What would our life be like without music? A couple of words that come to mind would be “bland” and “colorless”. Eventually, the saddest contraries probably have at least a basic appreciation of music. For many of us, our most vivid memories can be triggered by music. Just a few bars of a particular tune can take us to very specific times, places, and events in our lives. Those memories often lie dormant until they are resurrected by a particular piece of music. Sometimes those memories are bright and relaxing. Sometimes they are not. Music stimulates reactions in the listener that cover the entire emotional spectrum. Our rich history of music players and their development has been a direct result of our love for the medium.

The history of music players began with Edison:

Thomas Edison introduced the phonograph, also known as a gramophone, in 1877. Edison’s phonograph was the first device that could record and reproduce sound. This was a revolutionary development. Before 1877, for millennia, music could only be heard in real time. Great musical performances could not be recorded and thus were not available for wider consumption. You were one of the lucky members of the live audience or had to rely on repeat live performances that may or may not have been the same as the original. There was no recorded music in the house. Imagine that.

Edison’s phonograph, like all early groundbreaking inventions, was crude in design and function. Sound quality was poor and the device had to be turned by hand. However, Edison had started the evolution that would fundamentally change the way we consume music and forever alter the impact of music on our lives. There would be no history of music players without that first Edison phonograph.

A big step forward:

Vinyl records and turntable. Aside from the fact that vinyl records are making a comeback, there is a large portion of the population that has never heard a vinyl record spinning on a turntable. Those people are serving our sympathy. For warmth of sound, nothing compares to vinyl. Never mind the inevitable scratches, stylus wear, or occasional warping; Vinyl records and their turntables had a magic that digital evolution has failed to capture. The sheer excitement of taking an album out of its sleeve for the first time and gently placing it on a turntable cannot be overstated. It goes beyond mere nostalgia. The album covers themselves were often works of art to be enjoyed alongside the records. Albums and turntables were a much more tactile experience than any other type of music-playing device…perhaps that’s what’s driving their resurgence.

The Great Leap Forward (???):

Next we come to the much beleaguered 8-track cassette player. This infamous technology came onto the scene in the mid-1960s and survived until the late 1970s. Most of its infamy is well deserved. They were extremely high maintenance, requiring one to carry a variety of chemical cleaners, pencils, screwdrivers, tape, and various other gadgets just to keep things running. They hissed, “rang” from track to track, and about once a day stopped, revealing a tangled mess of tape that had to be pulled out and rewound. But they had a glorious advantage… you could play them in your car! They were portable, although “portable” meant if you wanted to carry your tape collection around in your because you needed a small steamer trunk to do so.

music clubs:

A byproduct of the advent of the 8-track cassette was the introduction of music clubs. Clubs that offered a naive teenager a whopping ten 8-track cassettes for just 99 cents. What a great deal! The only minor caveat was that he had to agree to buy ten more cassettes at the “regular” price over the next 2 years. And that! It still sounded like a great opportunity for a kid with limited funds. The problem, of course, was that the ten cassettes you had to buy at full price came from a very limited selection. Dark bands with names similar to “Captain Ron and the Bail Jumpers” or “The Blue Moodys”. Most of us kids were eventually turned over to a collection agency…

Improved cassette technology (the latest analog input in the history of music players):

Compact cassette technology. What a relief. This next generation of music playback was an order of magnitude better than the 8-track cassette. You still had the occasional spaghetti-tape freaks, but it was much easier to deal with. Compact cassettes were a fraction of the size of 8-tracks, resulting in an innovative ability to pack a ton of music into a relatively small space. Noise reduction technology had also advanced, significantly improving overall sound quality. Unfortunately, the “music clubs” continued their efforts to catch young people off guard, but at the time I was too sophisticated to fall for their tricks.

The digital revolution:

The compact disc made its first appearance sometime in the early 1980s. By the mid to late 1980s, CDs had already overtaken the compact cassette in terms of units and dollars. The ultimate in player reliability, storage, and flawless signal clarity. It was amazing to hear digital music for the first time. No other technology has been capable of producing such crystal-clear quality. How many of us still have large amounts of CDs despite the continuing evolution of digital technology?

Digital vs Analog. There are some (myself included) who claim that the transition from analog to digital, while greatly improving signal clarity, came at the expense of warmth. If in doubt, just listen to Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” on CD and later on vinyl. But, that is perhaps a topic for another day.

Where will our history of music players take us? It will be fun to find out.