"... moan to myself, Oh, I can’t go on tour. That’s a real positive thing to do, clearly. So I decided that I wasn’t going to do that anymore and get up and do stuff. I decided I wanted to make an EP. Not an album, just an EP with a few songs. I have a huge EP collection of my own. I love it because you can really get into a small amount of tracks, and that’s what the kids love now. They love EPs! And not only that, they love cassettes."
Said Ringo Starr, interviewed at Vulture.
I've thrown out everything cassette-related. Cassettes are back?! I'm getting my information from an 80-year-old man who hasn't left the house more than 8 times in the past year.
But now I see they've just issued a new cassette version of Nirvana's "Bleach." And last July, NME investigated: "Who the hell is buying cassettes in 2020?/NME investigates/It seems UK music lovers are currently revelling in rectangular nostalgia — there's already been a 103% increase in cassette sales in 2020."
Last week, NPR reported "Lou Ottens, Inventor Of The Cassette Tape, Has Died":
Born in 1926, Ottens went from building a radio for his family during World War II — it reportedly had a directional antenna so it could focus on radio signals despite Nazi jamming attempts — to developing technology that would democratize music....
True to their do-it-yourself roots, cassette mixtapes have long been a favorite of punk and rock fans. But their legacy also looms large in hip-hop, where aspiring rappers and producers have used the approach to showcase their ability to chop up other music and create something new. The mixtape ethos has survived — and even thrived — despite the move from magnetic tapes to CDs and digital formats....
[I]nterest in the format has surged in recent years... driven by a mix of nostalgia and an appreciation for tapes' unique status as a tangible but flexible format....
Mixtapes! Do you have any good mixtape stories?
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86 comments:
The kids discovered the Walkman. Retro chic!
Sent my wife a mixtape as a gift when we were dating. She still talks about it. That was 27 years ago!
there's already been a 103% increase in cassette sales in 2020."
does that mean, they sold TWO of them this year? (and rounded up?)
Back in the day, we'd take the extra-long (90 minute? 120?) and straight record our favorite radio stations to play back on Navy deployment. I've got one still left from a SAn Diego rock station in 1990; too bad I can't play it anymore.
I don't have good mixtape stories. My bad mixtape stories:
Back when music was transitioning to digital that you could steal, the kids in the office ripped some CDs with 70s music as a gift for us. They had no memory of the time so it was interesting what they chose to elevate vs what we listened to at the time. There were lots of one hit wonders...
An acquaintance had her spouse die suddenly and her friends and family collected all the messages he had left on their answering machines. We had them professionally mixed and manipulated into a poetic love story that she cherishes...
I found some otherwise very expensive Pimsleur language programs at bargain rates on cassette through eBay. Nobody else wants them in that format. These tapes are very useful for reviewing what you already know. Lessons are 30 minutes a side each which is a prefect length for cardio activities.
rehajm said...
The kids discovered the Walkman. Retro chic!
Can Betamax be far behind?
http://columbiaclosings.com/pix/21/03/mixtape.gif
I can relate. I put together a Christmas song mixtape over the course of about 15 years. At first I had to track down rare 45s and odd finds (Found the "Rudolph" soundtrack in a cut-out bin in Belks!). Eventually I got it down to all sourced from CD (though the Four Seasons "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" is much better in the single mono mix). Had the same thing for summer songs.
Now I can cut an MP3 CD or in my current car just a USB stick and have hundreds of custom songs with no chance of it being eaten..
Did Guardians of the Galaxy have an impact on this retro reinterest?
Do you have any good mixtape stories?
Nope. But I can still hear a song on the radio and sort of be disappointed because it isn't followed by certain other song the way it was on some mix-tape I had back in the 80's.
Just turned in the 2003 Lexus that I drove forever. Had a cassette player that I only started using about 3 years ago. The last tape played was a TDK with Springsteen Born to Run on Side A and REM Life's Rich Pageant on Side B. Kids were puzzled by the FF and REW features where timing takes a bit of skill.
"Cassettes are back?"
My teenaged grandnephew is enamored with cassettes and Walkmans. Go figure.
Still have a car with a cassette player. Do new cars even play cds?
"Can Betamax be far behind?"
I still have mine!
I put together a Christmas song mixtape over the course of about 15 years
Oh! That reminds me of one more- a client we deal with has for years in lieu of Christmas card has produced a mix tape. Formerly cassettes we started getting them in the CD age. They are a blend of traditional and subversive hard to find Christmas and Hanukkah ditties. Encased in a CD jewel box with original artwork and a wonderful satirical letter that's a summary of the year's events on the inside of the jacket. A couple years ago he went full digital, so now it is not so fun...
@gilbardoes that mean, they sold TWO of them this year? (and rounded up?)
Nah, they sold 100 by this time last year and now they've sold 103.
The media chooses the metric that fits the narrative, and being innumerate are deaf to how they sound.
If cassettes were the largest seller, but had been declining for years, they'd say "largest seller".
Since cassette sales are tiny, they talk about %-age growth.
Just like they do with shark attacks, "assault rifle" deaths, or any other rare and trivial occurrence they wish to magnify. Bloom County was parodying this in the 80s, and doubtless was not the first...
