Statistics
As of 2011, the oldest recording on the list is Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville's Phonautograms which date back to 1853. The most recent is the song "Dear Mama" by 2Pac which came out in 1995 on his album Me Against the World.
Selections vary widely in duration. Both the early Edison recordings and the instrumental "Rumble" by Link Wray clock in at under three minutes; the Edison Talking Doll cylinder is only 17 seconds long. Meanwhile Georg Solti's recording of Wagner's complete Ring Cycle is approximately 15 hours in duration and Alexander Scourby's recitation of the King James Bible is over 80 hours in length.
Read more about this topic: National Recording Registry
Famous quotes containing the word statistics:
“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts—for support rather than illumination.”
—Andrew Lang (1844–1912)
“We already have the statistics for the future: the growth percentages of pollution, overpopulation, desertification. The future is already in place.”
—Günther Grass (b. 1927)
“O for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through! Our statistics are at fault: the population has been returned too large. How many men are there to a square thousand miles in this country? Hardly one.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)