Ten years ago this month, an undergraduate in Boston created a program that, one could argue, reshaped not just the music industry, but the way people consume media in the digital age as a whole: Napster, which got its start in Shawn Fanning’s Northeastern University dorm room and brought the idea of the “celestial jukebox” into Internet-connected homes across the country. The years since have seen increased download speeds, flurries of lawsuits, plummeting music-industry profits, and more sophisticated ways to share music with others quickly–so much that it’s sort of hard to remember, and even appreciate, the sometimes-laborious process of finding a song. Take a trip back to that more innocent era with the San Francisco Chronicle, which yesterday looked over the company’s meteoric ascent, and how the promise of a lawsuit eventually led to its grinding into bankruptcy and bastardization: MORE »
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Tell me something old
What Was The First Song You Downloaded From Napster?
Tell me something old
What Was The First 45 You Ever Owned?
Thanks to Nashville Cream for letting us know that today is the 60th birthday of the 45-rpm single, a format that debuted with Eddy Arnold’s “Texarkana Baby” b/w “Bouquet Of Roses” on March 31, 1949. They’re having readers delve into their record collections to find their favorite examples of that format, but I figured it would be fun to share our first vinyl-single purchases, and where they occurred. My first crush of 45s—all of which were purchased at Pathmark, back when grocery stores thought music was a viable income stream and back when I thought “b/w” was some weird code for the song on side “b” being in black and white (I was young, I dunno)—after the jump. MORE »
