<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The most recent \u2018next big thing\u2019 in the record industry isn\u2019t actually that big even though it is causing a big stir.\u00a0 It is a 4 inch 33 ? vinyl record designed to hold a music track up to four minutes long on each side.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, it is called \u2018Tiny Vinyl\u2019.\u00a0 What surprises me the most is the music industry has once again found a way to market music by offering yet another new format.\u00a0 After reading a rundown of how people\u2019s modes of music consumption have changed over the last century, I thought it might be fun to take a look back.\u00a0 Let\u2019s see if you recognize where your music consumption began and where you may land in today\u2019s recorded music market trends.\u00a0 My thanks to <\/span>AARP – The Magazine <\/span><\/i>for the historical data.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We won\u2019t go all the way back to the invention of the phonograph as I am pretty sure none of us experienced the wax cylinder origins pioneered by Thomas Edison (known as the Edison Recorder).\u00a0 Vinyl records as most of us know them came about in the early 20th century.\u00a0 While I have never purchased a 78 rpm record, I remember my folks having a few in the storage area of the first RCA radio \/ record player cabinet that I remember.\u00a0 The RCA cabinet hung around the house until 1966 when it was replaced by a new stereo Magnivox combo radio \/ record player.\u00a0 The new unit had an extension speaker in the basement so I could play my drums along with records.\u00a0 The old unit got moved out to our camp along with the few 78s it still had in storage.\u00a0 The Magnivox was late 1960s state of the art, but I kind of missed the hum of the tubes warming up on the old RCA model.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Did the newer unit even have a 78 rpm speed setting?\u00a0 It didn\u2019t matter to me because my collection started with 45 rpm singles and quickly grew to include 33 ? LPs (\u2018long players\u2019, as albums were called).\u00a0 Try as they might, each new music format that emerged over the last fifty years could not make LPs obsolete.\u00a0 With the sudden resurgent interest in vinyl, LPs are now selling for record prices (pun intended) and in ever increasing numbers.\u00a0 The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) tells us that 44 million vinyl albums were sold in 2024.\u00a0 Out of curiosity, we will have to see if Todd at the WOAS-FM West Coast Bureau will tally his growing collection for us (which now lines two walls of his music room).\u00a0 Maybe I should accuse him of buying half of the 2024 albums sold . . . no, I am kidding (but his record collection is impressive).<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The 1940s saw the development of reel-to-reel tapes.\u00a0 The bulk machines used for recording\u00a0 and playback belied how fragile the tape medium used seemed when compared to vinyl.\u00a0 The first on the market were expensive and used primarily in the recording industry.\u00a0 R-t-R machines eventually became available for home recording but commercial reel-to-reel music releases from outlets like Columbia House were limited.\u00a0 According to <\/span>AARP Magazine<\/span><\/i>, \u201cThe format was thought to be extinct, but reemerged last fall with rereleased classic titles by Yes and T.Rex.\u201d\u00a0 I first encountered the reel-to-reel recording in 1967 or 1968 when high school friend Nick Gorski borrowed his fathers Sony machine.\u00a0 We set about recording our own versions of Firesign Theater bits for our own amusement.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When WOAS-FM went on the air in December of 1978, there were two reel-to-reel players mounted in our equipment bay.\u00a0 There were boxes of very large tape reels in the studio that allowed the station to play pre-recorded syndicated programming when there were no live DJs on the air.\u00a0 These machines were taken out of service when the station was first remodeled in the late 1980s.\u00a0 Fifteen years ago, we were given four old, very heavy R-t-R machines that were no longer being used by the local health department.\u00a0 With no room to store them and no programming utility for us, we tried to give them away at one of the Christmas Walk events in the pre-COVID but had no takers.\u00a0 They eventually were sent away via an e-waste collection.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The arrival of 8-track tapes in the mid-1960s announced the arrival of the next new thing in music.\u00a0 Radio stations jumped on this bandwagon because it was possible to have PSAs and advertisements on a series of 8-track tapes.\u00a0 Grab a cassette, shove it into the \u2018cart machine\u2019 and hit play.\u00a0 The only drawback?\u00a0 The cart machines and tape racks took up quite a bit of room.\u00a0 If one attended an event DJed by WUPY\u2019s Kenny Lee back in the day, you couldn\u2019t help but notice he had a lot of his music being toted around in this format.\u00a0 After former Country Music DJ legend Dr. Bruce Straton moved from Ontonagon to Brownsville, Texas, he sent WOAS two cart machines as a donation.\u00a0 Dr. Bruce explained that his new station had moved on from them and thought they would be of use to us.\u00a0 I thanked him but didn\u2019t have the heart to tell him that we had disposed of ours a couple of years earlier as well.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My entry into the world of 8-track tapes came via my buddy Mitch.\u00a0 He had a nice player in his car and when he upgraded to a newer player, he gifted me his.\u00a0 I first installed it in my old\u00a0 Chevy sedan and later transferred it to my trusty S-10 pickup truck.\u00a0 The road music was handy when I spent two summers driving back and forth to band jobs from my summer job washing dishes at the Huron Mountain Club near Big Bay.