Music and us

One of the icons of recorded music that may forever be etched in the memory of audiophiles is be the picture of Nipper, the “His Master’s Voice” dog listening to the acoustic horn of a gramophone. The image, which the Victor Talking Machine Company’s Red Seal label adopted as its logo, traveled through time. It was the most recognizable 19th-century logo which adorned Victor’s until the vinyl discs or LPs were taken over by the compact discs in early 1980s. It was in the new century when recorded music — through the efforts of Victor — finally made the difference. Until then, because of limited playing time and poor quality, recorded music was thought to be nothing but mere gimmickry.

Fred Gaisberg, who worked for Emile Berliner (inventor of gramophone and a majority owner of Victor), signed up an Italian tenor named Enrico Caruso. Gaisberg recorded Caruso’s song on a 10-inch (as opposed to seven-inch) disc, allowing a much longer playback. Caruso’s voice happened to contain the right frequencies for the Gramophone’s dynamic range. Released in 1903, Caruso’s Victor recordings became legendary. Other opera stars followed suit. The likes of Adelina Patti and Franchesco Tamagno propped up Victor to be one of the market leaders in the recorded music industry. Caruso himself acknowledged: “My Victor records will be my biography.” Little did he know that with his foray into the recording arts, recorded music was transformed into what is now a multi-billion dollar business.

Swinging with the Juke Box

Through two World Wars and the Great Depression, recorded music survived and prospered. In its fight to live, new things were discovered. When an economic crisis swept North America, for instance, the Juke Box was born. Only 19 out of the original 33 franchises made it through the 1890s, and only the Columbia Graphaphone Company, which serviced Delaware Maryland and the District of Columbia showed profit: by leasing their machines to fairgrounds and penny arcades as a means of reproducing music. Juke Boxes thus became familiar fixtures in arcades and fairgrounds.

I can’t imagine what the world would be like without recorded music. It created countless music artists with some even elevated to the heroes’ portal. Younger generations would not be enjoying Eminem or even Britney Spears had that accident involving Thomas Edison’s phonograph not happened. Music inspires and pushes one to greatness. When music halls and movies where silenced during World War One, the record player was the only means to listen to nationalistic songs like It’s A Long Way To Tipperary.  World War II could also well be the springboard of recorded music’s phenomenal growth. The AFM (American Federation of Musicians) struck and demanded royalties for those of them who became jobless because of pre-recorded music. As a result, the number of new recorded music dropped, and worse, countless musicians were drafted.

Thus, demand for recorded music skyrocketed among the homesick troops. To boost morale, special 12- and 16-inch radio recordings playing at 33-1/3 were dispatched to army DJs and POWs. The recordings contained both military information and the day’s top hits recorded free of charge by big artists such as Glenn Miller, the Andrews Sisters and Bing Crosby. 

Vinyl’s the word

The 1960s saw the golden age of vinyl records. The shellac 78 was by then virtually forgotten. The LPs and single formats backed up by affordable turntables, amplifiers and loudspeakers were the darling of the marketplace.

The Beatles or the songs of Lennon and McCartney provided a new direction on where the music recording industry must go. And so the Beatles led everyone to their new sound.  In a span of three years, they conquered the seven-inch singles’ market. And with an eye for detail on their every track and on their long-players, they created a new albums market for their young audience.  By 1967 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was the standard by which audio expectations were measured. An innovation, a hidden track was tucked on the run out groove at the end of the flip side.

The way we listened to music had been changed for the better, forever.

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