People have played music on many different things over time. First came hard records, then soft vinyl ones, next came tapes, and then round CDs that looked like the first records. These days, we just tap our phones to hear any song we want. Music has changed from big items we had to store at home to tiny files we can play right away. Let me tell you more about how we went from big record players to small phone apps for our music.
Thomas Edison made the first machine to play recorded sounds back in 1877. This let anyone hear music at home for the first time. The early records used hard rubber with tiny grooves that held the sounds. By 1895, makers switched to a material called shellac for most records. Vinyl records, which many people love again today, first showed up in 1906. A smart guy named Peter Carl Goldmark created the 33⅓ LP record that played longer. During the big war, shellac became hard to find, making vinyl the new normal for records. People had to clean these records with special water to keep them playing well.
Philips introduced the small tape cassette in 1962 as a new way to store music. By 1964, they had given it a fancy name: "Compact Cassette." These tapes made music easy to carry around for the first time, changing how people thought about where they could listen to their favorite songs. You could take music with you instead of staying next to a big record player at home.
The CD came along in 1982, thanks to Philips and Sony working together. These small discs played music but later held computer data as CD-ROMs. CDs worked better than records because they never wore out from being them lots of times. Tapes often broke or got stuck in players, but CDs rarely had these problems. Many music fans still buy CDs when they want something they can hold. Some older fans miss the big colorful covers that came with vinyl records and prefer the warm sound they make.
The 1970s brought us the famous Walkman player. Sony first sold this small tape player in 1979, created by Masaru Ibuka. He built it from the Sony Pressman, which reporters used to record voices. The first blue and silver Walkman cost about $150 when it hit stores in Japan. Later, we got small CD players we could carry around. Then came MP3 players that stored digital music files. These days, our phones play all our music through apps that connect to the internet.
Music streaming started in June 1999 when Napster let people share MP3 files with each other online. Users searched for songs and downloaded them with just a few clicks. At its peak, about 80 million users signed up. That changed how everyone thought about buying music forever. The music industry never stayed the same after that point.
Today, we have many apps for streaming music, like Apple Music, Deezer, iHeartRadio, Pandora, SoundCloud, and Spotify. Modern home sound systems connect to these apps and play songs through great speakers. Apple puts their music app right on every iPhone they sell. Deezer mixes songs you love with new ones they think you might enjoy. They offer more than 56 million different tracks! iHeartRadio gives free radio shows and podcasts from America. Pandora plays radio without breaks between songs. SoundCloud started in Berlin back in 2007 and lets anyone share their audio creations.
Music has changed from big machines that filled up your living room to tiny files that take up no space at all. We went from buying large record collections to just pressing a button when we want to hear something. The music itself stays the same, but how we listen keeps moving forward all the time. Even with all these changes, people still love to hear their favorite songs just as much as they always did.
Thomas Edison made the first machine to play recorded sounds back in 1877. This let anyone hear music at home for the first time. The early records used hard rubber with tiny grooves that held the sounds. By 1895, makers switched to a material called shellac for most records. Vinyl records, which many people love again today, first showed up in 1906. A smart guy named Peter Carl Goldmark created the 33⅓ LP record that played longer. During the big war, shellac became hard to find, making vinyl the new normal for records. People had to clean these records with special water to keep them playing well.
Philips introduced the small tape cassette in 1962 as a new way to store music. By 1964, they had given it a fancy name: "Compact Cassette." These tapes made music easy to carry around for the first time, changing how people thought about where they could listen to their favorite songs. You could take music with you instead of staying next to a big record player at home.
The CD came along in 1982, thanks to Philips and Sony working together. These small discs played music but later held computer data as CD-ROMs. CDs worked better than records because they never wore out from being them lots of times. Tapes often broke or got stuck in players, but CDs rarely had these problems. Many music fans still buy CDs when they want something they can hold. Some older fans miss the big colorful covers that came with vinyl records and prefer the warm sound they make.
The 1970s brought us the famous Walkman player. Sony first sold this small tape player in 1979, created by Masaru Ibuka. He built it from the Sony Pressman, which reporters used to record voices. The first blue and silver Walkman cost about $150 when it hit stores in Japan. Later, we got small CD players we could carry around. Then came MP3 players that stored digital music files. These days, our phones play all our music through apps that connect to the internet.
Music streaming started in June 1999 when Napster let people share MP3 files with each other online. Users searched for songs and downloaded them with just a few clicks. At its peak, about 80 million users signed up. That changed how everyone thought about buying music forever. The music industry never stayed the same after that point.
Today, we have many apps for streaming music, like Apple Music, Deezer, iHeartRadio, Pandora, SoundCloud, and Spotify. Modern home sound systems connect to these apps and play songs through great speakers. Apple puts their music app right on every iPhone they sell. Deezer mixes songs you love with new ones they think you might enjoy. They offer more than 56 million different tracks! iHeartRadio gives free radio shows and podcasts from America. Pandora plays radio without breaks between songs. SoundCloud started in Berlin back in 2007 and lets anyone share their audio creations.
Music has changed from big machines that filled up your living room to tiny files that take up no space at all. We went from buying large record collections to just pressing a button when we want to hear something. The music itself stays the same, but how we listen keeps moving forward all the time. Even with all these changes, people still love to hear their favorite songs just as much as they always did.
