Decades of Disruption: Changing the Way We Love Music

Today, with a couple of clicks, we can stream tunes on our phones, request the latest hits on our voice-activated smart speaker, tune into our favourite satellite radio station or, if you're like me, throw some of those dusty records back on a new-school USB turntable.

But consider how we got from trekking to the local music store to buy a CD or vinyl record to where we are today. Over the last 20 years on this journey, for every service like Spotify or Apple Music, there's been a Napster. For every smartphone that can store thousands of songs, there's been an MP3 player that could barely contain a single album. As technology has evolved, music has found itself at the centre of that digital disruption long after Thomas Edison invented the iconic phonograph in 1877.

1990s: The MP3

While recorded music has spent much of its lifespan in the analog era, the MPEG-1 Audio Layer III file, otherwise known as the MP3, kicked off the industry's digital music revolution in the early 1990s. While I tinkered around with other variations of digitized audio music like WAV files, the MP3 was a real game changer. Compared to other digital music files, the MP3's file size was tiny but still sounded the same - maybe even better. The first MP3? Suzanne Vega's catchy ear worm "Tom's Diner." The first MP3 I listened to? Beastie Boys' 1994 masterpiece "Sabotage."

1995: Streaming Launches on the Web

In 1995, RealAudio launched what was widely considered to be the world's first music streaming service. Despite its initial poor audio quality, it quickly gained popularity. While it was somewhat cool to listen to music over the web, it didn't come close to replicating listening to the same song on a CD. Plus, it often crashed my computer.

1999-2001: The Napster Era

As the MP3 file became popular, Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker founded a company called Napster in 1999 that allowed users on the internet to easily share music. It was definitely a huge hit on my college campus — and many others. The only problem? Nearly all of the music on the Napster service violated U.S. copyright law and it was eventually shut down in 2001. You'll still see the name Napster out there — music streaming service Rhapsody rebranded under the Napster name a few years back. (Interesting fact: Sean Parker is a tech-world darling — after Napster, he went on to become the founding president of Facebook.)

Late 90s-2003: A Thousand Songs in Your Pocket

Although Napster was largely done, it proved there was an enormous demand for an easy-to-use place on the web where people could download songs and load them on a portable device that could fit into a pocket.

South Korea's Saehan Information Systems came out with the first portable digital audio player in 1998, the MPMan, but it wasn't the last. My personal player — a Creative Nomad device containing just 48 megabytes, enough to hold a low-quality album — was bearable only because it was way more mobile than my bulky disc player. While Sony radically changed the portability of music with its iconic Walkman, it was Apple's launch of the iPod in 2001 that really brought portable MP3 players into the mainstream. Sony, which recently announced plans to buy out EMI Music Publishing for around US$2 billion to make it the world's biggest music publisher, introduced its own MP3 Walkman in 2004. However, cost and a proprietary audio compression technology kept it from really leading the pack.

Thanks to Steve Jobs, Apple's launch of the iTunes music store in 2003 was among the biggest game-changers in the music industry. The story, according to Rolling Stone magazine, started with Jobs getting Warner Music executives on board with his iTunes idea, then winning over big labels like Universal and Sony. iTunes sold some 70 million songs at 99 cents each in its first year. Today, it's a global music powerhouse with more than 37 million songs and 1 million podcasts. It largely spurred the demise of the physical compact disc thanks in part to its low pricing. CD sales have dropped 80 per cent in the last 10 years, according to stats cited by Rolling Stone.

Today: Streaming is Mainstream

Buying music has turned out to have somewhat of a shelf life of its own. Streaming services like Spotify, YouTube Music, Tidal and more are now increasingly popular, giving music fans access to vast song libraries for a flat monthly fee.

And it's become a big business: Spotify's first quarterly report after going public showed it had more than 170 million users and around US$1.4 billion in revenue. While streaming services have become undeniably popular, one drawback is that some music just isn't available. If you ever wanted a rare Led Zeppelin B-side or any Tool album, you might have to actually go on the hunt for a remaining record store to pick them up.

Then...and Now: Vinyl's Comeback

While music is firmly grounded in today's digital age, some people still prefer their tunes in analog. Which means vinyl records have mounted a comeback from the brink of extinction. More than 14 million vinyl albums sold last year, the 12th-straight year sales increased, according to Nielsen Music.

But even vinyl is getting a digital makeover. With demand for vinyl production surging, manufacturers struggled to keep up with older pressing machines that often broke down. Enter companies like Viryl Technologies, a Toronto-based startup which has melded state-of-the-art software and precision molding with a decades-old technology that is able to spit out freshly pressed vinyl records in around just 20 seconds.

It's hard to say what's next in the digital evolution of the music world, but if the rapid changes in the last three decades or so are any indication, we may not have to wait long to find out.