\u00a0 With the windows down and Deep Purple or Black Sabbath tunes on earweld volume, nothing was better for keeping me awake driving down the road at 2 a.m..\u00a0 When I later upgraded to a newer player, I was still toting around a box of 8-tracks in my truck.\u00a0 I noticed the cook at the Baraga A&W had a whole pile of 8-tracks in the window so I asked the carhop to see if he would like to buy them all for five bucks.\u00a0 She came back and said, \u201cOnly if they aren\u2019t stolen,\u201d to which I replied, \u201cNope, they are all mine\u2026but I want my tape box back.\u201d\u00a0 Maybe I should have kept them.\u00a0 Who knew my future wife would have her own 8-track player in her college hifi set up and that it would also end up finding a home at our camp?<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0While 8-tracks had a couple of glitches in them (like the \u2018clunk\u2019 they made when changing tracks and the label’s habit of adding a repeated track on some units to save hearing empty space), they were popular.\u00a0 They would give way to another type of cassette tape and today are pretty much relegated to hobbyists.\u00a0 Both Mitch and I had replaced our 8-tracks in our vehicles with cassette players.\u00a0 Both of us had also acquired portable boombox player\/recorders that made it possible to transfer vinyl albums to tape.\u00a0 This meant we could not only take our record collections on the road, but we could swap albums to convert to tape.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Naturally, the record companies jumped on this trend and began releasing new music on both vinyl and cassettes.\u00a0 Interestingly enough, they also sold a lot of older music when people began replacing some of their albums with the new fangled cassette tapes.\u00a0 When 8-tracks and then cassettes became the rage, the first thing I noticed was the packaging.\u00a0 For me, buying albums included a lot of window shopping and once home, one had to thoroughly inspect the artwork and track information on the album covers.\u00a0 Shrink the packaging down to the size of a cassette tape and it deflated a big part of the record buying experience.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Though they were first developed in 1963, the mass introduction of the Sony Walkman in 1979 caused a surge in cassette sales.\u00a0 The many Walkman imitators that came on the market also fueled more cassette sales for the next couple of decades.\u00a0 By 2011, however, the brand had been rebranded as \u2018digital flash memory players\u2019 more or less killing cassette production and sales.\u00a0 With the higher prices being charged in the current resurgence of vinyl record sales, many artists have gone back to also releasing new music on cassette as a low-cost way for fans to own a physical copy of an LP.\u00a0 When Mike Bennett did the first major renovations of WOAS-FM in the mid 1980s, he included new cassette players for the DJs to spin tunes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The only downside to using cassettes in the radio station was finding a track for one particular song in mid-tape.\u00a0 Dropping a needle in the right place on a vinyl record is a DJ skill as old as turntables themselves.\u00a0 Finding the right cut on a tape took a lot more trial and error.\u00a0 On the plus side, my entry into WOAS-FM came when I began recording the original <\/span>From the Vaults<\/span><\/i> shows on cassette tapes.\u00a0 Mike liked them because the student DJs would run them between their shows and if someone didn\u2019t show up, the programming would just loop itself every 3 hours.\u00a0 The same held true between the end of the school day and the next evening DJ\u2019s show.\u00a0 Eventually, the number of <\/span>FTV<\/span><\/i> tapes amounted to over 1,400 hours of programming but they were used for so long, the oldest tapes began to lose the will to live.\u00a0 What remains of the whole collection currently resides in a drawer in the studio.\u00a0 None-the-less, we still have a couple of cassette players in the studio which our current crop of DJs look at the same way we probably looked at the wind-up record players we saw at the local historical museum we visited in our youth.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Time marched on and when Philips and Sony introduced CDs in 1982, it ignited a different set of revolutions.\u00a0 Yes, the new format required a new generation of players (and later player \/<\/span><\/p>\n recorders). \u00a0 The packaging was larger than cassette cases, so there was a slight improvement in the art of album art.\u00a0 Size and portability issues were on par with the cassettes but they were more durable than the fragile tapes which were beginning to wear out.\u00a0 Goodwill and St. Vinnies stores found themselves inundated with the albums that CD converts were discarding in droves as many music fans replaced their record collections with CDs.\u00a0 Very early in this audio seachange, perhaps the seeds of the new vinyl revolution were sowed:\u00a0 some took exception to the sound quality of CDs versus vinyl.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Audiophiles complained that the manner in which music was reproduced on CDs was inferior to what could be heard on vinyl.\u00a0 CD supporters claimed their sound quality was superior to vinyl because there were no pops, crackles, hums, or skips to be heard.\u00a0 Some vinyl heads went too far poiningt out that there were frequencies at both the high and low end of the spectrum that were missing from CD tracks.\u00a0 Most people consumed their music from radio and TV or in environments where it had to compete with background noise (bars, cars, and so forth).\u00a0 There were strong opinions on both sides of the argument but the people in the middle ground (like me) said, \u201cI can\u2019t hear any difference.\u201d\u00a0 When confronted with this debate, I choose to stay out of the line of fire because there is no \u2018let\u2019s agree to disagree\u2019 stance to this discussion.