Led Zeppelin may have sung “The Song Remains the Same” in 1973, but how Americans access and listen to music today certainly hasn’t been unchanged. Technology and musicians have altered the way we listen and respond to music.

Before the turn of the 20th century was mostly a do-it-yourself affair. There was folk music, singalongs and in the bigger cities orchestras and symphonies. Thomas Edison created the phonograph in 1877, but recorded sound was limited to 2 to 4 minutes and couldn’t capture the whole range of the musical spectrum. For years Edison’s phonograph was viewed mainly as a novelty and was mostly used to dictate letters and notes.

But an array of tinkerers and innovators took the basics of Edison’s invention and improved on it. By the 1890s music was being recorded on shellacked discs, and microgroove technology increased the amount of music that could be squeezed onto a disc.

But the explosion in the popularity of jazz at the turn of the century spurred further technological advances. The first “supergroup” was the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, according to David Glover, an associate professor of percussion at Slippery Rock University. The band was asked to perform at the Treaty of Versailles signing in 1919 that formally ended World War I.

After that the role of music changed dramatically, according Glover.

“Twenty five years later, it was swing music,” said Glover. “Everybody wanted to have company on the dance floor. It was music tailored to dancing.”

Before World War II, recorded music was only for the rich, and most people got their music from the radio. World War II delayed the creation of television but World War I brought order to the previous wild west of radio which up till then had consisted of amateur radio stations, according to Daniel Dieter, assistant professor of strategic communications and media at Slippery Rock University.

“The 1912 Communications Act canceled crystal radio sets. The Navy took over radio and parceled out all the channels,” said Dieter.

“World War II brought a change to society. It was the big band era. The 1940s was a time of melancholy tunes reflecting heartfelt, inspirational songs absorbed with what people were feeling,” Dieter said.

“World War II shaped music differently than music is shaped now and it influenced the culture at the same time. It was what people were feeling or wanted to feel at the time,” said Glover. It was a chance to think of past good times or looking forward to the life at the end of the war.

“Most people wanted to escape. They turned to music. Music, at least in American society was about dancing. People wanted to dance,” agreed Christopher Bondi, assistant professor of communications at Butler County Community College. “I think we really began to see the effects of popular music as you got into the 1940s. There was jazz, swing, big band.”

At the end of the war, a new market for music developed, the children of the Greatest Generation.

“It was a new market of people with a lot of money, that would be the teenagers,” said Dieter.

Dieter said today the 1950s are viewed today as a placid decade of social conservatism.

But there was an undercurrent of rebels who wanted to be different and shaping it was Elvis Presley. “It made a difference on TV when you could see him swiveling his hips,” said Dieter. “My father told me he completely missed the Beatles because he was listening to ‘50s rock and country music.”

In the 1960s, the Civil Rights movement created its own music. “So much great music came out of that period,” Glover said.

“It was a reflection of the youth movement. Music holds a mirror up to society. So many people were involved in the protests, were involved in the struggle, involved in the political aspects of the music than in any other period prior,” said Glover. “People were fighting back, talking back, trying to get people involved.”

Then the Baby Boomers, the (President John F. Kennedy) assassination, the Vietnam War. We began to question what are we doing fighting wars and the teens began questioning the status quo. When the Beatles showed up that changed everything,” Bondi said.

In the 1960s the question of whether the decade’s music shaped the youth movement or the youth movement shaped the music is a difficult one.

Bondi said, “Maybe it was a little of both, at least when it came to rock ’n’ roll done by younger people. It reflected the general attitudes that were out there in the world.”

But the idealism of the 1960s music gave way to a period of disillusionment with the beginning of the 1970s.

Bondi said “In the 1970s after Watergate we had ‘wondering rock.’ It was more reflective, existential. Where are we? Where are we supposed to go?”

He said wondering rock was typified by groups like America and Kansas and singers such as Jackson Browne.

The role of music has changed dramatically. “People didn’t take popular music all that seriously at first,” said SRU’s Glover. “It didn’t develop until much later. It was not marketed at all. There were lots of small labels but not really a music business.”

Today, Glover said, all music is essentially controlled by three companies that also control television and movies as well.

“It’s changed so much now. Every decade the music business is adjusting in some way to make the most money out of it,” said Glover.

And the adjustments have affected the shape of recorded music. World War II saw the dominance of vinyl records. In the decades since recorded music has gone from vinyl to 8-track and cassette tapes to compact discs to todays’ digital streaming services.

“Obviously technology is large part of the media and how it shapes and advances and reflects music a lot of the times and upon culture,” said Dieter.

And that’s always been the case, Dieter said.

Music historians cite the release of the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” as shifting the emphasis from singles to albums as the most popular form of recorded music.

“One of the changes that appeared in that span of time was it went from singles-based, what we used to call 45s, in the 1970s-90s things got more album based. Before it wasn’t’ as common,” said Jonathan Bagamery, instructor for teaching intro to music and music theory at Butler County Community College. “With streaming it’s gone back the other way. People are streaming individual songs. That’s one change, singles to albums and back again.’

Bagamery said there is still a whole debate over the physical medium, such as vinyl and tapes. “People thought the physical medium (of music) would go away, but I don’t think it ever will. Some people are still buying cassettes. Some people still prefer a hard copy. They want to have a physical object.”

Bagamery, who is 54, said, “Speaking for myself I collect vinyl albums. It’s partially nostalgia from buying records from stores.”

Bagamery said compact discs replaced vinyl records under the claims that CDs were indestructible and would last forever, which wasn’t the case.

