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Playback: From The Victrola To Mp3, 100 Years Of Music, Machines, And Money
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About Playback: From The Victrola To Mp3, 100 Years Of
Product Description Suddenly, popular music resembles an alien landscape. The great common ground of 45s, LPs, and even compact discs is rapidly falling by the wayside to be replaced by binary bits of sound. In the 21st century, radical advances in music technology threaten to overshadow the music itself. Indeed, today the generations divide over how they listen to the music, not what kinds of music they enjoy.Playback is the first book to place the staggering history of sound reproduction within its larger social and cultural context. Concisely told via a narrative arc that begins with Edison's cylinder and ends with digital music, this is a history that we have all directly experienced in one way or another. From the Victrola to the 78 to the 45 to the 33 1/3 to the 8track to the cassette to the compact disc to MP3 and beyond (not to mention everyone from Thomas Edison to Enrico Caruso to Dick Clark to Grandmaster Flash to Napster CEO Shawn Fanning), the story of Playback is also the story of music, and the music business, in the 20th century. From Publishers Weekly This short and sweet historical overview of the connection between music, technology (primarily the "playback" function) and the "systematic marketing of recorded music" is the perfect gift for aging boomers who, like Coleman, were caught "completely unawares" by the Internet and related developments such as the MP3 file-sharing format and Napster, which brought MP3 file sharing to the world. Coleman, however, has the advantage of being a rock critic who brings a formidable range of knowledge about his subject. He is as comfortable writing about how pioneers such as Edison and Bell were "blind to the full significance" of their sonic inventions as he is about lesser-known luminaries such as Dr. Paul Goldmark, who invented the "microgroove" LP for CBS. He is also consistently excellent and authoritative on the myriad ways over the decades that the art of making music has shifted away from audio documentation and moved toward "aural creation." While his survey of '60s rock and radio trends will be familiar to any fan of pop music, it provides numerous interesting related observations, such as how the LP "stands as the most enduring cultural legacy bequeathed to baby boomers by their parents." The highlight of the book is its final section, a near-definitive review of recent trends in computer-based listening habits that persuasively argues that "the seductive allure of the MP3 format is all about selection and portability, not thievery and deceit." Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review "A breezy, informative history of the continuing dalliance between music and machines." -- New York Times 5/3/04 "A compact history of the technology of the music business...[Coleman] gets high marks." -- Miami Herald 03/08/04 "Coleman charts the history of recorded music from Edison's phonograph to the digital CDs and iPods of today." -- Discover March 2004 "Comprehensive, well-researched and thoroughly engaging." -- Chicago Sun-Times "Enjoyable...[A] well-written synopsis of how Thomas Edison's 1877 invention eventually morphed into all sorts of things, changing popular culture." -- Charleston Post & Courier 03/28/04 "Essential reading for anyone who has an interest in the future of the music industry." -- Trade Review March 2004 "Illuminating...Coleman offers insightful observations as he spins this history." -- Boston Globe 02/29/04 "In a clear, information-packed history, Coleman provides a sharp, static-free overview of the evolution of audio technology." -- Boston Herald 02/08/04 "There's something for fans of just about every musical technology." -- Hollywood Reporter "Well researched, Coleman's narrative moves along with true drama...Full of countless well-considered moments." -- No Depression March 2004 About the Author Mark Coleman is a journalist who has written for Rolling Stone, De
