Today in 1877, Thomas Edison applied for a patent for a Phonograph that uses tin foil cylinders to write and playback music.
Steven Lubar in InfoCulture:
With the invention of the phonograph, music had changed. It had become a commodity, something to be bought and sold. And music had become an “industry.”… [by the 1920s] The Edison phonograph sounded old-fashioned. Indeed, all recorded music sounded old-fashioned compared to the radio. In 1924 radio sales boomed, while record sales fell from over 100 million in 1927 to only 6 million in 1932… Sales would not rise again until the industry began seeing radio as an ally rather than a foe.