Changing their tunes

Kids these days will never know the joy of holding a recording in their hands, admiring the cover art, reading every word of the liner notes and putting that baby in for a spin.

I’m talking about a CD. Remember that old format? Kids these days are downloading all of their music directly to their iPods and forgoing the CD concept entirely.

Yes, as we spin around on this dizzying turntable of change, pausing only briefly to become nauseous, I thought now would be a good time to provide a brief history of recording technologies, with their pros and cons.

The Player Piano Roll – This brilliant invention used a roll of paper with punch-holes to trigger piano keys. It could reproduce an entire piano performance.

Pros: You could sit in your parlor in Schrag, Wash., and hear Sergei Rachmaninoff banging away on your piano

Cons: Nobody ever figured out how to make a Player Bassoon Roll, which would have really driven the public wild.

The Edison Wax Cylinder – These were the first, primitive recording devices, in which audio signals were converted to grooves etched in wax.

Pros: For the first time, great performers such as Mario Lanza were preserved for posterity.

Cons: It made Mario Lanza sound like Mickey Mouse. Also, the wax cylinders were fragile and sensitive to heat, which caused Mario Lanza to melt and dribble out onto the floor.

The 78 rpm record – These were the first true phonograph records, made of black shellac. They were popular through the first half of the 20th century.

Pros: They had superior sound quality compared to wax cylinders and were cheap and easy to produce.

Cons: They were brittle and shattered easily when used as a Frisbee (not yet invented). Also, a typical record could hold only about three to five minutes per side. For a symphony, you had to buy up to eight records packaged in a cardboard book, which is why they called it an “album” or, in some cases, “a pain.”

The 45 rpm single – These were smaller vinyl records holding one song per side, more durable than 78s.

Pros: You could listen to all of your Bobby Vee songs in a row by stacking seven or eight 45s on top of each other in a swingin’ ‘50s record-changer.

Cons: Since each record had only one song per side, you ended up having to lug around heavy “stax o’ wax”, as the kids used to say, to all of your baby-sitting jobs. Also, artists soon figured out that putting two good songs on a 45 was bad marketing, so they had to invent a demanding musical form called the B-side, which consisted of a song so bad that nobody would ever want to play it. Finally, the 45 had a much larger than usual hole in the center, requiring the use of a plastic adapter (“the doodad”) that your little brother was always losing.

The 33 1/3 rpm LP – This was the vinyl “long-play” record that became the standard “album” of the latter half of the 20th century.

Pros: The LP could hold 20 or more minutes of music per side, meaning you could fit an entire symphony on one record. The large size was conducive to album art. It also melted easily in the oven and could be molded into an ashtray during craft week at Vacation Bible School.

Cons: That 20-minute capacity per side led inevitably to “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.” Also, artists now had to come up with eight or 10 good songs per record, even though most did not have eight or ten good songs per career. LPs were easily scratched by your dumb little brother.

The Eight-Track Tape – These were multitrack tape cartridges, mostly for use in car stereos in the 1970s.

Pros: Nothing else would work in a car, which meant it was better than nothing for about 10 minutes.

Cons: Even in the ‘70s, people instinctively understood they were dorky.

The Cassette Tape – A smaller, easier to use magnetic tape device.

Pros: It was compact and suitable for playing in cars.

Cons: Required constant fast-forwarding and rewinding. The tape often broke and spewed miles of ribbon down the highway.

The CD – The compact disc, in which music is encoded as digital information.

Pros: Extremely durable. Easy to skip to the next song. Small and easy to store. No hiss, no hum, no pop. Sound quality perfect

Cons: Sound quality too perfect. Not much room for album art. Not easy to scratch but your dumb little brother still manages it.

The iPod-style MP3 – A digital music file that can be downloaded to your computer and then to your iPod.

Pros: Huge amounts of music can be stored in a tiny, portable device. You can “shuffle” randomly through your favorite songs. You can download your favorite song for 99 cents and avoid the rest of the “filler” on the CD.

Cons: Dilutes the concept of an album as a coherent artistic statement. Those little “ear-buds” are annoying. Album art? What album art?

So to sum up, the history of recording technology takes us from the days when songs were sold individually on wax to today when they are sold individually on iTunes.

The next advance? My money is on a new super-secret technology called the iPlayer Bassoon Roll.