Recorded Music Through the Ages

Remember back in the day when cassette decks came out and you could cheaply record your, or your friends, albums? It was a great time for us music collectors as we now had portable music and could even play it in the car. Ah, no commercials and only songs we wanted to hear.

I don’t include 8-Tracks here as they were terrible to play, fading out of a song, a click like a gavel and fading up to finish the song. 8-Tracks died a deserved quick death. Reel-to-Reel tapes offered better sound but were not portable like cassettes.

The record companies were scared to death of the effect that these recording devices would have on record sales but Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles and Michael Jackson all sold a bazillion albums.

Fast forward to 2000 – and Napster. All of a sudden we were able to get just about any music for free on our computers. Type in a song name or an artist and there it was to be downloaded and put on a CD or MP3 player. If a band came out with a new CD it was available on Napster in days, if not hours.

This time the recording industry’s fears were well founded. No one sells fifteen or twenty million CD’s anymore. The biggest selling acts might hit sales of four or five million and the music companies are dying and being replaced by companies who share everything with their clients from live shows, merchandising and sponsorships. It’s a whole new world.

Napster has gone legal, but there are still plenty of sites to get music free. Is that good? Would you want your work given away? One can rationalize taking someone else’s work all they want, but is it just plain stealing?

Imagine if you could get any author’s books for free, a place where it cost nothing to read Stephen King and Cormac McCarthy. Oh wait, there already is such a place. It’s called a library.

Rock on, and wait for what’s next.