Music Trend | Technology | Ep. 02 | Compact Discs
The last time you visited this series you read about audio cassettes. In case you came to this article from one of my other articles or just stumbled upon in the search list, you can click here to read it now.
Before we move forward in time, I forgot to mention one memory from the audio cassette era. I once, had audio cassettes (notice the plural!) of the movie Gadar: Ek Prem Katha. These were not the regular music album cassettes. They had the entire movie in audio format. Kind of the audio books we have now (I used today's technology back then.. I had swag :P). Apparently the movie was such a huge blockbuster that they released this to extrapolate their revenue post the success of the movie. The question is why did I purchase the cassette despite watching the movie in theatre? Two point answer:
1. I did not purchase it. My dad got it as a complimentary gift from one of its distributors
2. I reached late at the theatre and missed the beginning so this is how I managed to catch up on it
Let's move ahead and leave the cassettes behind. Come early-2000s, a new era of audio distribution started - Music CDs. With increase in use of computer, music was now available digitally. The only other purpose of the CD-ROM in computer apart from installing pirated softwares and games was to play music. But computers were not used for music consumption until this era. How would you play music? Would you need to purchase (or maybe pirate) additional software to play music? Out of the dark skies came a rising hope, a lightning bolt - Winamp
We were splurged with options like choosing visualization, setting the equalizer, creating playlist, queuing track and much more. And who can forget the horrible skins people tried on Winamp. Check them out here. Sadly, Winamp ceased its worldwide production in 2013 after 15 years of operation.
But what about portability? People won't take their computers everywhere they go. Parties will be incomplete without music. Same time as Winamp, came another tide of technological change. Music systems with dual support for audio - cassettes as well as CDs. They were as big as support for 11 CDs simultaneously so you don't had keep changing after every album. Walkman too, soon became obsolete. It was now evolved into Discman.
With great evolution, arises new problems. Fortunately, with this one we had already faced similar problem. If you don't know what I am talking about, take a look yourself.
The CD wallet itself was bulkier than Discman. People soon started to run out of physical space. In came a new trend - MP3 CDs. What were these? A compact disc version of a mix-tape.
On a regular compact audio disc, you could get upto 70 minutes of music i.e. 10-15 songs. With an MP3 compact disc, you got more than 100 songs. Well, problems didn't stop there. Every time a new album was out, people wanted it on the MP3 disc but also wanted other latest albums on the disc. This meant you had to purchase a new CD every time. So, people started purchasing a new kind of CD that was four times the price of regular one - the rewritable compact disc. This was a metaphorical pencil of the digital world. You write it, use it and erase it so that it could be used again. Winamp now had a new foe on the computer. Nero Burning ROM was a staple software on everyone's computer during this era.
As MP3 discs gained popularity, so did piracy. People started downloading pirated music albums, made MP3 CDs and sold them. Music industry was making huge losses. This was primarily because we were in an intermediary stage. We had successfully transitioned from the analog medium of music playback and were gradually moving towards digital content. What the music industry needed was a moderated online platform to purchase, play and rent digital music.
What happens in the next era? You'll only get to know in the next episode. That is all I have for this post in the series. I hope you liked it. If you did then feel free to share it. Let me know if you ever owned a discman or did you made an MP3 disc using Nero Burning ROM or if you have any suggestions/feedback - in the comments below. Until then, Ciao...!
On a regular compact audio disc, you could get upto 70 minutes of music i.e. 10-15 songs. With an MP3 compact disc, you got more than 100 songs. Well, problems didn't stop there. Every time a new album was out, people wanted it on the MP3 disc but also wanted other latest albums on the disc. This meant you had to purchase a new CD every time. So, people started purchasing a new kind of CD that was four times the price of regular one - the rewritable compact disc. This was a metaphorical pencil of the digital world. You write it, use it and erase it so that it could be used again. Winamp now had a new foe on the computer. Nero Burning ROM was a staple software on everyone's computer during this era.
What happens in the next era? You'll only get to know in the next episode. That is all I have for this post in the series. I hope you liked it. If you did then feel free to share it. Let me know if you ever owned a discman or did you made an MP3 disc using Nero Burning ROM or if you have any suggestions/feedback - in the comments below. Until then, Ciao...!
If you liked this episode do check out my previous episode about Audio Cassettes:
Music Trend | Technology | Ep. 01 | Audio Cassettes
Music Trend | Technology | Ep. 01 | Audio Cassettes
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