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The RIAA\u2019s numbers put 2024\u2019s CD sales at 33 million units.\u00a0 They are not as popular as they once were, but they remain the big dog in the hunt in terms of album sales.\u00a0 In our increasingly digital world, only time will tell how CDs will fare in the future.\u00a0 Big box stores seem to have reduced their CD inventories to a bare minimum but they have brought back at least some vinyl record racks.\u00a0 Boutique music stores like <\/span>The House of Records<\/span><\/i> that Todd and I visit when I am at the WOAS-FM WCB continue a healthy business in all the old audio formats.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Do not ask me to weigh in to anything about the current digital revolution involving A.I. because I really have not gone down that rabbit hole yet.\u00a0 I am still trying to catch up with what happened when MP3s and WAV files began to supplant music that was being physically distributed in CD form. \u00a0 Artists and labels, both big name and independent, have been terrific at sending us music to air on WOAS-FM.\u00a0 Syndicated programs like <\/span>Beale Street Caravan, Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour, <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Dr. Duck\u2019s Rx for Guitar<\/span><\/i> have also been very generous in providing shows on CD for us to air.\u00a0 The kicker here, however, became production and mailing costs.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The end result has been predictable:\u00a0 the majority of new releases are now offered to us as digital downloads.\u00a0 In some cases, they will add a caveat saying, \u201cIf you would\u00a0 like a physical copy, please let us know.\u201d\u00a0 Even a big time label like Alligator Records went this route but not before gently reminding stations, \u201cyes, we can still send CDs but it would help our bottom line a lot if we could have you download them.\u201d\u00a0 When downloading tracks and albums became more popular in the 1990s, we got our feet wet and found ourselves burning CDs of these files to make them fit our station format.\u00a0 Most of the music we have played live for the last 30 years has been from CDs.\u00a0 Multiple well CD players gave us the option of programming blocks of music several hours long.\u00a0 This practice replaced the pre-recorded shows on cassette we previously used for this purpose.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0By the time the 2010s rolled around, streaming became the top source of revenue for the U.S. record industry.\u00a0 Services like Spotify allow one to play music directly on devices without needing to download them.\u00a0 WOAS-FM is fully equipped to broadcast music via streaming, but we still train our new DJs how to construct their shows with CD sourced music first.\u00a0 Once they demonstrate they can operate the broadcast board, change to different music tracks, and do announcements between songs, then we allow them to start incorporating streaming into their shows.\u00a0 To them, it may seem old school, but we have found that a good number of them will stick with CDs.\u00a0 In that we have a vast collection of music in many genres, DJs are able to mine them and learn about music that predates them by many years.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The one thing we need to caution the new DJs about is the nature of how things work in a non-commercial educational station.\u00a0 We are not allowed to do any kind of commercial endorsements and the fact that many of the music sources they stream drop adds into the middle of the stream.\u00a0 We also caution them about using their computer or phone to simply run their personal playlist on the air.\u00a0 Broadcasting music must involve interacting with their audience and this sometimes gets lost when a DJ punches play and then zones out.\u00a0 We stream audio and video of our on the air broadcasts and they are reminded that there is nothing more boring than listening to or viewing our video stream to see nothing going on.\u00a0 The top (or worse, back of) a DJs head who is either scrolling on their device or having a conversation with another person while the music is playing is simply not good radio.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Certainly station automation and the looming A.I. takeover of everything has and\/or will change the radio broadcast landscape. \u00a0 Time and technology wait for no one, but with that said, nothing says we can\u2019t continue to use older music consumption paradigms as well.\u00a0 Technology isn\u2019t an issue – I am no luddite – but we are still going to teach new DJs radio the old fashioned way.\u00a0 When the A.I. overlords implode, WOAS-FM DJs will be ready to fill the gap.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Top Piece Video: I will post The Doors for this one – for years and years I told people that the first LP I bought was their eponymous album.\u00a0 The truth be told, that was my second album.\u00a0 The first was The Monkee’s self titled debut which followed their first hit single, Last Train to Clarksville.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em> I do believe this is the performance that got The Doors banned from The Ed Sullivan Show<\/em> for singing the word ‘higher’ – look at the smirk on Robbie Krieger’s face after the first time Morrison sings it – bad boys, weren’t they!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The most recent \u2018next big thing\u2019 in the record industry isn\u2019t actually that big even though it is causing a big stir.\u00a0 It is a 4 inch 33 ? vinyl record designed to hold a music track up to four minutes long on each side.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, it is called \u2018Tiny Vinyl\u2019.\u00a0 What surprises […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3907"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3910,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3907\/revisions\/3910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}