The Walkman is dead
It has certainly changed the lives of millions of music lovers around the globe. It has definitely been the pioneer and king of portable music, albeit still in the glorious days of analogue music. Even then, the ability to carry your own source of music everywhere you went, and anytime you wanted it, was unheard of. Until the arrival of the Sony Walkman.
Those in their early fifties and forties probably can remember fondly their prized possessions back then. Cassette tapes storing recorded music were the hottest items in town. Who wouldn’t acknowledge that having a Sony Walkman around was the coolest act one could put up, whether to immerse oneself in one’s own world of music, or to impress the fairer sex, or both.
Without doubt, the Walkman was the predecessor of the portable digital music players of the 90’s. From Creative Technology’s Nomad MP3 player to the current king of the hill, the Apple iPod, the world would have been a less entertaining place without the advent of the Walkman. In fact, Sony’s ground-breaking invention spawned a slew of other “personal” products, from portable CD player to music recorder to portable video cameras.
Sad to say, Sony has decided to discontinue the once-irrepressible Walkman after clearing out its last shipment of five models. Analogue music has had a good run, but the digital world has taken over.
Still, after a good 30 years of having successfully paved the way for future personal digital entertainment devices, the Walkman will fade into oblivion with barely a goodbye. We think it is a sad and unbefitting end for this innovation of our modern society, the brainchild of Akio Morita, the cofounder of Sony.
As the Walkman slowly fades away into history as another of Man’s greatest inventions, let us not forget what this brilliant piece of metal innovation has brought to us and let us salute the Walkman one last time as Sony’s most iconic product and perhaps the most well-known Japanese consumer electronics gadget ever. It certainly changed the way how people listen to music, and gave them the freedom of mobility to bring their music with them wherever they went.
If Apple’s Steve Jobs hadn’t seen the Walkman, would he have launched the iPod and created a whole new market for portable digital devices?
