John Lagomarsino at The Outline:
Skeuomorphic design, where user interfaces emulate the appearance of physical objects, has been popular for pretty much the history of personal computing. The ideas of “files,” “folders,” and the “recycle bin” in Windows could be considered skeuomorphs, intended to help transition early computer users from analog to digital, as could the idea of an “inbox” and “outbox” in email and the paperclip that symbolizes attachments. More recently, a lot of early iOS apps were famous for their heavy-handed skeuomorphic elements, with felt textures and chunky drop shadows.
But no area of computing has so thoroughly gone for it more than audio software.