The most musically important 'invention' of the century

Few could argue with the developments in music over the 20th century.

Not only developments in music, but of course the hobby we love so much - the reproduction of music.

Peter Walker. Guy R Fountain. James B Lansing. Hiroyasu Kondo. P Voigt. Alan Blumlein. There are so many.

What a fascinating book could be written on the greatest audio inventers of the last 100 years.

I would buy a copy.

In my own lifetime, I've seen CD and digitally recorded music revolutionise the way we listen to music today. Just 25 years ago I was a kid putting vinyl records onto blank casettes. So were you maybe!



Anyway - back to topic.

What has revolutionised the way we listen to music in the last ten years - the 21st century so far?

Do you feel it's 5.1 surround sound?
Do you feel it's the computer hard-drive and stored music?
What then?




For me, I just realized what it was.

I was reading this article just now -

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2009/11/the_decades_50_most_important.html

Here is the content - a list of (of course arguable) the most important albums of the first decade of the century. Note important not best sounding.


Here is the list

John Adams: On The Transmigration Of Souls
Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion
Arcade Fire: Funeral
The Bad Plus: These Are The Vistas
Beyonce: Dangerously In Love
Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago
Bright Eyes: I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
Burial: Untrue
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: S/T
Kelly Clarkson: Breakaway
Coldplay: A Rush Of Blood To The Head
Danger Mouse: The Grey Album
Death Cab For Cutie: Transatlanticism
The Decemberists: The Crane Wife
Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP
The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
Osvaldo Golijov: La Pasion Segun San Marcos (Saint Mark's Passion)
Green Day: American Idiot
Iron And Wine: Our Endless Numbered Days
Jay-Z: The Blueprint
Norah Jones: Come Away With Me
Juanes: Fijate Bien
LCD Soundsystem: Sound Of Silver
Lil' Wayne: Tha Carter III
Little Brother: The Listening
Yo-Yo Ma: Silk Road Journeys: When Strangers Meet
Mastodon: Leviathan
M.I.A.: Kala
Jason Moran: Black Stars
OutKast: Stankonia
Brad Paisley: 5th Gear
Panda Bear: Person Pitch
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss: Raising Sand
The Postal Service: Give Up
Radiohead: In Rainbows
Radiohead: Kid A
Shakira: Fijacion Oral, Vol. 1
Sigur Ros: ( )
Britney Spears: In The Zone
Sufjan Stevens: Illinois
The Strokes: Is This It
The Swell Season: Once Soundtrack
Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate: In The Heart of the Moon
TV On The Radio: Return To Cookie Mountain
Various: Garden State Soundtrack
Various: O Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack
Kanye West: The College Dropout
The White Stripes: White Blood Cells
Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Amy Winehouse: Back To Black



When I got past my initial grumblings...

" that shouldnt be on there. Bloody nora jones. Amy winehouse ffs." etc

.. I ended up with approx - 10 - "dont want it, its crap''
15 ''already got it, great album they are right"
25 hmmm never heard it, would like to find out.


So....
the most important musical invention for me is the software / website of Pandora/ and more accurately Spotify.


Right now, this second I can go and listen to all of those albums, bar perhaps a couple that may be missing.

That is pretty bloody amazing..

Is this an ''invention'' ? Have I cheated??

Your thoughts..

 

Hi Chris,

There are books on most of those hifi pioneers plus there is plenty of info on the web. Some of these books are not cheap.

Don't forget Chris that 25 years ago, we had CD. It was making in roads into music sales. It was starting to put the nail into vinyl sales. But I do remember using my cassette deck, an Akai HX3, alot in 1985.

Also bear in mind that optical disc technology has been around since the 50s and both Philips & Sony had cd protypes in the 70s before they got together to produce the Red Book standard. Alot of technology is not that new.

As for what has revolutionised the way we listen to music in the last ten years - the 21st century so far, I would say the MP3 players in phones. These devices allow easy transfer of music and offer large storage of tunes. It has led to people not bothering with physical media for music.

SCIDB

 

Hi Dean

I agree 100% on the mobile phone changes.

I think if we move to looking at the developments of music storage / playing equipment used by the young generation - this is a key change.

I wonder what these people will do when they are a little older and have disposable income for music systems at home.

A large mobile phone dock? - plugging it into a 5.1/av type system ? - or will the format change?

