ABSTRACT
In the last decades of the 20th century, sales of vinyl records plummeted as new technologies and new formats for listening to music entered the market. In the 1980s, music cassettes became popular – they were smaller and more convenient and, unlike records, they could be listened to while on the move – either in the car or on the new Sony Walkman personal cassette player, launched in 1979. In the 1990s, the compact disc became the format of choice. Consequently, at the beginning of the 21st century, vinyl was virtually dead. Compact disc sales were also in decline due to the emergence of digital downloading, music sharing and streaming. The future, it seemed, was digital and intangible.
