Lo-Fi: A History

1976 wasn't just another year in music. It marked the birth of punk rock and launched alternative culture as we know it. From the gritty stages of CBGB to the first records by the Ramones, Blondie, Patti Smith, and Talking Heads, we trace how a handful of outsiders sparked a move ...  Show more

Ever wonder which pieces of technology changed music forever? From Thomas Edison’s phonograph and the invention of the microphone to the Walkman, the iPod, and today’s streaming platforms, we take a geeky trip through the biggest innovations that transformed how music is created, ...  Show more

If you listen to vintage music, one of the first things you’ll notice is the complete lack of bass. But turn on a Top 40 station today, and you’ll hear song after song with deep, sub-ratting bass tones. So how and why did this change happen? For this episode, we worked with OnePl ...  Show more

When The Beatles came out with Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, it seemed like music had changed forever. Out with the days of 78s and random singles compiled into LPs. Now the act of listening to music was an art in itself! Until it wasn’t. In this episode, Hannah and ...  Show more

As the music industry reckons with racial inequality, one of the first old structures to fall has been a term that dates back to the 1970s. Guest: Nelson George. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite pod ...  Show more

Many of us remember the first portable music device we owned: a transistor radio, a boombox, a Walkman or perhaps an iPod. We might even recall the songs we played on it. But we might be less aware of how profoundly audio technology developments from the 1950s to 2000s changed th ...  Show more