| Vinyl Years | 1940's | 1950's | 1960's | 1970's | 1980's | 1990's |

A history of the music industry

Mixing Desk with Vinyl Record Deck

Our access to music has changed beyond all recognition since the start of our musical adventure in the vinyl years, but so has the manner in which we buy it.

It’s incredible to think that in 1940 music was deemed popular on the basis of songs sale figures in sheet music and not by the bands and artists that recorded the tracks.

Today, as well as having record shops up and down the country in every main town centre, if you hear a song you like across the plethora of available channels that expose us to new music on a daily basis, it can be downloaded to your computer in a matter of seconds. How times change!

In this feature we’re going to take you back on a magical journey through time and show you how the delivery of music has changed over that incredible 60-year period.

From Jukebox to IPOD

From the early days of vinyl, through the technological changes bringing in new playing speeds, the introduction of the cassette tape, through to compact disks, and eventually downloading music via the Internet, it’s a long journey.

As well as how we buy music, we’re also looking at the ways in which we listen to music has changed over the years.

From the early days of radio through to jukebox’s, arena concerts and music festivals, right through to streaming media online. It’s probably harder now to avoid music in our daily lives than listen along!

To make the journey more enjoyable, we’ve split this feature into decades to give you the flavour of how music was delivered at that special time for you. You can select from the following decades to continue your journey: