The first recording was made by Thomas Edison in 1877 on a tinfoil cylinder phonograph of his own creation. He was not the first to try to record sound but he was the first to succeed. The first words recorded were “Mary had a little lamb.” Edison's tinfoil cylinder phonograph was succeeded by the gramophone. The two machines used vastly different technologies to relay sound. Later, with the jukebox, songs came in cylinders and this became the premiere form of recording, producing and storing sound until 1929 when they stopped being produced. This occurred because of the invention and proliferation of the disc shaped “gramophone record”. In 1890 the world's first juke-box was introduced on November 23rd at the San Francisco Palais Royal Saloon. The machine made an astounding $1000 in the first six months of operation. The popularity of these devices made the creating of juke-boxes boom.

The cylinder and the disk vied for prominence for several years and the disc finally won out. Initially, cylinders were kept in cardboard tubes with cardboard casing at each end. The tubes did not include any identifying information about the singers or writers whose work was contained inside. Later they would have these markings, but initially the cardboard tubes were covered with a generic label from the issuing company. Both discs and cylinders had a limited shelf life and could only be played a limited number of times. Generally speaking, the cylinders could last a little bit longer than the discs. The one major advantage of discs was that they themselves, as well as the machines needed to play them were cheaper than their corresponding parts in the world of musical cylinders. In 1908 Columbia was the first company to put grooved recordings on both the sides of the disc, a practice that became a standard in the industry. After this, Columbia also made another change. They switched all of their energy onto making discs, where previously they had been manufacturing both discs and cylinders. This switchover really hurt the cylinder industry. Even though other company continued to sell cylinders to those customers who could afford them, this point in time was the beginning of the end cylinder use. Still, there are still cylinders in existence that can be listed to over 125 years later.