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Léon Scott de Martinville produces a disc-based device for
the study of sound. Technically the first audio recording device ever produced. Earlier devices such as music boxes and barrel organs more closely resemble MIDI than true audio playback. -
Frenchman Charles Cros publishes proposals for a similar device to Martinville's. It also used discs.
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Six months after Cros' proposals were published, Thomas Edison demonstrates a working recording and playback device, what he calls a "tin foil phonograph". He would later go on to supply the first record labels with his invention, thus kickstarting the music industry. Jerk.
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Around the same time as Edison's "breakthrough", the first designs for the loudspeaker were being developed and patented by Alexander Graham Bell for his telephone (which he totally didn't steal from Phillip Reis).
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Emile Berliner develops the gramophone, which leads to the development of the 78 RPM record, which only had enough space for three and a half minutes of sound, creating the standard pop tune length.
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PCGG, a Netherlands-based station, started broadcasting, making it the first radio station of its kind.
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2MT, the world's first regular wireless entertainment broadcast, began, in a small ex-military hut near the Marconi laboratories in Writtle. The success of this station led to the creation of 2LO, and subsequently, the British Broadcasting Corporation.
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Fritz Pfleumer, in collaboration with the AEG company, produce the first viable magnetic tape recorder. Originally used by the Germans for broadcasting propaganda during the war, its post-war uses proved to be innumerable, and took music recording and playback to new heights.
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Columbia Records introduces the 12" "long play" vinyl, making the modern album possible due to its vastly increased length. It also meant consumers didn't have to change vinyls as frequently.
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The Dynavox reel-to-reel tape recorder is first introduced, allowing people at home to record whatever they wanted without extortionate studio fees, thus planting the seeds for the bedroom producer.
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The Phillips Compact Cassette is introduced, quickly becoming the new standard format for commercially sold music.
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Phillips releases the "Radiorecorder", the first portable radio with a handle, and technically the first boombox. Later designs would add better sound quality and the ability to play audio cassettes and eventually CDs, but they had to be invented first.
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Sony releases the Walkman personal cassette player. Now people could listen to whatever music they wanted without hauling a large boombox around and annoying the neighbours. Not that it stopped them from annoying the neighbours anyway, but you know.
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The Sony-Phillips "compact disc" is released. Going back to a disc-shaped design, this time with the benefits of modern laser and microprocessing technologies as well as modern materials. It would take a while to catch on and overtake the cassette, but it remains to this day the de facto physical format for music.
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With the rising popularity of Usenet and other Internet-related communities, the Internet Underground Music Archive begins creating vast libraries of free-to-download music for anybody to access, in essence inventing online piracy as we know it. Yarrr and such!
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IBM introduces the Simon Personal Communicator, the world's first smartphone, although interestingly enough it predates the term "smartphone" by almost a year. Combining the features of a mobile phone with a PDA, it ushered in an era of widespread mobile phone sales and usage, and thus another more convenient way to listen to music.
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Diamond's "Rio" is released, the first portable mp3 player of its kind. A full three years later, Apple would "liberate" this idea and create the iPod. Not that anybody cares.
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Online music streaming service Rhapsody launches, the first of its kind. The monthly subscription model and vast library of content would further inspire sites such as Spotify and Pandora, who would in turn begin to affect CD sales from large record labels and change the music economy forever.
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The US government attempts repeatedly to stop online piracy, starting with the aptly titled Stop Online Piracy Act, then continuing to change the name and slightly alter the terms, desperate to get the bill signed. They eventually conceded defeat, to the surprise of absolutely noone on the Internet.