Playback

From the Victrola to MP3, 100 Years of Music, Machines, and Money

Contributors

By Mark Coleman

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$7.99

Price

$9.99 CAD

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  1. ebook $7.99 $9.99 CAD
  2. Trade Paperback $21.99 $28.99 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around June 16, 2009. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

Suddenly, popular music resembles an alien landscape. The great common ground of 45s, LPs, and even compact discs is rapidly falling by the wayside to be replaced by binary bits of sound. In the 21st century, radical advances in music technology threaten to overshadow the music itself. Indeed, today the generations divide over how they listen to the music, not what kinds of music they enjoy.Playback is the first book to place the staggering history of sound reproduction within its larger social and cultural context. Concisely told via a narrative arc that begins with Edison’s cylinder and ends with digital music, this is a history that we have all directly experienced in one way or another. From the Victrola to the 78 to the 45 to the 33 1/3 to the 8track to the cassette to the compact disc to MP3 and beyond (not to mention everyone from Thomas Edison to Enrico Caruso to Dick Clark to Grandmaster Flash to Napster CEO Shawn Fanning), the story of Playback is also the story of music, and the music business, in the 20th century.

Genre:

On Sale
Jun 16, 2009
Page Count
336 pages
Publisher
Da Capo Press
ISBN-13
9780786748402

Mark Coleman

About the Author

Mark Coleman is a journalist who has written for Rolling Stone, Details, New York Newsday, the Village Voice, and Mojo, among others. He was a contributor to the Rolling Stone Album Guide and lives in New York City.

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