Juan Monroy
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  1. Home
  2. Courses
  3. Contemporary Media
  4. Recorded Music

Recorded Music

  • Music Industry
    • Hardware plus Software
      • Hardware: durable machines and physical components
      • Software: consumables to be used with hardware
    • Sheet music
      • Tin Pan Alley publishing district of New York
    • Pianos
      • Steinway and Sons
    • Player Pianos
      • perforated paper
      • metallic rolls
    • Music Boxes
      • pins
      • revolving cylinder or disk
      • tuned teeth of a steel comb
  • Sound Recording
  • Phonographic Cylinders
    • Thomas Edison’s phonograph
    • dismissed as a toy
    • office recording machine
  • Gramophone Disks
    • Emile Berliner’s Gramophone
    • 10" 78 RPM
    • 7" 45-RPM (RCA)
    • 12" 33-RPM (Columbia)
  • Magnetic Tape
    • Germany, 1930s
    • magnetic particles on a plastic tape
    • allows for editing
    • multitrack recording
  • Cassette Tapes
    • ¼ inch magnetic tape
    • home recording
    • “Home Taping is Killing Music…and it’s Ilegal”
    • Pre-recorded cassettes
  • Compact Discs
    • digital audio
    • encoded on a sheet of metal
    • encased in a plastic sheet
    • red laser optical disk
  • Digital Files
    • binary code
    • codec: coder decoder
    • sound encoded as computer code
    • compression
      • smaller files
      • reduced storage
      • faster transport
  • Recording Industry
    • oligopoly
    • not vertically integrated
    • lots of horizontal integration
  • Big Three
    • Sony Music, Sony, Japan
    • Universal Music Group, Vivendi, France
    • Warner Music, Access Industries, USA
  • Collection of Labels
    • owned by the Big Three
    • function like imprints in book industry
    • started as owned by a fan of a style of music
    • cater to specific musical tastes
    • industry consolidation since 1970s
  • Independents
    • hundreds and thousands of independent labels
    • fourth largest distributors in the US
    • low barriers to entry account for large presence of independents
  • Popular Music Genres
    • Children
    • Christian/Gospel
    • Classical
    • Country
    • Dance/Electronic/EDM
    • Holiday/Seasonal
    • Jazz
    • Latin
    • Pop
    • R&B/Hip-Hop
    • Rock
  • Physical Music Packages
  • Singles
    • 7-inch vinyl records
    • CD singles
    • 1990s: retail $3–5 per unit
  • Albums
    • 12-inch vinyl records
    • CD albums
    • 1990s: retail $12–15 per unit
  • Online Music Packages
    • Began with iTunes Music Store, 2003
    • Songs: $0.99
    • Albums: $9.99
    • response to P2P downloading
      • 70–30 revenue split
      • it was either that or nothing
  • Physical Media
    • Compact Discs
    • CD singles
    • Music videos
    • Vinyl records
  • Physical Media Retailers
    • Tower, closed 2006
    • Virgin Megastore, closed 2009
    • FYE
    • Target
    • Walmart
    • Amazon
    • Starbucks
  • Major Recording Company Promotion
    • In-Store Sampling
    • Radio Airplay
    • Print: interview or album review in magazines
  • Online
    • Downloading
    • Ringtones
    • Streaming
    • Internet radio
  • Online Sales/Downloads Stores
    • iTunes
    • Amazon
    • Google Play
  • Online Streaming Services
    • Spotify
    • Tidal
    • Apple Music
    • Google Play Music
    • YouTube Music
  • Digital Lockers
    • Apple iTunes Match
    • Google Play Music
    • Megaupload https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload
  • Online Promotion
    • MySpace
    • YouTube
    • Facebook
    • other social media sites
  • Billboard Music Charts
    • Hot 100
      • singles chart
      • sales
        • Nielsen SoundScan
        • digital downloads
      • radio play
        • Broadcast Data Services
      • online streaming
    • Hot Song Charts
      • Rock
      • Latin
      • R&B/Hip Hop
      • Dance/Electronic
      • Country
    • Top 200
      • albums chart
      • LPs and EPs
  • Royalties
    • Three authors
      • composers
      • publishers
      • performers
    • Performance Royalties
    • Mechanical Royalties
  • Piracy
    • Counterfeiting
    • Bootlegging
    • Illegal downloading
    • P2P sites

Unless otherwise noted, © 2006–2026 Juan Monroy. Written in HTML5 and CSS. Built with BBEdit and Bootstrap. Hosting by Reclaim Hosting. Domain registration by Hover. Fonts by TypeKit. I use affiliate links when linking to iTunes and Amazon: I earn a small commission based on purchases made through those links.