So when did we start using "dropped" to mean "was released"?

[conuly]

And why?

Comments

[siderea]

My observation is that I first observed it used in that sense for hiphop music, exclusively, and assumed it comes from hiphop culture; I would guess it descends from "dropping the mic", but a quick peruse of UrbanDictionary reminds me there are umpteen other senses of "drop" in hiphop and other related music scenes (to kill someone, to pay a lot of money for something, the two old senses about drugs, a technical term from music, a technical term from dance, etc).

ETA: ohohoh! I forgot, and this makes even more sense: the idiomatic "drop some rhymes", meaning to perform improv/freestyle rap, I think pre-dates the sense of drop for whole albums/media recordings. That would be a natural and smooth transition from one to the other.

[conuly]

That's starting to look like the best lead, but maybe it's the amount of work you put in :)

[jack]

My feeling was that that came first but I didn't do any of the research. Do you also drop a beat?