A Moment Of Silence For the Sony Walkman

It has happened. After some thirty years, Sony has discontinued production of the cassette Walkman. For those old enough to remember, the Walkman was the first portable music device. It is the forefather of the iPod. It allowed us for the first time to carry our music with us. It created a personal, isolated world, a soundtrack for life. It changed the way we listen to music.

Previous to the Walkman, listening to music was a static activity. Record players are not that portable, and while portable record players that played 45s did exist, it was a huge hassle to gather up the records and pack up the turntable just so you could listen to records at your friend's house. Plus, you needed headphones if you wanted to listen in private and headphones were a luxury that few had or could afford.

The first Walkman appeared in 1979. It came equipped with a faux leather carrying case and headphones. The buttons were big and chunky and it had second headphone jack so two people could listen. Battery life was about three hours. It was originally marketed in the US as the Soundabout, but trademark difficulties necessitated Sony use the name Walkman worldwide, thereby creating a popular culture icon. Incredibly Sony has sold over 200 million units since the device was introduced.

In the early 1980s, the Walkman turned the cassette into the dominant format, outselling LPs. With the ubiquity of home cassette recorders, consumers could create their own so-called mix tapes by cherry picking favourite songs off albums. Blank cassette sales soared and the record companies countered by releasing new albums on high-quality tape complete with liner notes printed so small you needed a magnifying glass to read the lyrics and production credits.

The Walkman morphed into other models like the Sport Walkman that was designed for joggers and outdoor use. It was even waterproof. Scuba divers listened to music. Just kidding. There was a version that had an AM/FM radio and one that could record as well as play back. It was a Walkman with a radio that provided my contact with the outside world during the Great Blackout of 2003, when the northeastern corner of the US and southern Ontario suffered a huge power failure.

While Sony has stopped manufacturing the cassette Walkman, the CD version will still be available along with third-party knockoffs. But for many, the Walkman will fondly live on, if only vicariously through an iPod.