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Top 40 & Counting…
The Development of the Music Industry

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Music Milestones:
Records to Digital
1920s
• Phonograph recordings
1940s
• Vinyl records & Plastic magnetic audiotapes
1958
• Stereo sound – 2 tracks!
1970s
• Digital recording (rather than analog)
1983
• CDs
Now
• Mp3s, “music in the cloud,” and music piracy

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Early Recording
 1850s – Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville’s Phonautograph
 1st experimental sound recording
 Using hog’s hair tracing patterns in “lamp black”
 Couldn’t play it back…until 2008
 1877 – Thomas Edison’s Phonograph
 “Answering machine” successfully plays back sound
 Needle press grooves into tinfoil wrapped around TP roll!
 Chichester Bell & Charles Tainter’s graphaphone
 Wax cylinders
 Mass produced with prerecorded music

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Early Recording
 1887 – Emile Berliner
 Flat disk
 Gramophone
 Copies en masse, stamped labels
 Beginning of “star system”
 Sound reaches mass medium stage
 1906 – Victrolas in the home
 1930s – Vinyl records
 1948: CBS Records long-playing 33s (“LPs”)
 1949: RCA’s 45-rpm

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Early Recording
 1940s: Magnetic audiotape & tape players
 Editing and multi-tape mixing
 Stereophonic & quadrophonic sound
 1960s: Cassettes
 Miniature reel-to-reel
 Allowed in-home recording
 1970s: Blank tapes & portability
 1967/70 – Thomas Stockham’s digital recording
 1979: Sony & Philips
 CDs 1983

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Records vs. Radio
 1915 showed rise in recordings, 1924 tremendous drop
 Radio = “free” music over the airwaves
 No compensation!
 ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and
Publishers)
 Formed to collect copyright fees
 Established music rights fees for radio to play pre-recorded
 Radio goes live!
 “In-house” bands
 TV brings recording & radio together (1950s)
 New challenge = online!

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The Rise of Pop Music
 “Popular music”
 Various styles
 1880s: Tin Pan Alley
 “Music houses”
 Sheet music = mass medium
 Standards
 “Crooners”
 Jazz
 Miles Davis
 Billie Holiday
 Louis Armstrong
 The Beatles
 Birth of modern pop?
 Michael Jackson
 “Prince of Pop”

9. MJ
• Best selling artist of all time
• Highest paid (royalties)
“In pop music, there’s Michael Jackson, and then there’s everyone else.” - NYT
Thriller:
• STILL top selling album of all time
• Changed music industry…Made albums profitable
"Star of records, radio, rock video. A one-man rescue team for the music business. A
songwriter who sets the beat for a decade. A dancer with the fanciest feet on the
street. A singer who cuts across all boundaries of taste and style and color too”
- Time

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Rock & Roll: Sex, Gospel & Work Songs
 Delta Blues
 Charley Patton
 Son House
 Robert Johnson
 Howlin’ Wolf
 Chicago Blues
 Muddy Waters
 Buddy Guy
 Bessie Smith
 Chuck Berry
 Little Richard
 Elvis
 “The King”?
Blues Rock

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Rock Blurs Boundaries
 Integration
 Musical, Historical, Legal, Racial
 High/Low Culture
 Masculinity/Femininity
 Androgyny
 Country/City
 “Rockabilly” – Buddy Holly
 Sacred/Secular
 “Devils’ music” with Gospel roots

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Rock & Roll Tensions
 Cover music
 White artists popularizing music from previous African American artists
 Mostly blues from “race records”
 Payola
 Promoters pay deejays to play certain records to sell more
 Censorship
 Rock too “risqué,” stations won’t play
 Labels began to self-censor
 More “friendly” acts: Frankie Avalon, Connie Francis

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1960s: The British Invasion
 The Beatles on Ed Sullivan (1964)
 The Quarrymen
 Repackaging of U.S. Blues and R&B  Pop music

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1960s: R&B, Motown & Soul
 Melding gospel, blues, jazz
 Controversial
 Blurred cultural boundaries
 Funk
 Artists
 Stax Records
 Motown Records

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Folk & Protest Songs
 “Voices of a generation”
 Vietnam
 Created a counterculture
 Associated with Beatniks
 Artists

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The Progression of Pop
 60s/70s: Psychedelic
 Spoke to a generation
 70s/80s: Punk
 Another British invasion?
 Opposition culture
 90s: Grunge
 Distinctly “American”
 90s/00s: Alt. Rock
 Dance
 Disco  EDM
 Fueled by pop culture

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Hip Hop
 1970s & 80s dominated by mainstream rock
 90s brought new era of rap and hip hop
 Opposition to professional, “polished” feel of soul & Motown
 Seen as novelty until “The Message”
 1st crossover hit 
 Hugely successful
 Various subgenres
 Part of “pop” culture
 Problems?
 Objectification of women; Glorification of violence
 Shedding of hegemonic femininity; Discussion

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Today?
 More electronic than not
 “Dance-hop”
 Healthy indie music industry
 Mash-ups
 The White Panda
 D.veloped
 Sampling & Copyright
 Law gives authors of creative
“original works” exclusive right to:
 reproduce or distribute the work
 create new works based on the
original
 perform or display the work publicly
 First Amendment protects “fair use”
 Transformative
 Non-competing

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Money in Music
 Recording
 A&R (“artist and repertoire”)
agents
 Talent scouts, managers
 Song sales
 Singles, no longer albums!
 Touring
 Radio
 BUT not always…(1920s)
 Play without compensation
Spending Money Making Money

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Music Goes Digital
 iTunes & mp3s turn the music industry on its head
 File sharing
 Music piracy
 Napster
 Limewire

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Money in Music