As I write these remarks, it is the final year of what has been an extraordinary century for music. From ragtime to raggae, classical to jazz, boogie-woogie to bluegrass, swing to psychedelic, rock 'n' roll to rap, blues to bop, punk to pop, techno to hip-hop and every genre in between, the past hundred years has seen the introduction of a staggering number of new forms of popular musical expression, as well as a seemingly infinite number of variations on those forms.
This country's single greatest innovation in the world of music, however, has been the creation of technologies that have enabled us to record and preserve musical performances. Prior to the commercial release of wax cilinders in 1890, individual moments of musical genius could live on only in memory. If you weren't there when the song happened, you could only hear about it - you could never actually hear it. Now, with recording technologies in every format, performers and musicians can live on through their recordings forever and listeners have access to vast catalogues of music spanning the entire century and every conceivable genre of music.
This country's single greatest innovation in the world of music, however, has been the creation of technologies that have enabled us to record and preserve musical performances. Prior to the commercial release of wax cilinders in 1890, individual moments of musical genius could live on only in memory. If you weren't there when the song happened, you could only hear about it - you could never actually hear it. Now, with recording technologies in every format, performers and musicians can live on through their recordings forever and listeners have access to vast catalogues of music spanning the entire century and every conceivable genre of music.
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