Today in 1877, Thomas Edison applied for a patent for a Phonograph that uses tin foil cylinders to write and playback music. Steven Lubar in InfoCulture: “With the invention of the phonograph, music had changed. It had become a commodity, something to be bought and sold. And music had become an ‘industry.’… [by the 1920s] The Edison phonograph sounded old-fashioned. Indeed, all recorded music sounded old-fashioned compared to the  radio. In 1924 radio sales boomed, while record sales fell from over 100 million in 1927 to only 6 million in 1932….Sales would not rise again until the industry began seeing radio as an ally rather than a foe.”