Imagine a time before Spotify and Shazam; difficult, isn’t it? Well, technology has greatly influenced us all, in ways that we can’t quite imagine. We don’t look at classifieds for jobs anymore; we look at LinkedIn; we don’t call and hope we get a taxi on time, we just end up using Uber. The world has quite literally moved on, and it is all thanks to technological advancement. The music industry still celebrates and holds on to the pull of nostalgia, but there is no denying how big of a role technology has played in developing and changing it. Here in this article, we have looked to some of the technological advancements that have changed the music industry to its very core. But before we get going, we’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for the constant support and love that you have showed us.
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Multi-track recording
When you hear a piece of music now, everything is quite clear. You can listen to all the parts with pristine clarity; the drum solo is as perfect as the vocals. Well, who do we thank for this? Technology, of course; the concept of a multi-track recording was introduced during the mid-50’s, and it allowed sound engineers and music producers to record different parts of the song separately and put it all together. Because before multi-track recording became a thin, sound engineers and music producers had to record a song from start to finish; they did not have the luxury to record parts separately and put them all together.
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Mp3 players/iPods
If you don’t remember CD players and walkmans, then my child you are far too young. For the longest time, people had to go and buy CDs and cassette tapes to listen to their favourite songs. That was until Mp3 players flooded the market. The sheer joy of being able to listen to any song on the go by simply downloading it onto your player was absolute bliss. We take for granted how easy it has become, but the world of smartphones wouldn’t have taken it up if it wasn’t for the iPod revolution that began in 2001. Apple has set the pace and redefined music on the go, and as a proud owner of two walkmans, I am not complaining about how things have turned.
There are obviously more technological revolutions that have shaped the music industry, and we will be exploring them in another article that we have planned as a sequel to this one.