Is the mobile phone a popular music storage item for them simply because it's cheap? - would they rather have an Ipod Touch?

 

The internet.

I have access to music, information about artists, opinions and reviews, an infinite number of places to buy music and hifi equipment, places to share stuff, online radio stations etc etc.

If I don't know something I can browse/search/ask online. I don't need to go into a record shop or ask a shop asistant. Some might argue that this is a bad thing, and in some ways maybe it is, but it's undeniably convenient.

 

i am now having fun with my reel to reel, brings me joy to use, recording my vynil on to it, w\atching those lovelly vu's bliss,

 

Likewise for me it's the Spotify model of music distribution.

I consider streaming via local storage, a home server or whatever to be utterly pointless. Why pay to not own something, spend time ripping and tagging it, then pay to store it, and limit your choices to only the titles which you have processed in this tedious manner? It's just ridiculous IMO. If I'm paying for a specific album I want the physical item on vinyl or CD, and I want the right to sell it if I later decide I don't like it. I don't want to 'own' digital files, and I certainly don't want to pay to store something so valueless and even go as far as providing a backup strategy for it.

A monthly subscription to have access to any music I wish to hear whenever I wish to hear it makes complete sense to me. I just want to be able to hear the music, and that includes the masses of stuff I don't own / know / realise I would like. I can see a future where the things I really love are bought / retained on vinyl or certain more collectable / attractive CDs, and everything else is just streamed off the internet on demand via Spotify etc.

This IMO is the future.

Tony.

 

it's great if you have room to store vynil, thakfully i hve, 4000 of them they do give me a sense of a pleasure memorilia when looking through them and come across an albun i never new i had,, probably haven't pleyd for 20 years or so, still in mint conditiion, just looking at the sleeve and being able to read the contents, haappy days,

 

That is a very white, English speaking list, most of the black artists have qualified themselves by selling a huge number of records. It is not untypical that the non English speaking world is ignored in these polls but it does frustrate more than a little when, for example, Spanish language records account for such a huge proportion of music sold in North America and yet is nicely segregated into a hispanic music chart and ignored. All that a list of this nature demonstrates is how little of the music out there they have actually listened to!

 

paco de lucia,jose feliciano, los bravos, tito rojas, maria, jesus lopez,etc,etc,

 

i belive the first spanish group that made it top in the english chart was " LOS BRAVOS WITH BLACK IS BLACK. back in 1962, julio also, forget his son he can't sing,

 

Hi Cable Monkey.

You are entirely right, in my view.

On spotify/pandora - I now have even more titles to put into the search boxes and explore. An amazing thing, it really is.

 

Recordable media has to be up there like the reel to reel then cassette. Gave you the freedom to copy your media or off the radio.

 

quote

since i bought this ree to reel i only used it twice, now i am having the time of my life, before my aiwa6900 onto a sony profesional walkman, bliss, make my own compelations,

 

The detachment of music from physical media has to be the invention of the century.

 

Doesn't radio (AM or FM) detach music from physical media?

 

what ever, to each his own, just like trainers,IMO

 

Ive got this 'DIY usb dac' not bad actually... it's a cable , USB plug, DAC on the end of the cable... nifty little thing... and a 15 foot interconnect..


lying on the sofa working the way down the list on spotify, typing this at the same time.

still blown away with spotify and pandora.

I can pretty much listen to anything I want, any time I want.

Am I dreaming?

Did I die and go to heaven?

Tell this to me as a 20 year old and my eyes would have lit up like saucers.


Sorry, but this is amazing!!!

 

this kind of thing is the usb cable dac...

gets you away from nasty laptop dacs

http://www.headphonia.com/USB-DAC-Cable/USB-DAC-Cable-with-35mm-Mini-Plug-75cm-30::10134.html

 

For me the most important musical invention is music, new and interesting stuff.

Still love the music i grew up with but discovering new is what keeps it all going.

So long as my kit can portray that in a way i enjoy then i am happy.

 

Hi Chris,

Spotify is good but not perfect. There is alot of stuff still not on there. Did you know that the Beatles are not on there? Also from that list you printed a few posts ago, the Burial, Panda Bear, Dander Mouse and The Postal services albums are not on there. They may be more.

I have found a lot items not on there. You tube has loads more stuff. But it is still very usable.

SCIDB