[kevishev]

I have to take issue with the question in general. So I voted "Other".

Does it matter if the music is made by pounding stick on a rock or a dried animal skin that had been stretched over a hollow tree stump by one or a cave full of mudmen? Does it matter that the same sounds can be made today by one bony finger touching an ivory key hooked-up to all kinds of electronic magic? It's still music is it not?

What has changed is the way "music", in whatever form or genre you want to talk about, is made available to the masses. The most elemental vehicle to this end would undoubtedly have to be the reproduction of music by way of recordings. The mass reproduction and distribution of recordings by the record companies is by far the most influential aspect of this discussion. The advent of radio made the music available to the broad and varied tastes of the consumer. The rest, as they say, is history.

I would vote for radio and recording technology as the most important inventions that have affected the music we hear today.