10 Ways Tech Has Changed How We Consume Music

Audio technology has come a long way and continues to evolve. Gone are the days of wax tubes, cassettes, and CDs. We're now living in a digital era where audio hardware, enhanced media formats, and on-demand streaming services determine our music intake. The recent deal between Jay-Z and Samsung has already been labeled a gamechanger with the mobile giant purchasing 1 million copies of his latest album, Magna Carta Holy Grail, and making it available on the Samsung app first before iTunes or Best Buy could get their hands on it. #NewRules should definitely be a theme these days in regards to music reception. Shawn Carter's recent move, however, is just one instance where technology has changed the way we've consumed music throughout the past two decades. Read on to learn about the music-tech revolution.

Before the digital audio compression format was introduced in 1995, we were left with cassette tapes and compact discs to fulfill our satiable music hunger.But thanks to the Internet explosion that transpired during the mid-to-late part of the decade, the MP3 quickly became the standard audio format of choice. Everyone's favorite 90s Windows-based media player, Winamp, can attest to that. With MP3 files capable of minimalizing audio data, computer users easily found themselves spoiled with larger music librarires at smaller memory capacities—expanding the possibilities of media playback leading into the Millennium.

Nothing beats free music. Right? Shawn Fanning, John Fanning, and Sean Parker once believed so, altering the music landscape with their peer-to-peer file service. Napster opened us up to a world where we had the luxury of sharing music files amongst a massive community of nearly 80 millions users (at its peak) without ever spending one penny. With the computer program nearly cutting into half of the music industry's sales in 2000, the virtual dream would become shortlived as Napster ran into its fair share of lawsuits from artists and record labels. However, it planted the seed for future P2P sites, birthing some of the past decades biggest file-sharing platforms such as LimeWire and Megaupload, along with cloud-based services like Dropbox and iCloud.

Apple visonary Steve Jobs envisioned a future where people could play, purchase, and store music through a media library application, which would also operate a groundbreaking portable media player like no other. That vision came true with the launch of iTunes and the iPod. The device's ability to carry anywhere between 5,000 to 40,000 songs meant accessing an entire music catalog on the go without ever worrying about swapping discs or memory cards. Apple's immacualte iTunes ecosystem has also provided us a corridor to play files on all of its machines: including the iPhone, iPad, MacBook laptops, and Mac desktops. If it wasn't for Steve, most of us would probably still be hauling around an MP3 player. Remember those?

There was once a time when you could turn on the idiot box, tune into channels like BET and MTV, and actually watch something other than reality television. We're speaking about music videos, of course. But as the millennium progressed, syndicated programming switched up its content format, leaving viewers little to no options on where to watch the latest music visuals. Then the Internet domain known as YouTube surfaced and immediately became the alternative for such entertainment, while serving as a creative platform for aspiring musicians and terrible Internet celebrities to exploit their talents. Not to mention it also paved the way for other video-sharing sites such as Dailymotion, Vimeo, and dare we say it, WorldstarHipHop.

Just like cable and satellite television went on to change to the way we watched TV, the inception of satellite radio has gone on to do the same for audio airwaves. It's been said that nearly two out of every three new cars sold in the US features a satellite radio, modifying the road warrior's car dash and becoming the official preference for musical intake. Platforms such as SiriusXM only scream in loud volume, having offered millions of listeners’ access to over 1,200 programming channels ranging from music, sports, and all other forms of entertainment throughout the years. That’s far more than what your average AM-FM radio pushes.

The way we consume music today isn't just on the digital end, but also physical. Before the duo of Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine brought the Beats By Dre imprint to life, headphones were perceived as secondary novelties to the media player, ones which lacked the audio and premium presence of your home entertianment speakers. BBD embarked on a mission to give audiphiles the best of both words by producing a pair of headphones capable of blasting ear-piercing sound and that also made for a fashion statement. Nowadays, it's unconventional not to see someone riding public transportation without the infamous "B" on the side of their head. You can catch every other major headphone manufacturer playing follow the leader.

Listening truly is just half the experience and that’s an experience best taken in with an audience. But the majority feels they can't bask in such sonic bliss without the need of an over-the-top speaker system. Audio manufacturers begun to engineer and optimize the sound quality on today’s ultramodern boom boxes, wireless speakers, and even smartphones (reference HTC’s BoomSound technology) to match the output found on most high-end models. At a more affordable price tag as well.

Forget launching iTunes to access your music library. On-demand streaming services have proven to be the future of music consumption. In offering instantaneous access to an artist's entire discography or top hits, along with curated playlists and sharing capabilities, programs like Spotify and Slacker eliminated the need for storing music files—making it easier to simply stream content from any computer-based device such as laptop or smartphone. A true sign of the times embraced by millions of music lovers.

Social media and music seem to go hand-in-hand these days, especially since everyone loves an audience and the industry’s biggest names consistently remain trending topics. And where social domains like MySpace originally failed to bring music discovery to its subscriber base, Twitter’s hoping to succeed via its Twitter #music service. Through a collection of data from personal preferences (followed musicians) to hashtags, Twitter’s engine recommends musical selections and makes life easier by directing listeners to streaming services.

Celebrity phone partnerships predate back to 2003, when Jay-Z himself locked in a deal to have a full version of The Black Album preloaded onto a limited edition version of the Nokia 330. And through the years we've seen other high-profile musicians secure similar deals with other major mobile brands. But it was Hov's recent deal with Samsung that completely changed the blueprint on music distribution. The requirement of downloading an app to access the album in advance was a clever ploy to get smarpthone owners more engaged with their devices on a musical level. It could very well work again if the right musician joins the hustle.