“Some say there’s a warmer sound off of vinyl. With digital remastering you are losing some of the sound quality. It’s more authentic and personal on vinyl,” said Bagamery. “Digital content can be removed and changed by whoever owns it. Physical is eternal.”

“The online song that you own can go away. Services fail. You can lose content because a source went under,” Bagamery said.

For instance in 2022, singer/songwriter Neil Young removed his songs from the Spotify streaming service, citing his dissatisfaction with the sound quality of Spotify and his anger at the COVID-19 conspiracy theories put out by the service’s star podcaster Joe Rogan.

Bagamery said one physical medium for music that is today enjoying increased popularity is the extended play recording or EP, a release of three of four songs at a time. “That seems more common than it used to be,” Bagamery said.

Bagamery himself said he was in a band having played music off and on since 1987. He plays bass for a trio, Murder for Girls, and has for the past 10 years.

“A lot of bands I know will put out an EP rather than wait to put out an album,” he said.

SRU’s Dieter said he isn’t hoping for one music medium to make a comeback.

“Not 8-tracks, that was the worst media ever, but it did make us mobile,” said Dieter, but vinyl records are making a comeback.

“It might be nostalgia but in 2021 vinyl outsold CDs to become the second-most popular way to listen to music.,” Dieter said.

Dieter said while broadcast radio is still relevant, it will have to adapt to continue to be so. People can create their own song lists to listen to and podcasts, he said, are better than radio talk shows.

“Radio will have to adapt. It will survive but there has to be innovations. It might have to stop being a mass media and become more individualized,” Dieter said.

Glover said radio remains relevant but not in the same way as it has in the past. He referenced the days of payola when companies paid radio stations to play their songs. Today, he said, music radio stations are locked into formats where the same 20 to 30 songs are played in heavy rotation throughout the day. There are dictated by algorithms forcing the selected songs to be popular by sheer repetition.

“Today, quite a few people get their music from YouTube or the internet,” said Glover. “Anybody can get out there around the world musically. There’s a lot more access musically.”

“Radio is still viable but it’s viable to a smaller number of people,” Glover said.

Asked about radio, Bondi said, “I talk about this in my mass communications class. I wonder how relevant it will continue to be with Pandora, Spotify. Radio will endure in news and sports. Music I’m not so sure about.

“FM pop and rock stations are listened to by a lot of old people. I think radio won’t go away, but who listens to it is going to change,” he said.

“Back in the 50s and 60s, radio was so vibrant. In free form radio, a station would get a record and be ‘Let’s check this out.’ Now the stations do what the computer tells them to do it’s not about what the individual DJ plays,” said BC3’s Bagamery said. He said while small radio stations or college radio stations still use the free form model for everyone else it’s computerized play lists. He noted MTV doesn’t play music videos anymore and hasn’t for a long time.

Most people are exposed to new music now through social media groups, TikTok or specific channels such as SiriusXM or Pandora.

Another change in the musical landscape is the emphasis on individual musical acts.

“Singing in this country has really taken off because of reality TV shows and singing competitions,” said Glover. “There is more interest in singing and playing than ever before. ”

But he said, today there is more emphasis on solo artists than there is in putting a band together.

“There aren’t these big megahit groups out there. They are fewer and farther between. There are more solo artists. It’s easier for them to make it these days, “said Glover. “Band dynamics are challenging,” he said.

“There is no push toward bands for mega pop stardom. Look at Taylor Swift, she’s breaking all the records of the Beatles, Led Zeppelin,” he said.

Bagamery agreed. He said, “Taylor Swift is now a billionaire. You could talk about her being a modern pop star. It’s not just the record, it’s a multimedia event, pushing the song to Apple, Spotify. It’s not just going to local radio stations, it’s YouTube, live performances.”

He noted many of the music stars of the 1970s and early 1980s wouldn’t be successful today because they wouldn’t have the right visual presentation.

There are still innovators out there and still producing music, he said, but just not on the scale of Tayor Swift.

And some innovators today are rejecting the whole rock or pop star route to success.

“People are going to college to write video game music. That’s their whole career path,” Bagamery said. “Of 10 students in my class, two don’t want to go to the top of the charts, they are at home in their studio writing music for video games.”

Bondi said while evolving technology has changed the way music is delivered to listeners, it has also changed music itself and not always for the better.

“I think music today, generally speaking, is processed, homogenized,” Bondi said.

“Paul McCarthy said ‘I’m really happy that our music is positive with messages of peace and love.’ But today the music is very sexualized and with social media it can be put out there and be almost instantly in your face,” Bondi said.

Dieter said with the advent of Auto-Tune also hasn’t been a good thing for music or musicians.

Auto-Tune was introduced in 1997 and can measure and alter pitch in vocal and instrumental recording and performances.

“Auto-Tune makes bad singers sound good. Before you had to have good singers. Now you just have to have bad singers who look good. This is what makes authenticity a big concern,” Dieter said

With Auto-Tune, Photoshop and artificial intelligence, musicians are able to create things that don’t exist in reality. “We are living in a digital age but we are analog creatures,” Dieter said.

But in a digital age, people are still making music the old-fashioned way, by hand.

Dieter noted that there has been a 25% increase in the number of music teachers, which he credited to the pirating of music such as through 2000s Napster file-sharing service with making music more popular.

“The more media we were exposed to, the more we want. People are not stopping playing instruments in their garage,” he said.

“I have students who play instruments. Grabbing a guitar and playing in front of an audience and having a good time, that’s the entertainment factor, and that’s always going to be that,” Bondi said.

But he added learning an instrument needs to be promoted. “We can’t take it for granted. Children at a young age need to be encouraged to play instruments, that’s important, too,” he said.