Part 1 (Iceboxes And Refrigerators)

Finding ways of extending the usable life of perishable foods has been a goal of humankind for centuries.  In the 1800’s we began the practice of cutting out large blocks of ice from frozen lakes, transporting them by rail to cities, breaking them into smaller blocks and distributing them by horse-and-buggy to homes.  Companies grew up that crafted (usually wooden) boxes that held the ice in the top and had shelves below for storing perishable foods.  From the mid 1800’s through the 1920’s this was a growing “industry” with many facets: transportation, insulation technology, cutting tools, etc., and, the building of ice boxes became a furniture industry.

In the early 1900’s the first large scale refrigeration technology using ammonia as a refrigerant and powered by electricity appeared allowing ice to be made on a large scale independent of winter frozen lakes and reducing the transportation time and distance. More people had access to (cleaner) ice more often and more iceboxes were crafted and sold. Local stores sold them. The industry grew.

In the late 1920’s, entrepreneur companies experimenting with new (and safer) refrigerants and the miniaturization of compressors, began building and selling home refrigerators.  Electrolux and General Electric were the new names.

This was effectively the end of the “icebox” industry and all its parts, complete with bankrupt companies and lost jobs.

There are two important points to this little piece of history.  None of the companies involved in the icebox industry made the transition—they all went away.  And the new companies that created the “replacement” industry grew up “under the radar” of the old industry—the icebox companies weren’t even paying attention to the obvious changes taking place in refrigeration technology and its implications for transforming the industry.

Iceboxes did not entirely disappear until the 1950’s when electricity finally reached almost all rural areas. So a few of the old companies held on until the bitter end and, even though the end was clear, they never tried to make the transition.  Even though they had thirty years to figure it out.

Part 2 (Victrolas and iPods)

First, it was “the roaring 20’s” and then suddenly, “the Great Depression.”  Popular history often blames the “excesses” of the 1920’s with causing the depression.  And the depression is conveniently viewed as a time when everything came to a screeching halt. I would argue that the technological innovations and social/cultural changes of the 1920’s created a new kind of growth and expectation to which the (then) current rules, regulations, and operating procedures practiced by the government and “captains of industry” could not adapt. They did not see or did not take seriously the massive changes.  The model, or paradigm, they were operating under… broke.

While we visit the Great Depression as a time when everything broke, this is not exactly the case.  Most all the old forms in which people had placed their faith DID break because they could no longer contain the changes.  And that breaking “felt” like everything was broken.  When a big system or paradigm breaks it does feel that way.  But look at this.  During the depression, all kinds of changes that began during the 1920’s continued to happen.  Aviation technology and its uses grew.  There were great advances in architecture. The automotive industry continued to develop and grow.  We went from silent movies to “talkies.”  The development and uses of plastics grew.  The electrical appliance industry continued to grow and develop.  Radio spread and television was born.  The music recording industry continued to innovate and grow.  So, actually a lot was going on and all of it was catering to a new social/cultural/technological mindset that started before the depression. Under the radar.

The Great Depression stretched out while our governmental bodies and new commercial interests figured out how to create new operating procedures and placeholders that would stabilize this paradigm shift.  It took a while.  We had to stop and help the rest of the world “catch up” by ending the ideas of “supreme races” and Imperial Dynasties as outdated methods of human suppression.

We then had a few years of “stability.”  And now we are in the middle of another big shift brought about by even more technological developments and the fact that many of our subcultures realized pretty quickly (by the 1960’s) that all this new “stability” actually just got defined in ways that left them out.  But it took until the “fall” of 2008 for everyone to realize again that the most recent stable paradigm is…broke. Again.  And everything is changing. Again. Financial institutions. Automobiles. Health care. Foreign Oil. The  current “captains of industry” are lost. Again. Including the music business captains.

(So, when am I ever gonna get to the music business stuff, anyhow?)

Now.

It took selling a lot of phonographs (beginning with Victrolas) and televisions, to get us to a place where we could sell a lot of music.  Why televisions?  Because the popularity of televisions sold by appliance stores gave RCA (who also had a record label) places to also sell music.  And 45 rpm and LP’s as well as new phonographs to play them.  Appliance stores selling televisions in the 1950’s became the first national distribution system for selling music owned and controlled by a company that sold both televisions and music.

What’s important about this is that music became a widely distributed product as a result of other technological products—something to play it with and somewhere to sell it.

Today, that chain is entirely broken.  The digitalization of music (which seemed like such a good thing with the advent of the CD), along with the Internet as a distribution system, has led us to a place where music is in many quarters very cheap (and growing) essentially free.  And now, the new “place” of music in the scheme of things, is to sell other products.  Like iPods.  For artists and record companies, etc., music is on its way to becoming more of a “business card” (Hat Tip – KW) that exists mainly to “sell” something else.

And just what is that “something else?” If I knew the exact answer to that I would patent it. But every player in the music world better be finding out: artists, record companies, retailers, distributors, songwriters, etc.  There are lots of experiments going on with this and some are showing great signs of success.  And, just as in past cases of paradigm shift, most of the standard “players” in the business are not looking—just bemoaning the current demise and either hoping things will “get back to normal” or waiting until the “next model” for the industry shows up and proves itself.

Everyone in music who is practicing this “head in the sand” routine should take a lesson from the icebox industry – if you continue to ignore the situation and refuse to learn new things now…well, no icebox company will make the transition.

And, the ice is melting. As we speak.