Having access to the variety of music we have today all while sitting in a car or while adventuring Spotify’s genre and mood playlists would seem unfathomable when music first started being recorded for home listening.
Today, everyone with a device that can play audio has access to any type of music they could ever want. In 1877, the phonograph was the only way people could listen to music without intentionally going out to see people perform.
The phonograph could record sound by reacting to vibrations that travel down the horn, which is attached to a stylus that would move in accordance to the vibrations and makes grooves in the wax cylinder, so the sound was represented as grooves. It played back audio by following these grooves and moving along the cylinder.
Vinyl was the next major development for music and was a means of profit for artists and bands who wanted to distribute physical copies of their music. It works similarly to the phonograph as the stylus follows the grooves in material, but is more reliable and accurate to recordings as the material is less likely to decay or be damaged unless scratched with force or smashed. In this 50s, the vinyl player was the primary device for listening to music at home. It was the first device that could play more than one song.
After vinyl came a new method of listening, the tape. This was popularised by the idea of being able to listen to music on the go as many car production companies adapted to the idea of including tape players in their cars. It wasn’t revolutionary at the time, it didn’t change in quality much in comparison to vinyl, but the convenience was certainly a leading reason as to why it sold well and was used by many.
In November of 1982, CDs were released for public use in Japan and March 1983 for Europe and North America. They rapidly became more popular than vinyl and tape due to their compact size and improved audio quality. They’re still fairly popular today, as shops like hmv offer a wide variety of CDs at reasonable prices. I personally have a collection of CDs that range from Bon Jovi’s best to Panic! At The Disco’s Pretty. Odd. album, just because of the authentic feeling that comes with owning a CD collection. The audio quality isn’t bad either, and it’s nice to borrow CDs from friends and share music that way.
Now, music is found almost everywhere online. Sharing music is much less meaningful and artists make less profit from releasing music as most music is streamed rather than physically bought. Not many people own physical copies of their favourite music anymore.
The importance of recorded music
Recorded music offers anyone of any background to discover music from any time and place. Online, anything posted on any major platforms is available to everyone and having promotional content to support that can push artist’s work further into the public eye.
Listening to music at home can be more of an incentive and inspiration for people to start playing an instrument, while seeing bands live might intimidate someone. Additionally, everyone who learns songs by ear will need access to a recording of the song they want to learn and a place to find that song.
Artists everywhere more than likely make most of their profit from recording and promotion rather than playing their songs live. In most cases, when bands are playing gigs that the audience pay to see them for, they will have heard the recorded version of their songs first.
However, streaming music today doesn’t make much profit. Spotify pays an estimate of £0.006 per stream. CDs could go for anywhere between £5-£15 on average for one person to buy an EP or album, but are a less popular choice in comparison to online streaming.
Either way, recording music will offer publicity if you choose to release it and it can influence people in different ways. Different genres can evoke a wide range of emotions and influence and inspire people to act upon something whether it be political or personal, or just act as background noise. It’s the convenience of having any song at the tap of a screen or push of a button that makes recording music so important.