Music Industry Research
Music industry research Before the invention of recorded sound, the music industry was entirely built around the sale of printed sheet music. During the late 19th century, music publishers made their money by selling the paper notation of songs to everyday consumers who would then play the music themselves on home pianos or instruments. This dynamic shifted completely in 1877 when Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, a machine capable of recording and playing back sound using tin foil and wax cylinders. Shortly after, Emile Berliner developed the flat gramophone disc, which could be mass-produced far more easily than cylinders, officially shifting the commercial focus of the entire industry away from the songwriters who wrote the music to the recording artists who performed it. The introduction of commercial radio in the 1920s brought the first major economic crisis to the music business, as cash-strapped consumers during the Great Depression stopped buying records when...
