iPod & the digital revolution -- 12 years later

[prberk]

The original iPod was released 12 years ago today. While I know that Napster and other digital formats for music had come first, the iPod really made the revolution. Its first ads touted "1,000 songs in your pocket". Here is the first commercial...



The morning show hosts on WSM, the iconic Nashville radio station, which is itself online now (www.wsmonline.com) but also hosts the world's longest running radio show (the Grand Ole Opry, since 1925) and the second-longest (the Ernest Tubb Record Shop's Midnight Jamboree, which you will have seen if you saw Coal Miner's Daughter) were talking about it this morning, and it got me to thinking, especially about the ET Record Shop, which is still going and has a niche market for classic and hard-to-find country, but struggles I am sure.

In fact, I would love to see what everyone – industry people, artists, and all – thinks of the digital revolution. It has made certain things more possible (like “playlists” that take over your good old “mix tape”, and downloading podcasts like your own, and finding hard-to-find individual songs), and overall I believe has been a good thing; but I do believe that it has been at a cost – and part of that is the loss of many record stores.

There was nothing like browsing through a real record store, with knowledgeable employees and the atmosphere of cool music. And in the country world, the ET Record Shop, with the Midnight Jamboree and everything else, is that and much more. I hope that places like that can continue to evolve and prosper in their own way, especially with that niche market maybe.

But anyway, I can’t help but think also about that among the “cons” of the iPod revolution. Some are not really cons, I guess, but changes. What do you think?

Another casualty of the iPod is “mix tapes”. Did you make them growing up?

Personally, I remember when I was a teenager, I would not always have the money to buy albums, and so I was famous for recording the radio… and thought I was brilliant for taping the last hour of Casey Kasem’s American Top 40. I thought I had found a way to have the top 10 songs every week! I still have some of those tapes, and these days they are a gem to listen to, a time capsule. And Casey’s narration was the best, especially the “long distance dedications”!

The best mix tape I ever made, though, was in college, when I was the DJ for “Rock of Ages” themed dance at the Baptist Student Union (yes, Baptists danced, but not in the church mind you!). It was a ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s progressive dance on campus, that went through time (and you picked a decade to dress up for ). I pre-recorded the whole dance, and those tapes were gems to have later. And recorded on “high-bias” tapes (remember those?)…

Anyway, thanks for reading.

Would love to hear some of your memories of pre-iPod days, and thoughts about the future of icons like the Ernest Tubb Record Shop in Nashville.

 

[luv]

I guess we all had the same experiences! Buying albums and 45s, then 8-tracks, cassettes and CDs, followed by only digital music purchases that you could only listen to on the computer. Also taping songs off the radio...though I didn't tape them from Casey Kasem, as he frequently played the abbreviated versions of songs. I'd set the cassette in, press play and record, then hit the pause, so when the song I wanted happened to come on, a quick tap of the pause got everything rolling. I was always so glad when I didn't get a DJ talking over it.

The iPod is, IMO, the single best invention, musically, of my lifetime. I kept wishing that it would come along before I even knew they were making one. I was on board with the iPod instantly.

 

[prberk]

I guess we all had the same experiences! Buying albums and 45s, then 8-tracks, cassettes and CDs, followed by only digital music purchases that you could only listen to on the computer. Also taping songs off the radio...though I didn't tape them from Casey Kasem, as he frequently played the abbreviated versions of songs. I'd set the cassette in, press play and record, then hit the pause, so when the song I wanted happened to come on, a quick tap of the pause got everything rolling. I was always so glad when I didn't get a DJ talking over it.

The iPod is, IMO, the single best invention, musically, of my lifetime. I kept wishing that it would come along before I even knew they were making one. I was on board with the iPod instantly.

I'm glad I wasn't the only nerd who did that! But you still missed the beginnings of songs because you had to hear them before you knew to press pause again!

I have to admit that, although I like clean copies of songs (with complete beginnings and no DJ banter), I also like radio banter from time to time, if the DJ actually is knowledgeable, not just doing liners, which is why I still like WSM and glad that we have the opportunity to hear them over the internet now, another new technology that we did not have back in the day. And I can say that my old Top 40 tapes are cool to hear these days, even sometimes the retro commercials!

I think just about everyone I knew made mix tapes. What did yours usually consist of? And would you be embarrassed at the content if you played them today?

 

[Master Yoda]

Like everyone else I listen to digital music. It is just too easy not to. That being said, I have never purchased digital only music. I still buy CDs and convert them to digital. I have just never liked the idea of essentially "renting" music. I know that I can now actually purchase DRM free tracks, but then I always wonder about the quality. When I do a digital copy of a CD I do it at highest quality for the back up and then convert it to a more efficient format at a level of quality I am comfortable with for my portable devices.

