Undoubtedly technology is a wondrous thing which has improved humankind’s lives immeasurably. As is it wont, its effects are never exactly as anticipated thereby creating new complications. The technologies unleashed upon the music business have created their own predicaments and conundrums.
The original forms in which music was delivered to the plebeians was extremely user unfriendly. Both the record and the reel-to-reel tape were cumbersome and unwieldy pieces on equipment not suited for use in moving vehicles and carrying with one to the beach.
Main picture: The mainstay of consumer music until the mid 1980s, the extremely cumbersome and fragile vinyl record.