The evolution of portable music

One of the good things about having a long commute is the extra time a day I have to devote to reading. That is how I chose to pass most of the month of November, hence why I didn’t have any new entries. With my head buried deep in a book all the time, I never had the opportunity, or forethought to observe others around me. It did however become startlingly clear just how many people these days have a portable music player.

When I was a kid I had I a Sony Walkman. Not the cool yellow waterproof kind (that was to come later), but the very fragile will break into a million pieces if you drop it grey plastic kind. I can’t be sure if it was even a Sony. Of course being the 80’s and all, my Walkman played only tapes. I would spend hours after school or on the weekends listening to the radio, waiting for my favourite songs to come on and hoping to hit record just in time to capture the moment (sadly enough using the same stereo I use today). I had tons of mixed tapes. The first ones were recorded from AM radio. I later grew up and moved on to FM radio (when sound quality was becoming important). It was a pretty uncomplicated time. I had my Duran Duran and Wham! tapes, my Joshua Tree and Faith tapes. That was roughly 40 songs, I was happy.

Soon after came CD’s and disc man’s. I graduated from my yellow sports Walkman in 2002 to a shiny blue disc man. Not the kind of disc man that played CD MP3’s but just regular CD’s that held only one album. I was satisfied even though I had just sold the ultimate in portable music players: my car. Trading in tapes for CD’s, car or no car I had moved into the big times. I even had my own CD burner. I no longer had to stand by the radio waiting to capture my favourite song. I could simply log onto Napster and download them for free. Napster’s lifespan didn’t last long, but long enough to create a decent collection of mixed CD’s.

Now there are MP3 players that hold thousands of songs and various downloading software and sites to choose from. The possibilities are endless. Our worries are no longer adjusting the antenna to get rid of the crackle on our radios, but what bit rate to rip our CD’s at. What file types to use: Mp3 or WAV? Not to mention the moral question surrounding Internet downloading. I still buy CD’s, but with the arrival last fall of my shiny little black iPod Nano, the convenience of downloading is frighteningly well, just that; convenient.

I still like to spend my time on the bus the old fashioned way as I mentioned at the beginning, buried into a good book. It’s the only real way to clear your head and get an ultimate release from the day’s activities. It’s just unfortunate so many people insist on sharing their musical choices with me everyday, listening to their portable music players at ridiculous volumes. I guess they have never heard of the damaging effects caused by constant high decibels. Oh well, I suppose that in a couple years they will be all be hearing impaired and the silence of the bus will be mine to enjoy again.