I know that there will come a day where physical media is simply no longer available, but until that day I will continue to get CDs.

 

[Nemo14]

Like everyone else I listen to digital music. It is just too easy not to. That being said, I have never purchased digital only music. I still buy CDs and convert them to digital. I have just never liked the idea of essentially "renting" music. I know that I can now actually purchase DRM free tracks, but then I always wonder about the quality. When I do a digital copy of a CD I do it at highest quality for the back up and then convert it to a more efficient format at a level of quality I am comfortable with for my portable devices.

I know that there will come a day where physical media is simply no longer available, but until that day I will continue to get CDs.

I do the same thing, although I do download some free stuff through our public library.

 

[Master Yoda]

I do the same thing, although I do download some free stuff through our public library.

I'll get some free stuff from time to time as well. I don't really fret about quality when I am not paying a dime.

Back in the Napster days I downloaded a ton of free stuff (which resulted in me purchasing more music than any other time in my life) and most of the cool Disney stuff (ride audio, BGM, etc) has to be free as it is available no other way.

 

[prberk]

@Master Yoda, how many formats do you have Star Wars stuff on?

I never had the real soundtracks when I was younger, but I did have an LP called, "The Story of Star Wars," with a picture of R2D2 and C-3PO on the front, from the scene in the sand before they parted ways. I still have that. KInd of cool, I think.

 

[Master Yoda]

@Master Yoda, how many formats do you have Star Wars stuff on?

I never had the real soundtracks when I was younger, but I did have an LP called, "The Story of Star Wars," with a picture of R2D2 and C-3PO on the front, from the scene in the sand before they parted ways. I still have that. KInd of cool, I think.

Everyone save for laser disk and beta.

I have the original series on VHS, Special edition on VHS and DVD, Phantom Menace on VHS and DVD. Episode 2 and 3 on DVD and of course the entire series on Blu-Ray.

I even have the 1984 Ewok Adventure on VHS.

I had (past tense) that same LP. I remember listening to it over and over again on my grandparents dresser size record player in the den in 70's.

 

[luv]

I'm glad I wasn't the only nerd who did that! But you still missed the beginnings of songs because you had to hear them before you knew to press pause again!

I have to admit that, although I like clean copies of songs (with complete beginnings and no DJ banter), I also like radio banter from time to time, if the DJ actually is knowledgeable, not just doing liners, which is why I still like WSM and glad that we have the opportunity to hear them over the internet now, another new technology that we did not have back in the day. And I can say that my old Top 40 tapes are cool to hear these days, even sometimes the retro commercials!

I think just about everyone I knew made mix tapes. What did yours usually consist of? And would you be embarrassed at the content if you played them today?

When I was doing this, it was all Top 40 - pop and rock. Youd get the occasional country song (like one Charlie Daniels song, lol), but it was all pop and rock. We had a station that also played more older rock, but the others were indistinguishable, really. I'd switch around until I found a song I liked, listen to that until commercials or a song I hated came on...and then start turning the dial again.

I am not ashamed of what I like. It may not always be the most popular, but we all like what we like. I still enjoy many of the songs I listed to 25 years ago. Some of it, like "Major Tom", I still love. Some, like "Too Shy" by Kajagoogoo, I wonder why I liked it sooo much. But mostly, I like it all about the same now as then.

My son is the only one who makes comments about the music I like and he has terrible taste, so I don't worry.

Eta: I just pulled up "Too Shy"...it's a god song, but once a year or so is enough. How I listened to it several times a day and was thrilled each time...I don't know.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Definitely remember walking to the closest used music store with our babysitter and buying a used 45 for a quarter. Our babysitter was in love with John Taylor from Duran Duran. She lined all 5 of us up by the phone and made us take turns calling into the local radio station (Orlando-BJ105) to request Hungry Like the Wolf" over and over and over and....you get the picture. Of course this was all back when MTV was brand spankin' new. My step-dad used to get so ed when he'd find the cable box on top of our tv on MTV when he got home. He thought MTV would shrivel all our brains to nothing...which eventually I realize he wasn't really all that far off the mark considering the programming MTV puts out today. We all challenged each other to try to hit the record/pause button and score larger and larger portions of our favorite songs on recordings. We'd start with the last half then eventually someone would get the full thing. Mix tapes. Yep. Favorite gift to give BFFs and your biggest crushes. Oh the evenings of squeeling with your girlfriends choosing just the right songs in just the right order to give the boy crush. Ugh! In high school I gravitated towards the "Creepies" and punk kids in my school. Mostly skaters, etc. My favorite music shifted to the mysterious eclectic "college stations". Of course my choice in friends & music targeted me with my siblings who all thought I was "too deep" and quite strange. Oh well. Theme for my life. LOL!

