Talk:Jukebox

First Jukebox
A couple of points. The first jukebox has been credited to Louis Glass at a San Francisco saloon in 1877. And the first Wurlitzer juke was dubbed a Debutante (...). Trekphiler 21:23, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

This is not possible since Edison patented the phonograph in 1880. See the sfweekly reference for the proper date of the first jukebox.


 * It might've been a clever hoax to get people to deposit money. You know, sort of how The Turk played chess… There could've been some musicians inside of unusually small stature. I may have even seen a story about in the National Enquirer—if they wrote it up there, it'd have to be true, right? – AndyFielding (talk) 09:30, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Disambiguation
It seems this subject could use a disambiguation page but I'm afraid I don't know how to make one. There shouldn't be several possabilities defined within the article that is not disambiguous. (mswer 03:26, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Am i the only one who has heard the style of car design from the late 50's (paticularly American, though also used by Ford and Vauxhall elsewhere and GAZ in Russia) as "jukebox"? 82.153.230.138 (talk) 22:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

There was jukebox in the 1940's that had a live operator who would ask you what song you wanted. I do not know the name of it.

Images
No images of jukeboxes?! Bill D 17:30, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. :-) Fred. 2006-06-12 23:42 (CET)


 * I've linked Commons:Category:Jukeboxes, which has quite a few images. Perhaps some should be added to the article. Also, I notice that there is one "dead" image linked in the article. - Jmabel | Talk 06:02, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

NPOV
I think this article has issues with NPOV, especially in the "Aesthetic Styles" section. If someone could clean this up, that would be great.--MoMo the Pirate 02:27, 20 August 2006 (UTC) THIS IS THE COOLEST THING TO EVER COME OUT................SIKE

How do jukeboxes work anyway?
Is there an article that teaches how the mechanical systems of jukeboxes work? Thats what I am curious about. this article only talks about history and appearance, not how they work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.63.63.202 (talk) 03:11, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

There is a non-commercial website that discusses jukebox mechanics, including pictures and patent drawings:

www.jitterbuzz.com/jukeboxes_mechanics.html

The site also discusses the aesthetics of the jukebox, the companies that made jukeboxes, organized crime and jukeboxes, and the decline and resurrection of the jukebox. The whole treatment may be found at

www.jitterbuzz.com/juke_box_intro.html

That site is largely devoted to Swing Dancing and Retro Culture, and juke boxes fit in as an essential component. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.59.114.26 (talk) 20:09, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Juke
discuss te origin of the word —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.83.100.136 (talk) 03:23, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Ad/Spam?
The part about Sound Leisure reads like an ad. 66.169.250.241 (talk) 09:31, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Addition: Detailing history and design details of a british Juke Box with the Fender logo
From the mid 80s to the mid 90s I worked within an electronic design company called Baildon Electronics (based in Baildon, Bradford, West Yorkshire) that helped design a CD Juke Box with the Fender logo. I have one of these Juke boxes and most of the schematics and source code for it. I wondered if it may be relevant to place the 'history and design details' under the heading 'Jukebox' or to add a separate article?

Thanks Daveejhitchins (talk) 12:39, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

How a Juke Box works
I became a service engineer within the leisure industry in 1972. The company being called the Gainsmead Group sited in Wideopen Newcastle Upon Tyne England. A chap called Robert Gains-Cooper headed the company up. Its main base was situated in Heckmonwike Yorkshire England. Albert Levey was the then director. Alan Black was the senior Engineering manager, the now owner of Sound leisure. The company changed hands once again and was then taken over by M.A.M. Industries. (Music,Agency,Managment) Headed up by Barry Sullivan. The company changed once again and re-named M.A.M. Inn Play Headed up by Peter Hazelrigg; he changed the operating name to M.A.M. Leisure. I personally worked for the company for some 12 years as an engineer then as service manager for a further 4 years. The company is now no longer operating. The equipment operated was as follows. Seeburg, Rocola, Rowe Ami, Wurlitzer and there main line N.S.M. (Napps, Shultz, Manga) Built in Germany. N.S.M. came in two operating formats. Toriodal selector, and Pin selector. Most Juke Boxes use a pin type memory selector system. Seeburg use the Toriodal system. It needs to be noted that Seeburg sued N.S.M. for infringement of copyright patent that is why we have two types of selector systems within the N.S.M. range. They came to an arrangement with Seeburg and so reverted back to the Toriodal system a much superior system. View Jukebox mechanism (Article) 78.144.177.223 (talk) 22:17, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

