It took some time before the gramophone record became the dominant format for recorded music. When audio recordings were introduced in the 1880s, the phonograph cylinder was ahead, with better sound and more stable speed. Only after more than twenty years, in the early 1910s, did the gramophone record change.
One might think that this is a footnote at the dawn of the record industry, and that everything still went pretty fast. Then you can compare with the pioneering Ipod, which on Saturday turned twenty years old and in its “classic” form went to the grave already in 2014, after thirteen years on the market.
It had then served its role as a bridge between the CD age and the era of streaming, and today its astonishing promise – to fit one thousand songs in a tiny box – can feel wonderfully outdated. Much like the visions of the future that one could soon have a place with the entire history of music downloaded (instead of available on a number of different streaming services, a single keystroke away).
I myself remember the magic in when the music first became portable for real, when Sony’s little cassette player Walkman was launched on the verge of the 1980s (and in Sweden it got the moderately Swedish name freestyle).
All the music in the whole world you could suddenly carry around in your own pocket. Provided you had it on cassette, that is. And especially many cassettes did not fit in the pocket at the same time.
However, it was not shock sensitive. Unlike the portable CD players that were eventually launched and took over most of the freestyle market, and which – no matter how advanced anti-shake systems they were equipped with – rarely allowed themselves to be intercepted unhindered even during a regular walk. Not to mention the running round.
I got the Ipod slow with, but I bought one just before it started to seem quirky. Then it took a few years before I unpacked it, and by the time it started to fill up with music, they had already stopped being made. I have not really gotten started with actually using it yet.
On the other hand, the Swedish project Elephant & Castle released an album on a phonograph cylinder as late as 2011, albeit in a modest 22 copies (LP and CD editions were larger). Personally, I have never even met anyone who has a phonograph, let alone played a role myself, but the increase itself was enough to make me a little hungry.
I could probably even swap one for my Ipod.
Read more kåserier by Nisse, for example about how to best listen to recorded talk.
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