Introduction
Technology is making advancements in every field. In the same way, technology helps the music lovers to come close towards the music. Moving ahead from wax tubes to records, to cassettes, then towards CDs and now to mobile phones, every jump technology in this field benefited music lovers. Due to the app development of Android and iPhone, anyone can access the enormous library of music without even making any major purchase for music. Due to technological innovations, it is undeniable that music profoundly changes. Nowadays, mp3 is an obsolete part of our daily lives. This research paper highlights the impact of the change in technology on music in both a positive and negative manner.
Discussion
History
Undeniably, new formats of music always change the way people listen. The introduction of the 45-RPM single is perhaps a great advancement in the way of the consumption of music. After that, the records went towards a cheaper format, the 45 format, from the longer playing 78s and 33s (Molteni, 389-406). The 45s format contains 2 to 3 songs on a single disc, which has made it more available and easy to get for massive consumption. Due to this, pop artists started releasing their songs in 45s format. After that, the cassettes, which were shortened, were recorded onto magnetic film, and the long-playing album was taken back into the trend. The main reason behind its consumption was the easy storage and extra durability of these tapes, and it allowed people to mix them up by recording their own voices into it. However, the main drawback of that tape was that as time passed, it started degrading and wore down. Moreover, their sound quality changed as they played more and more, and they were affected by the weather conditions because certain weather and climatic conditions wrapped their shape.
After the cassette, there came the era of the compact disc. Due to the prevention of the degradation of the sound over time, compacted discs escorted the era of digital music. However, they also had a drawback, as their sound was cold and sterilized. Traditionalists were worried as there was the idea of skipping the music along the order of the album very easily. Moreover, this compact disc was also vulnerable, liable to scratching and subsequent choppy playback (Katz, 45-66). Regardless of these drawbacks, they were the best available options for music lovers until the arrival of MP3.
Too Much Music
As technology has changed the formats of music storage for easy access, MP3 has made music easy, and we can consume as much music as we want to consume. However, with the ease of access to large music libraries, most of the collection of someone’s music looks increasingly impersonal. Mostly, people forget the albums that they have even downloaded. Most people just listen to the music once, and then they never even get time to listen to it due to massive music stuff. Moreover, at some time, people have about 5 to 10 new albums that they want to check out. Nevertheless, there is not even enough time to listen to certain albums and pay attention to them. Moreover, when taking time for these albums and listening to them, many new releases of music pop up, which they will miss. The era of the MP3 is enabling the music lover’s ineffective pursuit to stay up all the time for every music. Instead of this, the technology really helps the people to find any music album within few minutes, which took time in the past to search for any music. Even one can listen to their favourite artists, whom they only knew by their name in the past, but are not able to listen to their songs.
Narrowing Tastes
In spite of the massive collection of music for music lovers, it is affecting the tastes of the people as if they are narrowing it and branching out. There is no doubt that music lovers will go out and dig out obscure artists in different genres, and some of them will go out easily and can find any random bands who sound just like Sigur Ros. This results in the dipping of the persons into their favourite music and ignoring the other massive collection of music that they have access to. The rise of internet forums and communities that are based on a certain type of music helped music lovers identify other individuals who are like-minded to them and who decisively embed themselves.
Moreover, the narrow taste arises due to the uplift of genre-free and unclassified music. Music lovers support and cheer those musicians who successfully pull various varieties of apparently unrelated influences and are able to reassemble the old music into a new beast. Many of the artists who made their name including the small artists like Avalanches, as great as Timbland and As colorful as M.I.A ignores the boundaries of the genre. Due to this, many people previously liked the genre, but now they ignore it. That’s the problem behind that enormous music availability. One can no longer stick and enjoy one track due to the availability of an ocean of music tracks.