78.144.177.223 (talk) 22:45, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

78.144.177.223 (talk) 22:46, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Purpose of a talk page
Information about the workings of a juke box should, logically, be placed on the article page itself, not on this page, which is for discussion of the contents of the article. ♦ Jongleur100 ♦ talk 23:26, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Article talk pages should not be used by editors as a platform for their personal views, nor for casual conversation. Article talk pages are only to be used for discussing improvements to their associated pages. WP:Talk page

First Digital Jukebox
I have removed the below from the article; -- The world's first commercial digital jukebox was demonstrated by TouchTunes Music Corporation of Montreal in May 1994, and becoming available outside Canada in September 1998. The product, named Genesis, had a selection of 750 songs and no ability for instant download.

The above fact is incorrect. The first company to demonstrate a Digital Jukebox was the UK company Sound Leisure in August 1988. The product, named Nimbus, was initially shown to a group of senior trade executives and press at the Cedar Court Hotel in Wakefield and then to general public at the Novotel Previews at Hammersmith in October 1988. The Nimbus was arguably the catalyst for digital jukeboxes as we know them today.)

link to article from UK Coinslot magazine Dated 5th August 1988  --

I did this for two reasons; Firstly it is obviously contradictory. Secondly, neither claim is adequately cited. The TouchTunes claim has no cites at all to back it up. The Sound Leisure claim does have an image of a trade magazine article that goes some way to supporting the claim. However, the source of this image is not a reliable source, and it also only documents a demonstration of the system. There is no evidence that the Nimbus jukebox was ever commercially available, or on what date.

If anyone has refereneces to support one or other of the claims then feel free to reinstate. -- Escape Orbit (Talk) 10:37, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Modern Jukeboxes?
This article appears to be mosly about antique mechanical jukeboxes. Modern electronic jukeboxes seem to be barely mentioned in this article.Landroo (talk) 18:50, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Doing the Laundry
Seeing the jukebox article listed among 'Open Tasks' for having issues with neutrality sort of blew my mind for a moment. I thought , 'How can something as innocuous as the subject of jukeboxes lack neutrality...much less have any sort of point of view to begin with???' 

Well, having examined the article, I see that issue has been taken with the Notable models section. And for good reason. It exists in blatant defiance of 2 of wikipedia's 3 core policies (specifically, this one and this one), in addition to style guidelines that frown upon laundry lists in articles.

Throughly examining the list, I found little explanation for why any of the models listed were actually notable (except, perhaps, to a jukebox enthusiast), with one exception: the Happy Days jukebox...and even that was muddled by being listed as the 1953 Seeburg M100C and then further down the list as the Seeburg Model "G" (although it appears seperate models were used in the credit sequences and the actual diner scenes throughout the series).

In this instance, I'm going to be bold and apply strict accountability to this section, as it makes the article incredibly unencyclopedic in its current form. As such, I am going to remove every jukebox in the list, save one...the aforementioned Happy Days jukebox. And in the case of that particular listing, I am going to leave it as the 1953 Seeburg M100C based on the following findings:


 * Examination of the jukebox in the Happy Days intro | here and comparison with | this model image and then cross-reference to Seeburg product listings | here

My removal of the other listings is not intended to discredit the contributions of the listmaker. The problem is, there's nothing really notable about most of the listed items. I'm sure a couple of them were significant in the history of jukeboxes, but I'm not going to venture a guess as to which they were. I have no doubt that most of the information is pretty accurate, it's just that none of it can be verified and most of it...well, the average reader is going to find it largely uninteresting. I would invite the original listmaker to revisit the section and reincorporate a few of the listings in greater detail (pictures would be great). In other words, the section is Notable jukeboxes - rather than listing every model and its variations from the last, focus on a couple 'gamechangers' and incorporate some interesting facts (that can be verified) about why they were notable (like being the iconic jukebox in Happy Days). --K10wnsta (talk) 19:20, 22 April 2010 (UTC) NOTE: I'm also removing the neutrality and OR tags.

