The Ongoing History of New Music, encore presentation: The rise and fall of the MP3

In 1994, a former fibre optic technician named Ricky Adar was given a presentation of some new technology.

Adar, who is British, had recently turned his attention toward the music industry. He’d become besotted with this new thing called “the internet” and believed it could be used to sell and distribute music online.

Again, this is 1995. The internet had just opened for public use and not a lot of people were thinking about it yet. But Adar believed in his vision.

As he was looking everywhere for funding, he met Karlheinz Brandenburg who worked at the Fraunhofer Society, a publicly owned research organization based in Germany. He, too, had a vision—but like Adar, no one wanted to hear about it.

After years of work, Brandenburg and his people had developed a software algorithm that had been chosen as the international standard for compressed audio on these new-fangled things called “CD-ROMs.” The technology was called “ISO-MPEG1-Audio Layer 3”—or “MP3” for short. But few people seemed to care about the new algorithm outside of some very narrow applications.

But Adar got it right away. “Do you realize what you’ve done?” he asked Brandenburg, “You’ve killed the music industry!”

Brandenburg was taken aback. “That’s not our intent. And frankly, I don’t think we’ll do it.” Famous last words, right?…

A few months later, people at the Fraunhofer Institute noticed that something weird was going on. Newsgroups started by early adopters of the internet were discussing the potential of Layer 3 software when it comes to encoding music. Shortly after that, song files started being traded online.

This was the beginning of the rise of the MP3. And yes, it did kill the music industry—at least the old one that insisted on selling fans their music on pieces of plastic. The MP3 brought music and the industry into the digital era.

The MP3 had a spectacular rise. The tech was everywhere. But like almost everything in this universe, it has a finite lifespan. It’s still with us and in many ways is still ubiquitous in some circles, but things have changed. This is the rise and fall of the MP3.

As usual, we have this playlist from Eric Wilhite.

The Ongoing History Music can be heard on these stations. Don’t forget that there’s a podcast version, too, in case you miss any episodes. Get them for free wherever you get your podcasts.

Don’t forget about my other podcast, Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry. If you love true crime with your music, you’ll love this. Get Uncharted wherever you get your podcasts.

© 2025 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.