Ten years isn’t a long time in the grand schemes of things, but in the world of technology, the past decade has heralded some significant changes in the way we live our everyday lives.
With the advent of the internet era, we now have 24/7 access to banking, travel agents, groceries, electrical goods, books – any tangible product that can be bought in a physical shop can be procured online in a virtual store. And this is great news for most people, as it means we can shop when we want to and not be constrained by the opening hours of high street outlets.
The music industry in one industry that has changed beyond all recognition: the way we consume music in 2010 is a world away from the turn of the century.
It really isn’t all that long ago when music lovers would queue to buy the latest release by their favourite chart-topping artist, or carry a whole rucksack full of cassettes and AA batteries on their two-week holiday. A mere ten years is all that it has taken to consign such activities to the history books.
Indeed, children these days may struggle to believe that people once had racks of CDs in their homes, from which they would select individual discs to play in a dedicated machine. Compact discs aren’t quite obsolete yet, but we’re getting there. A stroll around any local charity shop will reveal the extent to which people are swapping digital discs for digital downloads.
Apple helped revolutionise the way we enjoy music. The iPod set the standard way back in the early 21st century and the fact people could fit their entire music collection onto one small, sleek, shiny white box was mind-blowing.
And the whole market for iPod and mp3 peripherals that subsequently emerged certainly seems to have been the death knell for the humble CD player. Portable digital music players are no longer solely for music lovers on the road, they can be hooked up to proper home-entertainment systems, with sub-woofers and surround sound all part of the digital music revolution.
Music traditionalists will always attach a bit of romanticism to the act of going out and buying music. Vinyl, for example, seems to have survived every other new-fangled format that has come along, such as cassettes, CDs and mini-discs. With music downloads, iPods and mp3 players, we have a completely new way of enjoying music.
The whole music industry has had to change to accommodate the rapid rise in popularity of the digital download. Everything from podcasts and audio books to rock albums and language-learning guides can be downloaded for listening at home, in the car or at the gym. It’s changed days indeed and who knows what other technological transformations we’ll see in the next ten years? Quite a lot, one would expect.
Tags: aa batteries, advent of the internet, charity shop, death knell, digital music players, home entertainment systems, street outlets, sub woofers, tangible product, virtual store