose to inventing audio recordings.

However, with emphasis on consuming goods and products, CD became only one item of many other self-serving consumers’ product for oneself. With the introduction of the online music downloading system, Napster, this brought a big change to consuming intangible music. It elminated worrying for filling physical storage space when collecting song albums; however, having the intangible music available for everyone online, also initiated the declining of the record industry for people were able to slip by easily with free downloads. With the idea of having intangible music transferred to home computers and portable music players, soon came the iTunes and iPods that filled all the holes unsatisfactory about the past music recordings; this system allowed consumers to buy the music at an affordable price with easy access anywhere and was intangibly and effortlessly transferred over to your computer with few clicks on the computer screen. With such easy user steps, music in the cultural aspect became more open, publically shared, and respectable among the diverse and growing range of user groups. No longer do kids need to wait around high school or college to find access to a music performances or money to purchase their favorite songs; music became a universal piece of property for all age groups and countries throughout the world.