The record industry: the growth of a mass medium

Abstract

Common sense tells us that sound recording — that is, records and cassettes - is a mass medium just newspapers, films or television. In industrialised countries, listening to records is just as much part of everyday life as reading the newspaper or listening to the radio. A Swedish survey made in 1976 (Anon. 1979, pp. 85–8) indicates that, on average, Swedish adults spent thirty-five minutes daily reading newspapers, thirty-three minutes listening to records or cassettes and one minute watching films. Watching films on television was not included, but neither was listening to records on the radio.

The emergence of a post-industrial music economy? Music and ICT synergies in Stockholm, Sweden

“…Technological change has also had a key role in the development of the industrial structure of the music industry and the commercial and distribution possibilities open to the industry (Gronow, 1983;Lopes, 1992;Burnett, 1993;Frith, 1993;Christiansen, 1995;Cusic, 1996;Peterson and Berger, 1996;McCourt and Rothenbuhler, 1997;Jones, 2002). The development of cheap and easily mass produced vinyl records radically changed the mass market possibilities open to the music industry and forced a radical restructuring of the industry itself (Wallis, 1990;Wallis and Malm, 1990).…”

Decomposed: a political ecology of music

“…See also the excellent work of Vibodh Parthasarathi (2005Parthasarathi ( , 2007. 9 Putting the overall production of shellac discs in the billions is an extrapolation from Pekka Gronow's (1983) work, though it should be noted that production figures and sales records are difficult in general and particularly patchy before the First World War.…”

Black Stars or Black Holes? Cities as Sites for Verticality in Popular Black Music Production

“…From its turn-of-the-century origins in the electrical goods industry (Gronow, 1983;Firth, 1987) the US recording industry has experienced a consistent history of industrial and geographic transformation, with complementary acquisition of, and specialization in, Black music production beginning with early Blues, Jazz and other recordings to meet the enormous demand for music during the massive urbanization of the prewar years which would create an extensive, radio-based system for mass distribution and consumption of recorded audio products. Large and small urban population centres, particularly New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, would serve as principal centres for industrial and consumer products and recordings and act as centres for the birth of the major recording industry fi rms, although many other small centres of independent production would appear throughout the South, West and Midwest.…”