The oldest vinyl record in the world
The oldest known records in the world arrived shortly after the launch of Emile Berliner’s disc gramophone in Europe between 1889 and 1895. Berliner, a German-born inventor, introduced the gramophone as a revolutionary device for recording and reproducing sound on flat discs, departing from Thomas Edison’s cylinder phonograph. Berliner’s gramophone was the first to use a disc-shaped medium, initially using the inflexible parent of vinyl, shellac.
The earliest recordings made on Berliner’s gramophone were demonstrations of various sounds, orchestral performances, and spoken word excerpts. Sadly, many of these early records have been lost to time or have degraded beyond playability. However, several years ago, Patrick Feaster, a historian at Indiana University, recreated a replica of the first-ever gramophone record made by Berliner using an old photograph of the relic.
In 1948, after half a century of thick, heavy shellac, Columbia Records introduced the first ever vinyl record, the LP (long-playing) record. The first LP was a recording of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor played by Nathan Milstein with Bruno Walter conducting the New York Philharmonic, then known as the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York. The catalogue number Columbia ML 4001 is located in the Columbia Record Catalog, with a publication date in July 1948.
Columbia’s first records were initially marketed as “Columbia Microgroove”, to be played at a speed of 33⅓ rpm. This was a significant leap in audio technology, offering longer playing time and improved sound quality compared to the earlier shellac records. The LP format quickly gained popularity and became the standard for albums, facilitating the rise of global recording titans like Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra.
What was the first ever song recorded?
The first song ever recorded was the traditional French folk song ‘Au Clair De La Lune’. The recording was made on inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville’s phonautograph machine, which he invented in March 1857. The phonautograph consisted of a diaphragm attached to a stylus that traced sound waves onto a soot-covered surface. As a precursor to shellac records, the surface stored analogue data in a sequence of impressions.
What’s the oldest song on Spotify?
The oldest song on Spotify dates back to the 14th century BCE and was discovered on a clay tablet in the 1950s. Titled ‘The Hymn Of Ugarit’, this ancient composition obviously wasn’t recorded 3,400 years ago, but in 2008, Al-Pha-X transposed the ancient carvings into the digital age.
The oldest recording on Spotify dates back to between 1900 and 1920 and appears on the French compilation album Anthologie De La Chanson Française. Although information relating to these recordings, such as specific dates, is markedly lacking, Henri Fursy, Lucien Boyer, Ainé Mevisto and Gabriel Montoya are among the credited singers.