Adding a Link referencing Australian made Jukeboxes
I have a non commercial website that details the history of the only Australian Jukebox company that designed and produced Musicola Jukeboxes from the 40's and ended in the early 60's.

Could you please add it to the links page. www.musicolajukeboxes.com I would also like to add a Musicola Jukebox page to Wikipedia at a later date. Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.173.104.137 (talk) 02:47, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Not a nickelodeon
I am removing the term "nickelodeon" from the lead. A nickelodeon was a small bare-bones early (circa 1905-1915) movie theater that charged a nickel for admission. When it was current, the word was never used to refer to any kind of coin-operated device, or to an amusement arcade. The popular 1949 song Music! Music! Music! ("Put another nickel in, in the nickelodeon...") erroneously used it to refer to some otherwise unspecified coin-operated music-making machine, causing endless confusion ever since. Most people assume the reference is to a jukebox, or possibly a coin-operated player piano. My own best guess is that the lyricist had "orchestrion" in mind as the result of some nickelodeon-era childhood encounter with one, but the right word eluded him.

If some cautionary mention of this persistent error seems desirable in this article, so be it, but even a disclaimer ought to be avoided in the lead paragraph, where it will assuredly serve more to propagate it than quash it. AVarchaeologist (talk) 22:49, 27 October 2012 (UTC)


 * What could possibly justify wandering off into nickelodeons here—that they're both coin-operated and play music? Apples and oranges are both round fruits, but they're, like, apples and oranges. Okay, I've always wanted to use that literally. Did I manage to make some sort of point anyway? Wow, it's possible, innit? Maybe there is a God, and maybe she has a sister who likes writers. – AndyFielding (talk) 09:22, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

What about remotely controlled jukeboxes?
I don't blame anyone for never hearing of them, but they must have been a thing. Listen to the Nightbeat episode of May 18, 1951 entitled Julie the Jukebox Girl. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.177.145.224 (talk) 04:00, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

etymology
the etymology of "nickelodean" needs to be included68.148.186.93 (talk) 19:13, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Jukebox. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130810160707/http://beyondtheperf.com/stamp-series to http://beyondtheperf.com/stamp-series

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 01:31, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Uncited material in need of citations
I am moving the following uncited material here until it can be properly supported with inline citations of reliable, secondary sources, per WP:V, WP:CS, WP:IRS, WP:PSTS, WP:BLP, WP:NOR, et al. This diff shows where it was in the article. Nightscream (talk) 14:10, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

History
Early designs, upon receiving a coin, unlocked the mechanism, allowing the listener to turn a crank that simultaneously wound the spring motor and placed the reproducer's stylus in the starting groove.

Frequently, exhibitors would equip many of these machines with listening tubes (acoustic headphones) and array several of these machines in "phonograph parlors", allowing the patron to select between multiple records, each played on its own machine.

Some machines even contained carousels and other mechanisms for playing multiple records. Most machines were capable of holding only one musical selection, the automation coming from the ability to play that one selection at will.

In 1918, Hobart C. Niblack patented an apparatus that automatically changed records, leading to one of the first selective jukeboxes being introduced in 1927 by the 'Automated Musical Instrument' Company, later known as AMI Entertainment Network.

Many manufacturers produced jukeboxes, including: 1890s Wurlitzer, late 1920s Seeburg, 1930s "Rock-Ola" (whose name is actually based on that of the company founder, David Cullen Rockola), Sound Leisure, and Crosley.

