FEATURE:
Now That the iPod Is Gone…
Is This the End of Physical Music-Playing Devices?
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A subject I have written about before…
ILLUSTRATION CREDIT: Jack Royle
I have been provoked to look again at physical devices because the iPod is coming to an end. Launched in 2001, it was revolutionary at the time! Able to store so many tracks without the need to carry around CDs and cassettes, it grew through the years and, in a way, was the precursor to streaming. Even if the medium it helped spawned has led to its death, it is a very sad time! It seems that, despite physical music having a place and purpose, devices are dying out. Everything seems to be listened to on a laptop or phone – unless it is vinyl or CD, then people can play on record players and in cars. The days of listening to music on the move and having actual albums you can carry with you are bygone. The Guardian reacted to the end of the iPod in a feature from last week. I have selected a couple of segments:
“Yet the iPod still has advantages over streaming, and not just the fact that it won’t pay a podcaster millions of dollars to talk nonsense about vaccines. Everybody has their own Spotify experience but we’re all drawing from the same pool of music, which is vast but limited. My iPod contains many songs that streaming does not acknowledge: forgotten B-sides culled from old CD singles, bootleg remixes plucked from filesharing platforms, sundry rarities downloaded from now defunct websites, albums snarled up in copyright issues, the catalogues of Spotify exiles Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. It is a unique collection of music, curated over many years, in which each song represents an active choice. It’s mine alone.
Still, I’m well aware that I’m not the typical music consumer, and it would be hard to argue that the world’s most valuable company should continue to cater for collectors who simply must own the Chemical Brothers remix of Spiritualized or MIA’s debut mixtape. Like the turntable decades earlier, the iPod has gone from being a mass-market device for anyone who loves music to a niche product for the hardcore. Apple is not in the niche business.
Now that the agile upstart has become a knackered warhorse, laden with nostalgia, it’s worth remembering that the iPod was contentious when it was launched back in October 2001, holding a then-remarkable 1,000 songs. What the author Stephen Witt calls “the most ubiquitous gadget in the history of stuff” did more for Apple – paving the way for the iPhone and iPad – than it did for the music industry. While the arrival of the iTunes store 18 months later helped to stem illegal filesharing, the iPod still allowed users to unbundle individual tracks from albums; download sales never came close to making up for collapsing CD revenue during the music business’s lost decade. I was initially grumpy about the iPod, complaining that it devalued music and drove a bulldozer through the concept of the album. A shuffle function? Barbarians! Eventually, of course, I bought one and loved it.
As we now know, the album survived as an artistic entity. Whenever I read an article declaring the death of something, I’m pretty sure that it’s not really dead: vinyl made a comeback, and even clunky, fallible cassettes are enjoying a modest revival for reasons that I don’t entirely understand. Yet the iPod, as opposed to the broader concept of the digital music player, relies on one company, so it is as dead as something can be, devoured by the very revolution it launched”.
IN THIS PHOTO: A vintage Sony Walkman, FM-AM stereo cassette player, model WM-F77, made In Japan, circa 1986
I can understand the appeal of streamlining things so you can listen to music digitally. Also, even though CDs and cassettes are still a thing and being bought, maybe the production of new devices would rely on a bigger boom in terms of numbers. The iPod was a way for people to listen to music without physical accessory or inconvenience, so we do have phones that do the same job. I like the fact that the iPod was a device separate from anything just for your music. Look at the market now and what is there dedicated to music playing? It is a disappearing field, and one that marks an end of as glorious period. Not all devices were great, but they allowed for accessibility and ease. In an ultra-convenient age, maybe a Walkman, Discman or iPod seems cumbersome or an annoyance. For me and millions, they were our way into music. There will be a day when music – apart from vinyl – is played on phones or laptops. That idea of taking out an iPod as you walk so you can listen to music might seem a relic, but it means you are not distracted by your phone and get to have a library of music with you! A Walkman or Discman was a social tool, where you could share music and swap CDs and cassettes. It seems sad that there is not really a market for devices only for music. I guess, if one were to include video so that you could watch YouTube, Disney + and Netflix etc., then that would have greater utility and purpose. Even then, people will argue that we have that option already. I will miss the iPod, as it is the end of an era! An end to music devices designed to allow us to listen on the go. I do not like the idea that everything now will be funnelled and channelled into digital avenues and phones. Maybe that is why the vinyl revival remains strong: people rebelling against digitisation and the lack of warmth and physicality from digital music. Even if some are pleased to see the back of music-playing devices, I and many other people around the world will…
LOOK back fondly.