A Walkman obit: Remembering the portable player

索尼宣布停止生产随声听

The Walkman, the Sony cassette* device that forever changed music listening before becoming outdated by digital MP3 players and iPods, has died. It was 31 years old. Sony announced Monday that it ceased production of the classic, cassette tape Walkman in Japan, effectively sounding the death knell* of the once iconic*, now obsolete* device.

The Walkman is survived by the Discman.

It will continue to be produced in China and distributed in the United States, Europe and some Asian countries. Digital Walkmans are also being made with models that display lyrics and have improved digital noise-canceling technology.

Still, if you’re looking to chisel* a date in the Walkman’s tombstone, then Oct. 25, 2010, is as good as any. For many, that it’s taken this long is surprising: “They were still making those?” Perhaps Oct. 23, 2001, the day the iPod was launched, is the better date of expiration*.

But none of the success of Apple’s portable music players would have ever happened without the cassette Walkman. Some 220 million have been sold since the first model, the TPS-L2, debuted in July 1979. (It retailed for US$200.) At the time, transistor radios were portable*, but there was nothing widely available like the Walkman.

It was developed under the leadership of Sony founders Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka. Morita insisted the device not be focused on recording but playback, a relatively odd notion at the time.

Originally called the “Soundabout” in the United States, the Walkman was an immediate sensation and a revolution in music listening.

Foremost, it was portable. Music no longer needed to be something that one experienced sitting in a room, but could be played on the bus, while jogging* on a beach or studying.

Music, previously listened to in a room with carpeting and a stereo, was cast into the world, made a part of daily life.

More than portability, it fostered a personalization to music, a theme the iPod would also highlight in those early dancing silhouette ads.

The Walkman was also the father of the mixtape. For the first time, music was something you could make yours by arranging it and swapping it.

The Walkman didn’t disappear so much as it was improved. Sony continues to use it as a brand, but the company long ago ceded* hipness and style to Apple.

(SD-Agencies)