Greater levels of automation were gradually introduced. As electrical recording and amplification improved there was increased demand for coin-operated phonographs.

Styling progressed from the plain wooden boxes in the early thirties to beautiful light shows with marbleized plastic and color animation in the Wurlitzer 850 Peacock of 1941. After the United States entered the war, metal and plastic were needed for the war effort and jukeboxes were considered "nonessential", and so no more of this model were produced until 1946. The 1942 Wurlitzer 950 featured wooden coin chutes to save on metal. In 1946 jukebox production resumed and other companies began production. Jukeboxes started to offer visual attractions: bubbles, waves, and circles of changing color which came on when a sound was played.

Song-popularity counters told the owner of the machine the number of times each record was played (A and B side were generally not distinguished), with the result that popular records remained, while lesser-played songs could be replaced.

Initially, jukeboxes playing 'recorded' music were playing music recorded on wax cylinders. In the early part of the 20th century, the shellac 78 rpm record dominated jukeboxes.

In 1950, the Seeburg Corporation introduced an all 45 rpm vinyl record jukebox. Since the 45s were smaller and lighter, they soon became the dominant jukebox media for the last half of the 20th century.

33⅓ RPM, CDs, and videos on DVDs were all introduced and used in the last decades of the century. MP3 downloads, and Internet-connected media players came in at the start of the 21st century.

The jukebox's history has followed the wave of technological improvements in music reproduction and distribution. With its large speaker size, facilitating low-frequency (rhythm) reproduction, and large amplifier, the jukebox played sound with higher quality and volume than the listener could in his or her home, sometimes music with a "beat" (strong bass, made possible by the large speakers).

While often associated with early rock and roll music (which by at least one source is said to have begun in the mid-1940s), the popularity of jukeboxes extends back much earlier, including classical music, opera and the swing music era (originating in the 1930s).

Models designed and produced in the late 20th century needed more panel space for the increased number of record titles they needed to present for selection, reducing the space available for decoration, leading to less ornate styling in favor of functionality and less maintenance.

Notable models

 * 1933 Wurlitzer Debutante
 * 1947 Rock-Ola 1422 – This was the exterior used for the credit sequences for season 11 of the sitcom Happy Days.
 * 1948 Filben FP-300 Maestro, 78 rpm
 * 1949 Seeburg Select-o-matic

Decline
The invention of the portable radio in the 1950s and the portable cassette tape deck in the 1960s were key factors in the decline of the jukebox. They enabled people to have their own selection of music with them, wherever they were. Jukeboxes became a dying industry during the 1970s, before being revived somewhat by compact disc jukeboxes during the 1980s and 1990s, followed by digital jukeboxes using the MP3 format. The greater selection and track length flexibility of digital jukeboxes offered more for the listener, with lower space requirements and operating costs making jukeboxes more attractive to establishment owners. While jukeboxes maintain popularity in bars, they have fallen out of favor with what were once their more lucrative locations—restaurants, diners, military barracks, video arcades, and laundromats.

Digital jukebox and apps
Most of the digital jukebox services provide apps to request songs and use further features. Most are focused at the end-user and provide the guests of private events with the ability to collectively control the music.

Aiming at public venues, TouchTunes comes with a device most similar to a classic Jukebox, including a touch display to choose music and payment options.

Other services provide both the functionality to control the music at a public venue, to set up a private jukebox or provide wishlists to DJs and radio stations.

Vote to remove "Modern derivatives" section
Yes, personal digital media players and jukeboxes play music, but that's clearly where their similarities end. A company called its personal player a "Jukebox" to exploit the term's colourful, historical associations—but it's an actual "jukebox" like I'm a billionaire. (I'm not, BTW—LOL.) I haven't presumed to delete this section—I'd feel like a vandal doing such a thing without consensus—but it seems an entirely fluffy, irrelevant distraction. Okay then! – AndyFielding (talk) 09:12, 23 May 2023 (UTC)