The Rise of Musical A.D.D
Before the invention of MP3s, someone had to put together an entire album, and he had to take some time for the mixtape to piece it together. The track lists at that time were meant to be blacker, as it was very difficult to work on rearranging the order, such as the shuffling function and saving for the skip. Now, technology has helped a lot in providing quick access to music. Nowadays, due to technology, one can add or subtract the required music according to their taste into any unfocused playlist and can change it at any time. Technology has saved our time from that consumption of the whole time towards that loading of the entire album. Technology really relieves us by saving time and allowing us to consume music wherever we want.
In the 21st century, with the invention of the earbuds and the production of Apple iPods, consumption of music has to another level, but the drawback is it was that the downside was not being able to isolate the music well due to the volume turned up for the compensation. Then, the buds are replaced by the earphones, which results in better isolation and reasonable volume because they fit well into the ear canal. Spotify then raised access to the massive music collection by paying a reasonable monthly subscription. Then, the earphone brands, including the Skull Candy in 2003, Trueblood V-80, and Trueblood Maker, became very popular (Jmcacademy.edu.au). After that, Beats became popular in 2008 due to its wireless feature, and it made the consumption of music even easier in public places as well.
Technology has changed many aspects of music consumption, but for the greatest artists, the easily accessible apps, services of music streaming, and the Billboard charts have changed their design in recognition of the streaming’s importance in their normal lives. In addition, this aspect changes the way they access new projects for their fans. Previously, the artist’s success was based on the fact that how many times their singles have been played on the radio and how much of their albums are being purchased or sold from any other traditional retailer (Jain, 289-302). Now, the artists can simply drop their projects out and then allow the streaming numbers to decide whether they will be pushed as single or as deep cuts.
By the time of the development of different apps by certain app development companies to make music more accessible for smartphone owners, they hadn’t had any clue that this could have a very strong ripple effect on the entire music industry. Once music lover heads towards piracy sites for music when a new album is released for a free copy, they now have to wait to upload that album to their favourite streaming channels by their favourites. The amount of that urgency has now been replaced with an unexpected amount of tolerance. Because now a person does not have to search for the new albums, they just have to wait to upload that album on their favorite streaming channel or services within 24 hours. Moreover, artists do not have to worry about their music being leaked as it is already being showcased to the public. The search engines have solved the problem behind the finding of the music in the ocean of the internet.
Before the 21st century, for listening to music people gathered in a house for listening to their favorite release, and it was only possible due to the usage of some expensive equipment including Victrolas and the famous LPs, and this equipment mostly took a great amount of space. The pessimists believed that the music coming through this equipment was the purest, but the truth is something else. Modern musical equipment gives the music supreme quality compared to previous technology. Nowadays, the instruments are much easier to handle, and small speakers today are capable of giving high-quality music due to the headphones that have progressed over the years (NPR.org). Some people believe that modern technology and the internet have served in the killing of music due to a seeable reduction in the sales of the album.
Conclusion
Technology has modified the music industry, and it provides ease of access for music lovers as well as ease of release of albums for artists. Technology has progressed in a way that now there is no need to manage a larger space for lengthy equipment like in the past. Headphones and beats have now made it easy to enjoy the music without the deterioration of the quality. Besides this, the large amount of music that is easily accessible has made much irrelevant and impersonal collection in any person’s phone. Moreover, unclassified and genre-free music results in the narrowing of the taste.
Works Cited
Molteni, Luca, and Andrea Ordanini. “Consumption patterns, digital technology and music downloading.” Long Range Planning 36.4 (2003): 389-406.
Katz, Mark. Capturing sound: How technology has changed music. Univ of California Press, 2010.
Jain, Rajnish, and Shilpa Bagdare. “Music and consumption experience: a review.” International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management 39.4 (2011): 289-302.
“JMC Academy How Technology Has Changed Music Production.” Jmcacademy.edu.au. N. p., 2016. Web. 18 Apr. 2018.
“The Decade In Music: The Way We Listen Now.” NPR.org. N. p., 2009. Web. 18 Apr. 2018.
