ABSTRACT
Compact Disc Digital Audio has been with us for 35 years, an enormous achievement for any consumer music format, and in that time has sold in its billions, making the recording industry massive profits in the process. The compact disc music single effectively disappeared around the mid-2000s, having begun to decline as early as 1997 in the US. During the course of designing the compact disc, a decision was made to set the play length at 74 minutes, allegedly so a single disc could play Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in its entirety. The Compact Disc Group was formed in 1983 and brought together the hardware manufacturers and the record labels to promote the compact disc. The compact disc can be seen as a transitional format in some respects, bridging the gap between physical analog music formats and virtual digital ones.
