There is now a generation among us who were not alive during the CD’s lifetime. An entire generation exists that neither experienced the change over from vinyl nor MiniDisc’s failure to capture the imagination of the consumer market. You could say that this is about as important as the fact that there will soon be a generation who never witnessed Neighbours broadcast on BBC1. But one thing is for sure (for those of us feeling old now): it this makes us realize how lucky we’ve been to see so much happen in music technology in such a short period of time.
As technology becomes harder, better, faster, stronger, not a lot seems to change in terms of how we use it. From the humble beginnings of the gramophone, to the wireless radio and beyond, music has always been about sharing a passion. But at what point do things become a bit too much? The ghetto blaster may conduct images of street youth, yet it has provided manufactures with a new avenue to pursue in innovating new products. Anyone who has to ride a bus will be aware of how annoying those youth can be playing their (usually crap) music on their mobile phones. Now you can buy backpacks with built-in speakers. Where will the madness end?
And the emergence of speakers built-in to everyday objects can make us look back to the days of over hearing someone’s crap with rose tinted glasses. Pretty much as soon as Sony’s Walkman took off in the 1980s and spawned countless imitators, the great concerned (read: the media), were worried about the dangers it could do to listeners’ hearing. Although if the Daily Mail had their way music would probably be outlawed save for The Last Night of the Proms. Even now, 30 years after the birth of the Walkman, its recent death and successor in the iPod, the Daily Mail are finding things to get in a panic about like the rather amusing/scary (if somewhat unfeasible) phenomenon taking over the United States known as I-Dosing.
So where does music technology go from here? Cloned kittens that play your favourite Jedward track? A television that gets you high by playing Susan Boyle in time to Coronation Street? As long as everyone keeps their cool around sociopath music lovers on their morning commute, we should be all right.
