Technology Advancement and The Music Industry

Dust Off Your Vinyls, We're Going Back In Time

Music is a part of life for every culture and every generation. From just about the start of mankind we have made music and with every technological advancement, we have evolved the way music is heard, made, and distributed. Within the last couple decades I have witnessed the music industry change drastically from cassette tapes to digital mp3s. What caused this dramatic evolution of music? What are the effects on the industry itself, and the consumers like you?

Music has taken new forms many times in it's history. Not only in sound, but shape. According to Dr. Tom McCort, who has a Ph. D and teaches at the University of Texas, the term “album” comes from the 78 rpm discs that only had space on them for under four minutes of music, making way for today's songs. But four minutes for a whole disc? They were very limited and needed improving, and thus the cassette tape was invented. Not only did these little rectangular pieces of plastic have two sides to them, giving double the space, the cassette tape could hold twenty-five to forty-five minutes of music on each side. A huge step into the right direction, while the compact disc held around seventy-eight minutes of music. But today we are in the digital era. We can hold thousands upon thousands of songs in a shiny little box small enough to fit in your pocket, the iPod. A massive difference from music's ancestors. (McCort, 1)

The big leap from physical to digital music started back in 2001, when the music industry experienced a unexpected dilemma in the way their music was shared. This dilemma was brought by the program Napster. According to Kenneth D. Crews, professor at Indiana State University School of Law, “Napster is ...

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...ey shows how easy it is to get your music on Pandora. After you verify you have the rights to your music, and have it on iTunes, Amazon, or other internet marketplaces, simply log it, click on the link that says 'SUBMIT YOUR MUSIC' and upload. Then you just wait for an acceptance or rejection email. (Robley, 1) Even artists such as Justin Bieber and Carly Rae Jepson have made it big from the internet, and it was even easier for them. Desree Adib, writer at ABCNews.com says that Justin Bieber got his big break from YouTube, thanks to Usher. “...Usher had StarSearch at 13, Justin Bieber had YouTube at 12...” (Adib, 1) And a few short years after Usher discovered Bieber, Justin did the same for Carly Rae Jepson. Larry Getlen, write for the New York Post wrote, “...had he not been washing dishes at his mothers house, we may have one less pop sensation.” (Getlen, 1)