The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another

Chapter 6 is about the phonograph and its role in sharing information. Edison invented the first phonograph in 1877. His machine merged the telephone’s ability to receive sound and the telegraph’s ability to write. It comprised a mouthpiece that gathered soundwaves and a diaphragm that recorded and played back sound. Edison’s first machine held less than a minute of poor-quality sound. However, he and his machinist improved the sound quality before presenting their invention at the offices of Scientific American, the country’s premier source of science news. With the phonograph, Edison created a new way to represent information. Sound was no longer ephemeral. It could be recorded and replayed.

Edison’s invention had a profound impact on music. Before the phonograph, live performances were the only way that people—at least, those who had the time and means to attend concerts—could enjoy music. The phonograph democratized music by bringing it into people’s homes. A music industry soon emerged, selling 26 million records by 1906. As Ramirez observes, recordings spurred cross-fertilization between musical genres—such as jazz, blues, and rock and roll—even as musicians themselves remained physically separate and segregated by race politics: “Blacks and whites did not socialize, but phonograph records crossed these racial divides, enabling white and black musicians to hear and borrow styles from one another” (154).

The invention of magnetic cassette tapes in 1977 fueled the industry. Making cassette tapes entails translating sound waves into electricity to prompt magnetic patches on the tape to produce strong or weak magnets. This binary language is important because it is the language of computers.

In 1952, IBM engineers led by Jacob Hagopian invented the hard drive using a disk to record data like a record player. Hagopian created two-sided polyvinyl music disks that offered more area for music in a smaller amount of space. This advancement led not only to the hard disks in computers but also to large internet data centers. IBM’s first commercial hard drive, the Random Access Method of Accounting and Control (RAMAC), was the size of two refrigerators yet held only five megabits of data. The invention of silicon chips allowed for the storage of more data in smaller spaces. This miniaturization of data impacted music storage. Music could be stored in an ethereal form as a digital file, changing how people experience and share it.

Computers brought about a major transformation in the recording industry because they enabled the digitization of music and the advent of streaming. Ramirez explains the importance of magnetic technology to digitization: “Before those large warehouses of information—and our music—were possible, the hard disk had to be born. That birth required coaxing magnetic dust to behave” (156). With digitization, streaming companies gather information about users, including what they listen too, when, and how often. They also amass data about where the listener is and who is around them. These companies then profit by sharing the data they collect with other businesses, agencies, and advertisers: “When Edison created his phonograph, he looked forward to the day when music would be shared […] But these days we are not only given music to enjoy from platforms; information about us is being taken, flowing from our devices, and then sold to other entities” (164).