The trajectory of technology over the past two centuries has been upward, with a radical steepening of the curve over the last 30 years. Much as I find this period of capitalism rife with contradiction and inequality, it is nevertheless a reliable driver of technological change. When I was a kid the only computer I had heard of was something at IBM that took up a warehouse in space, the only telephones were in booths by the roadside or attached to a wall at home, a TV was smallish and black and white and portable sound systems were not very portable at all.

I remember how excited I was when I got my first portable cassette player, though it was second-hand and had poor sound quality. Next was a cheap plastic Sanyo 3 piece record player, which at least had the virtue of being new, though it lacked separate bass and treble controllers. The sound was tinny but the joy of playing albums in my own room was overwhelming. Thereafter I sought better and better (budget) systems, usually compromise 3 in 1 units but nevertheless adequate. For anyone born more recently than me, the notion of being tied to music at home must sound quaint, but that was the situation if you didn't have a car with a radio. Nobody really cared of course because we didn't know any better. Then Sony came along with the Walkman. You can trace a line of rapid development from that device to the present time.

It is hard to say how liberating this experience is, for though I love listening to podcasts as I walk or to music on the train, I'm not convinced that the extraordinary convenience offered matches the loss of the struggle or the benefits of passive listening. Because there were fewer sound systems in any one house (typically one), people heard each others music choices. One might argue over how the wide the range might be in any given family, but in mine, there was a mother who listened to Latin jazz, Sinatra and Bing Crosby, an older brother who played The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Leon Russell, a younger brother who loved Deep Purple and me, whose early choices were distantly MOR. There was also a lot of well-known orchestral music playing (that might have been my mum again), so we were not too cloistered.

I don't feel the least bit nostalgic about this period because the technology was unreliable and prone to damage. Records scratched up easily and stylus needed replacing every hundred hours or so, prompting a dash to the hi-fi department of Grace Brothers to search for a compatible needle. Let's not even talk about the flakiness of cassette tapes! Sure the artwork of LP covers could be interesting and we have lost the tactile experience of sliding a record from its sleeve, gently smoothing off the dust, then gingerly lowering the arm onto the spinning disc, hoping for perfect contact.

Exhibit A



Exhibit B



Exhibit C (with repair kit)