Part 27.  “Get Hip To The Beat Daddio!”

The History of the Phonograph. Chapter 5

Welcome Back!

Rudolph Valentino - wow man like whatta Rebel..

Ok, so in the last chapter, we covered the technological revolution that put the record player firmly into the no1 position as the tool for audio playback.

But at the same time another revolution was happening across the western world, especially in America.

In February 1949, RCA Victor released the very first 45rpm single, only 7 inches in diameter it had a large hole in it’s center so that it could be fitted to devices that had an automatic playing mechanism, allowing singles to be dropped down in a stack on top of each other per play.
These singles had a playing time of 4 minutes each side and were made from Vinyl or polystyrene.

Singles were mass-produced and cheap to buy, they were so wide spread that they could often be found on the counter of the local drugstore.

To coincide with this new hobby of collecting singles the Top 40 was started by Todd Storz from the KOWH radio station.

But the single was not so much the revolution but part of it’s fuel.
The revolutionaries appeared on the scene sprouting strange words and listening to far out beats. The Teenager had arrived.

From the country that brought you pancake stacks comes the 45 stacks.. not as nutricious, but certainly tasty..

Before the 1950’s there was almost no transitionary time between childhood and adulthood.  Children were taught to think as their parents, have the same thoughts as their parents and generally act like mini me’s. You either went to school a child and left school as an adult or you enlisted as a child and came back a man.

But starting in the 50’s young people 16-18 started ‘hanging out’ doing their own thing and listening to their own music, they devoured pop music and made it their own, they had enough pocket money to afford 45’s and portable radios, and with the smaller record size came smaller more portable 45 only players. The teenagers didn’t have phonographs, only squares called them that, they played their singles on ‘record players’.  The music scene gave them their own language, and with all that came their ‘own ideas’.

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What started as the 50′s rebel who was like this..

With the advent of the 60’s and Rock’n’roll, this developed even further, the ‘devils music’ made teenagers question authority and believe in the ideals of their own generation. The ‘50’s teenager was old enough to really start to make waves, not the least being in a band and making their own music.

Granted there were also other socio/political factors involved, but for this discourse lets mainly focus on the music side of things.

Ended up like this!  (go Jimi!!)

The fab four, take note of Ringo in his Cross-dressing phase - eat your heart out Bowie.

This was an incredible boom for the record industry, for the music industry, and for radio and television stations.  This is what gave the teenager power. As much as their parents may have been against this new behavior, it was the money that they gave their kids that helped fuel it.

The teenager still drives the music market today. Channel V and MTV’s core demographic is between 12 – 15 years of age.

Also almost a small side note, in 1963 with nothing more than a small tiny splash, Phillips introduced the first compact cassette tape. But it wouldn’t be until this little wonder was a teenager itself before anyone in the music industry would start to take notice.

Some people say that during the 70’s, as people were recovering from the shock of the 60’s, they took the best of the decade before and improved on them. Rock’nRoll, free love and giving young people a voice against corruption and war to name a few.

If you believe this to be true or not,  it’s true as far as the rsord player is concerned.

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT WHY IN PART 28

CLICK HERE for the previous chapter

CLICK HERE for the INDEX of History Of Electronic Music