Living the history of music players

The Gramophone

In a random discussion over lunch with some colleagues, the topic of how the music players have evolved over the years came up. Somehow, it got me excited, thinking about the gramophone my parents had when I was a kid. Then I got reminded of a huge radio transistor - an upgrade to the gramophone followed by the addition of a small black portable version. This followed by a tape cassette player which itself went through a series of upgrades related to features and size. Then came along the CD player, followed by the DVD player, before I moved on and got the “new” albeit temporary standard in mobile music players - the legendary iPod.

This quick trip down memory lane brought an instant smile, the one you always get thinking about the treasured memories of the bygone days. I could not but help myself thinking about what I and people of my generation have witnessed – a revolution in multiple dimensions spanning and not being limited to communications, entertainment, science, technology, and globalization. All of these are in themselves topics that deserve independent discussion. However, I was fixated today only on the transformation of the music players which are so omnipresent and yet taken for granted that we fail to realize what they once were.

Sony's Legendary Walkman

Looking back in history, the first form of music “boxes” were produced way back in 1811. It took a while to create the piano but the progress took a leap when Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877. Jukeboxes became a hit but it was only when broadcasting provided the channel to reach masses in their homes did the transformation take a new turn. Then came along the 8-track players, the radio transistors, followed by the home stereos, cassette decks and the infamous Boomboxes that were an iconic symbol of the youth, a fashion statement even. Sony’s Walkman in 1979 was the first portable music player that truly changed the industry. Then the race switched tracks and focus moved from portability to quality leading to the development of the Compact Disc players, DVD players and the new media was made mobile with the launch of the Discman in 1989.  It was only in 1997 that MP3 players hit the market and a new era of portable players which achieved glory with the launch of the iPod in 2001. Since then, not much has changed in portability and quality, but the channels have changed form and the change has been primarily on how the media is broadcast and consumed leveraging multi-utility platforms and convergence of communication devices with larger, faster memory and processing power.

iPods - Rewriting History

So, where do I fit in this piece of the historic revolution? Well, like I mentioned earlier, we had a gramophone when I was a kid and I vividly remember the large circular cellulose based discs that were the records that brought the gramophone to life and I still remember playing Boney M.’s “Brown Girl in the Ring” time and again moving the stick and needle of the gramophone in lieu of any sophisticated controls. Now, it does not mean that I am very old but only that it took more time a few years ago for technology to reach places across the globe such as the one from where I come from. Fortunately for me, I feel lucky to have been able to witness and be a part of the transformation that has happened, a transformation that has touched and changed the very fabric of our life.
From the "live" musical performances, to music boxes, radios, cassette players, CD/DVD players to MP3 players to finally converge into phones, the industry has reached a point where it is hard to even imagine where and how it all may have started. It is hard to say where the industry will be a decade from now, especially with the rapid innovation and breakthroughs in technology with shorter than ever shelf lives. However, not much will change in the nature of the portable music players, because their individual entity would have been lost soon and channel convergence will consume the very entity I got so excited about and have fond memories of. I am sure the generation of today would not appreciate the value the new devices bring and many would even stare at us - people from the cassette player era, and would not understand why we could have at times needed a pen/pencil to play music on a cassette. 

The tape based cassette

A Boombox

However, no matter how things change, music has been and will always be the universal language binding us and bringing us together in ways we don’t even consciously think about. So, let me end this post with a song from the days when it all started to come together. 
Dear voice assistant please play "Brown Girl in the Ring". Wait... What?? The song started playing already. How? The device can read my thoughts. Well, soon enough!