Music Ethnography

Music has been in existence for as far back as mankind can remember; and can be found in every culture, past and present. But music recordings did not begin until Thomas Edison’s invention of the first recording device, the phonograph. This was the beginning of a new era for music, as it was now possible to record a human voice and play it back. After the invention of the phonograph, the way we consumed music changed a number of times through the decades, from vinyl and cassettes to CDs and iPods. Because music is such a critical aspect in the human life, it is vital to understand the changes that the music recording industry has faced in the last couple decades. In recent years, technological advancements have allowed music recording to become

Music has changed plenty of times over the last twenty years. Vinyl and cassettes were dominant during the 1980’s and CD’s were unstoppable through the 1990’s until we were finally introduced to digital music consumption through music streaming and MP3 downloads. In 1999, a college student named Shawn Fanning developed a website called Napster, the first free file-sharing program that made use of MP3 technology. This website enabled music to be downloaded from the Internet which immediately dropped CD sales. After Napster was closed down due to legal issues, Apple introduced the iPod in 2001. The iPod was designed to work with the iTunes music service, allowing listeners to purchase a single song for 99 cents. Apple would take a 22-cent retailers cut from every song purchased, leaving 67 cents for labels (Knopper 172). Almost immediately, iTunes emerged as the biggest online retailer, taking more than 70 percent of the music market (Knopper 179). As said in the book Appetite for Self Destruction by Steve Knopper, “Sony Music, which had been so instrumental in developing the CD, merely watched as Apple took over the markets for both digital music players and online songs.” (Knopper 174). The old days of buying CDs, cassettes, and vinyl were now almost completely over due to the new era of digital music

These and numerous other sites now offer people the ability to listen to music without paying. These sites are causing a trend in the lack of music ownership, which is hurting an artist’s income. “The rise of the digital age has meant that recorded music is packaged differently, which has no doubt altered the consumer’s views on the value of recorded music” (Jackman). Spotify has 20 million users in 17 countries, with only five million of them actually paying the $5 to $10 a month to eliminate the ads that freeloaders see (Sisario). More and more people are choosing to stream music online rather than download it because why wouldn’t you want to summon any song, at any time, for free? 30 percent of consumers are streamers and only a fifth of these streamers actually pay to stream. The consumer’s transition from downloading music to streaming music is fundamentally a transition of spending. “Just as the download was a transition from the CD, streaming subscriptions are a transition from the download. This is because the majority of subscribers were already digital music buyers before becoming subscribers and the majority of those were iTunes customers” (How Streaming Will Impact Music Sales). People are now switching from downloading music to streaming music online because it is simply easier and