I recall making the jump from casettes to CDs. It was a conscious thought that it'd take years of investing in discs to recreate my then vast cassette library. Got my first CD player for Christmas when I was 17, first year in college. Thought I was the shiz for sure.

Digital music came along after I'd been married several years and a fairly new mom. Just like the jump to CDs there was the initial resistance because of the financial aspects of converting. When I was working for the Sheriff's Office a friend purchased a MP3 player (not an iPod) and showed it to me. I was perplexed as to how it worked. I still carried a CD/walkman with me to run to music. Very interesting. It was almost like space-age awesomeness in an itty-bitty little device. Couldn't believe it. My friend worked in the crime lab and was studying big time for a big fingerprinting certification. He used it during his studies and testing to try to keep his focus and rhythm. I was intrigued.

At that point, we started purchasing some music online and downloading thru Napster a bit. We were ripping CDs from friends, etc. then burning our own CDs to play.

Got our first MP3 players in the form of iPods for Christmas 2006. We bought our boys the ~then all-new~ bottom of the line iPod videos for their big gift. Husband and I were working together at the same engineering firm so we bought the big daddy version for ourselves to share. We were ripping DVDs to load to all 3 for travel. We had quite the library of MP4s (still do on an external drive somewhere around here). That big-daddy iPod video still gets used from time to time. It lives in DHs truck. Has a huuuuuge music library on it as well as movies. Doesn't hold a charge too long but still will play via the USB in the cars just fine.

My youngest got a Nano for his 11th birthday (?). I got a Shuffle for Christmas I think in 2009 (?). Got an iPod Touch at the same time. The Shuffle was to be for me to run with while the Touch was for fun. I guess it was 2010 when I got an iPhone for the first time. DH followed soon after. Our boys got their first iPhones for Easter in 2011. The iPods have sorta gone by the wayside now that we all have iPhones. Music, etc. is kept at our fingertips with those now.

Recently had to figure out how to keep everything separate with all the iDevices in our family utilizing the same library via my original iTunes account.... 4 iPhones, an iPad (belongs to my youngest son), and my MacBook Pro. All the contacts merged somehow which threw us all into a tizzy. Quick trip to the Genius Bar when DH's iPhone had a bad download of iOS7 and we addressed that. Now everyone has their own user on my MacBook to sync to the iTunes library. It keeps all our devices totally separate from each other. Thank goodness. The 3 men in my life were about to be SOL. LOL!

Technology has evolved as has our devices. The old stuff is still good. We still make "mix" cds from time to time (I can burn them to the hard drive in my car). The old iPods still work if you plug them in. It's fun to see the change over the years.....and show my boys how to use a record player when visiting my parents. They were so impressed.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

Oh, I am such a child of the 21st century. Even in the late 90s, we were eating at Mama Melrose's and I looked at the records on the wall and said to my mom, "Look at those big CDs on the wall!"

Anyway, I had my first MP3 player at about age 8. It was a Disney Mix Stick. My dad did not see the need to buy an 8 year old an iPod. Looking back, I agree with him. Then I had the Disney Mix Max, which was a nice model that lasted me for about 5 years. My first (and only) iPod I got when I was 16. It's a touch. I'm probably going to be replacing it before long and handing it down to my younger brother. I'll probably get another Touch as I use it for games, apps, and checking wait times in Disney. I have pay as you go, so all I can get are Androids unless I pay $600+ for an iPhone, so I'm sticking to the iTouch for now

In spite of being a child of the 21st century, I love CDs. Even if I buy digital music, I still burn the tracks to a CD. My method is usually to go to Target.com, Bestbuy.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes and use whichever service has the lowest price. I love popping CDs into my stereo at home. I can connect the iPod to the stereo, but I usually don't.

I refuse to buy digital movies. I have a program that I got from school that can convert DVDs to digital, so I use that and put them on my tablet, but digital movies don't convert to DVD usually, nor do digital copies from iTunes work on my Windows Tablet.

We still have a record player (I need to look at getting it a needle), an 8-track player (and yes, we have 8 tracks), and cassette players. I have an adapter in my car that goes into the cassette player that I plug my iPod into since the CD player doesn't always work. Who would have thought?