With all the discussions about the future of the music (industry) one can sometimes get quite anxious. All you have to do is take a look at an old issue of MUSIKEXPRESS and it becomes clear: More than 20 years ago, digitization threatened to oust physical sound carriers and people were worried: “The industry is threatened with the greatest dangers by the devil’s work of ‘new media ‘!” wrote ME editor for “Neue Medien” Volker Schnurrbusch in the December 1988 issue of MUSIKEXPRESS and asked the question: “The beginning of the end? Satellites and computers are already threatening CD supremacy.”
Nevertheless, the CD is celebrating a milestone anniversary today: 40 years ago, on August 17, 1982, the first so-called compact discs were presented by the Polygram label in Hanover. Chopin’s “Waltz”, “An Alpine Symphony” by Strauss and THE VISITORS by ABBA were pressed on it. The first CD player came onto the market in Japan two months later – at a price of the equivalent of 2300 DM.
If you would like to read again how the future of listening to music was imagined in 1988, we recommend this little piece of contemporary history from MUSIKEXPRESS 1988:
Future music: has the CD already had its day?
The compact disc has hardly conquered the market when it has to fear for its own existence. DAT, CDU, CD-E, CD-l, Btx, microchips – the gravediggers are already digging. Hardware companies and record companies as software suppliers are fighting fiercely for the future of sound carriers. Or is it just a calculated confusion with the consumer? “Neue Medien” editor Volker Schnurrbusch examines the twilight of the gods in the record industry for ME/Sounds.
Click on the picture to read the entire article from the MUSIKEXPRESS issue 12/1988. (Article was scanned automatically – may contain spelling mistakes.)
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