The history of portable music. from walkman to streaming

It could be said that music, even the most primitive, has always accompanied the human being. We have always been able to memorize, hum and remember the melodies… But it was not until 1979 when the songs began to accompany us wherever we went in a literal way. Why? Because that was the year in which Sony presented its first Walkman, a new gadget that allowed us to play the legendary cassette tapes anywhere, anytime. It was the beginning of portable music, a revolution that still continues today.

The history of portable music. From Walkman to streaming

After the Walkman, the manufacturers gave us another pleasant surprise. It was the turn of the Discman, which we could define as a renewed version of the Walkman. Its function was the same, but it no longer played cassettes, but CDs. It became popular during the 80s and 90s and involved several changes. With the Discman the audio quality was significantly improved and, contrary to what happened with tapes, CDs could not be copied.

For many years, CD was the king of portable music. It even remained on the throne when the MP3 arrived, whose first players began to be sold in the late 90s. It is true that there were users who made the leap to this new format, but it was not until the arrival of the iPod when the CD stayed unseating . Apple introduced the first iPod in 2001, a device that became the best portable audio player. It offered more capacity and quality than any other and was the fastest and best designed. Apple soon saw its potential and in addition to offering it as a music manager for Mac O S computers, it also opened it to Windows users.

The rest of the story we already know because we still live it. Now also smartphones and tablets act as portable music players. In fact, it is one of its most important functions. In addition, the Internet allows us to listen to any song that comes to mind. We just have to search for it and download it or listen to it in streaming, that is, play it online without having to save it previously. It is a way to listen to free music. Click here and you will see that there are rates, such as the T-Mobile Simple Choice Plan, which include all the music streaming that we want without being charged for the data.

And all this musical revolution is completed with apps. Through applications such as Spotify, Apple Music or Google Play Music we can listen to the music in streaming. There are also radio apps, like iHeartRadio or Nextradio. Others, like Shazam, are able to recognize what song is playing and there are even almost intelligent apps, like Songza, that offer you a list of titles depending on your mood or the tasks you are going to do. It is clear that from the Walkman to streaming has changed, a lot, our way of listening to and transporting music.