LIFE North Pointe – Wednesday, March 16, 2016 – 7 From the phonograph to TIDAL, the distribution of music is ever changing. The way people listen to music not only alters lifestyles, but the entire music industry. By Abbey Cadieux & Lindsey Ramsdell THE EVOLUTION OF ASSISTANT EDITORS While attempting to make improvements to the tele- graph and telephone, 1877 Thomas Edison created the PHONOGRAPH phonograph, one of the first devices specifically used for sound recording and playing back Emile Berliner founded the audio. Edison’s invention US Gramophone Company started a long path of audio in Washington D.C. Concert engineering and innovation bands and artists would that carried into the 21st come to the company head- century. quarters to record their piec- es which would be produced ELECTROSPECTIVEMUSIC.COM and sold by Berliner’s compa- ny. They often had multiple Victor Talking Machine Com- artists record the same song pany and Columbia Records since popular songs would 1925 1895 sell out quickly and making COMPACT CASSETTE licensed the electrical record GRAMOPHONE playing system developed by duplicates difficult. Western Electric. They began WIKIPEDIA.COM issuing electrical vinyl records. With the invention of the radio These records became the receiver came the transistor ra- dominant method for music dio. These were small, portable 1954TRANSISTOR distribution throughout the radios that revolutionized the RADIO mid 1900s, and remained at the way people listened to music by top even with the development allowing them to tune in any- of the Compact Cassette. where. Although first produced OBSELETEMEDIA.ORG by Texas Instruments, Japanese companies like Sony and Toshi- The Learjet Stereo 8-track cartridge was developed by ba soon began to dominate the Richard Kraus, the Lear doubled the storage of the four- U.S. markets with their transis- track tape cartridge. Within a few years, it became the 1963 tor radios. most popular form of music production, even surpass- LEARJET STEREO ing vinyl records. This was largely due to its use in the WIKIPEDIA.ORG car industry. Ford began offering it as an upgrade op- Sony created the first truly portable tion in all its models in 1967, and later it was modified music player: the TPS-L2 Walkman. for home use aiding its growing popularity. Only slightly larger than cassette 1979 HUBPAGES.COM tapes, the device is battery operated and came with its own pair of light- WALKMAN Invented by American James T. Russell, weight headphones—forever alter- 1982 the Compact Disc was commercially ing people’s listening habits. COMPACT DISC released in the U.S. His patents were licensed to Sony and Philips and a year WIKIPEDIA.ORG later Sony produced the Discman D-50, the first portable digital music player. Korean company Saehan created the MPman Sales rates for the CD reached their F10. This was the first MP3 player of all time. 1998 The Internet provided for easy sharing of these peak in the 1990s, and since then have been rapidly dropping. small information files, and websites like www. mp3.com arrived that offered thousands of WIKIPEDIA.ORG free, downloadable MP3’s created by indepen- MPMAN F10 MPMAN dent artists. Through these mass-sharing meth- Napster became the first widely used music ods, music piracy grew, and record companies’ streaming service. It was a free website that sales began to drop. allowed users to share their MP3’s with other 1999 WIKIPEDIA.ORG users. However, most of these files were bootleg NAPSTER recordings or unreleased music, causing artists Steve Jobs unveiled the iPod—a 5GB MP3 like Madonna and Dr. Dre to file lawsuits against player that gave listeners “1,000 songs the site. In 2001, Napster was forced to shut 2001 in your pocket.” While its sleek design IPOD down after a crushing lawsuit filed by the Re- fit comfortably in a buyer’s pocket, the cording Industry Association of America. device was not seamless. iPod users still relied on and often illegally)downloaded QUORA.COM music via websites like Napster. Apple releases the iTunes Store, the first legal WIKIMEDIA.ORG digital catalog of music. Steve Jobs made deals with five major record label companies Created by founders Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahl- to offer their content through iTunes. Indi- forss, the social networking site Soundcloud allows 2007 users to record and upload originally-created audio vidual songs were sold for 99 cents each, with SOUNDCLOUD the artist making a nine cent profit. iTunes and share it with people around the world. Users can 2003 Store software was only compatible with the keep up with their audience by tracking how many ITUNES MUSIC iPod and Mac computer. plays, likes, reposts and downloads they receive on their sounds. The app is currently ranked third in CIO.COM most downloads for music services in the U.S. WIKIMEDIA.COM Spotify is a music and media streaming app that is of- fered free, or for monthly payments for the upgraded 2011 To keep up with increasingly popular services like “premium” version. Spotify became instantly popular, in SPOTIFY Spotify and Pandora, Apple ventured into the realm June 2015 it recorded 75 million active users. However, of music streaming with iTunes Radio. Like the other 2013 lots of artist disliked the app and thought they were being apps it generates playlists based on users’ prefer- APPLE MUSIC unfairly compensated for their music and accused Spotify ences or on trending music. It was first offered free of “stealing royalties.” Artists like Taylor Swift and Adele to all iTunes members, but after merging with Beats have chosen to withhold new music from Spotify. Music in 2015, users were charged a monthly fee. TWITTER.COM Apple Music currently boasts 10 million subscribers. Relaunched in 2015, Tidal is the first artist-owned streaming service. It is headed by Jay Z, but co-owned by15 other artists including Beyoncé, Kanye West, Rihanna, and Nicki Minaj. By 2015 charging higher subscription fees, Tidal claims to pay the high- est royalties to artists restoring value to music that has been TIDAL lost through streaming sites. Lots of these co-owning artists have turned exclusively to Tidal to provide their music, but this was not received well. Earlier this year Tidal hit one million subscribers and is still lagging behind in comparison to Spotify and Pandora. While Tidal hoped to compensate artists, it’s high prices ended up sending many streamers running back to cheap- er, or illegal streaming sites. 123RF.COM HELLOGIGGLES.COM.