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Are Cassettes Back? (Part 1)

Posted by: Alan Cross | Feb 17 2010 12:00AM

Before the age of MP3 players and CD burners, the easiest way to take your music on the road was to make a mixtape–a compilation of your favourite music on a cassette.

At one time, cassettes were huge business. In fact, there was a time in the middle 80s when pre-recorded cassettes outsold everything: vinyl records, CDs–you name it.

Today, though, the format has been pretty much abandoned in most countries. I mean, when was the time you saw a reasonably new car stereo that contained an actual cassette deck. To be fair, I should point out that cassettes still do well in places like India and Indonesia. It’s a legacy technology that still serves a purpose.

But what about a cassette-only record label in the first world? That story next time.
 



Filed Under: Ongoing History of New Music


COMMENTS (4)

Tanya
RE:Are Cassettes Back? (Part 1)
Feb 24 2010 1:31AM
My husband and I recently bought a used vehicle and when he brought it home, I was shocked to find that there was a cassette player in this "2004" vehicle. I was almost a little embarrassed at first thinking "who has a cassette player in their vehicle's these days?" I'm assuming the older gentleman that we purchased the vehicle from must have pre-ordered it this way. I ended up whipping out my old cassette tapes and now listen to them in the car. My son say's the whole cassette thing is so annoying...and gets frustrated trying to find a song on a cassette.

Ryan
RE:Are Cassettes Back? (Part 1)
Feb 21 2010 3:03PM
It's funny, I actually just started a blog about making as many mixtapes as I can this year. Seems we have these tape palyers everywhere; still in our cars, in component players, laying around in the basement. Why not use them? http://istillhaveatapeplayer.blogspot.com

Lucas
RE:Are Cassettes Back? (Part 1)
Feb 17 2010 11:01PM
I agree with Greg. I really hope cassettes stay gone. It's not the quality of the tape I find as bad as the quality of the player. Two sides thematically different appeals to me too. Funny how Nine Inch nails released "With Teeth" on a special two-sided cd/dvd combo and no one has thought to release a cd/cd two side combo...instead of two discs? You could put a lot a music on two sides of a cd.

Greg
RE:Are Cassettes Back? (Part 1)
Feb 17 2010 12:29AM
I hope not. Like most people of our generation, I have much nostalgia over mixtapes. But I listened to a (commercial no less) cassette tape less than a year ago, and the audio fidelity was awful. I know that this will probably be the "appeal" to the target demographic, but cassette tape compression and hiss are NOT musical like reel-to-reel tape, no matter what anyone says. Of course, that's just a guess. They might have another marketing strategy altogether. Will be looking forward to the next part. The real thing I miss about cassettes (ditto for vinyl) is "Side A" and "Side B" allowing the recording to be split into two thematically different parts.

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