Readering said...Still have a car with a cassette player. Do new cars even play cds?
My car (2003) plays both cassettes and CDs. But it has no plug in for a smart phone.
Ray Dolby died in 2013, although Dolby Labs still exist.
Paddy-O, I don't know if Guardians had an influence on this trend or not, but when my son dressed as Starlord for Halloween about five years ago, I scoured several thrift stores in an attempt to find a Walkman to go with his costume (my own Walkman having been thrown out many, many years ago). I thought for sure I'd be able to find one, but no such luck!! I was honestly surprised. I still look every now and then just out of curiosity, but I've never spotted one.
The cassette revival seems like a very niche phenomenon, but I think he might be right about EPs.
hmmmm
someone asks ... Do new cars even play cds?
So, someone tells us about their EIGHTEEN YEAR OLD CAR!!!
The last time I had a new radio installed in my car (last year), it was hard to find one a single dash slot one that still had a CD player. I think there was only one in the Best Buy lineup. I wanted that, along with the USB connector because I like to leave a CD of Nightvale MP3s in the player that I can switch to on long drives without having to find my place again while generally listening to my random jukebox on USB stick. I didn't realize it also came with a microphone which they installed without asking me -- I ripped that sucker right out.
(And it took a long time and an email to Best Buy's privacy director or whoever to get them to stop sending me email -- with no unsubscribe links).
"I'm getting my information from an 80-year-old man who hasn't left the house more than 8 times in the past year."
Says our 70 year old Professor who still listens to the 80 year old's music.
Did I miss something about the last year that might mitigate this elderly person (who lives in the UK) from going outside MORE than eight times?
i'm sorry, i don't have time to keep listening to all this about love of obsolete tech
the tubes on my Fender Twin Reverb have warmed up, so it's time to practice
"Ray Dolby died in 2013, although Dolby Labs still exist."
When I put together my audio system in the early 1970s I chose a reel-to-reel drive to record. Cassettes decks (or, at least, consumer ones) were just coming out but weren't quite up to the sound quality I could get from reel-to-reel. Also new on the market was a Dolby noise reduction box that did wonders at suppressing tape noise. It is 3" x 6" x 10" (I just measured it).
Haven't played those tapes for many years. Wonder what condition they are in.
Before the cassette, there was this: In 1958, following four years of development, RCA Victor introduced the stereo, quarter-inch, reversible, reel-to-reel RCA tape cartridge. A college friend had the player, which was the size of a bread box.
Haven't played those tapes for many years. Wonder what condition they are in.
I read an interesting article several years ago. It was about studio tapes, but I think the same general situation would apply to consumer reel-to-reel.
Anway, the thrust was that tapes up until I think the mid-70s were lubricated with whale-oil, and all of those were still fine (if they had been well cared for). After that, they switched to petroleum based lubrication and those tapes quickly went gummy. The cure was to carefully bake such a tape -- before playing it for the last time. So you had a situation where to get good digital masters from some classic albums you had to risk ruining the analog master (if you didn't bake it just right) without actually being able to use it in the digital conversion.
NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...I can still hear a song on the radio and sort of be disappointed because it isn't followed by certain other song the way it was on some mix-tape I had back in the 80's.
On one of my mix tapes, I friend of my annoying little brother taped over a couple seconds of the Talking Heads' Road to Nowhere with a pointless message of his own. I'm sure it seemed a harmless prank at the time, but there was no simple way to fix it. Even though that tape was lost or destroyed decades ago, whenever I hear the song, I anticipate the interruption of his voice and feel slightly off balance when it doesn't happen.
Interesting, Churchy!
I taped in the early and mid 70s. I just checked some tapes. Not gummy. They looked pretty good, too. I know from experience they lose the highs over time. The useful thing about Dolby Noise Reduction is that it works by boosting the highs at recording and then attenuating them upon playback. Turning it off at playback brings the highs back. I tried this years ago, and it worked well.
Hisssssssssssssssss.
Yeah. I really miss cassettes.
Ringo and cassettes.
Now do Tony Bennett and 78s.
How many of this blog's younger readers have heard of 78s? Born after, oh, 1985. Show of hands, please.
I'm a 70-something who isn't dead, yet. Well, vinyl was declared to be dead. Now making something of a comeback as I just saw newly issued records and players at Walmart. Cassettes were dead but my 94 pickup has a cassette deck I play all the time. VHS was/is dead but I have over a thousand tapes and a half dozen tape decks picked up cheap at thrift stores (including Blazing Saddles). I don't know if DVD's are dead but have several DVD players just in case. Someday we will all be dead but then I probably won't care anymore.
"Hisssssssssssssssss
Yeah. I really miss cassettes."
Not if they were recorded with Dolby.
My car (2003) plays both cassettes and CDs. But it has no plug in for a smart phone.
For those who don't know, you can (still) buy adapters with a miniplug on one end and cassette on the other. Works for smartphones and other devices like my portable XM radio.
Before the cassette, there was this: In 1958, following four years of development, RCA Victor introduced the stereo, quarter-inch, reversible, reel-to-reel RCA tape cartridge. A college friend had the player, which was the size of a bread box.
There's a surprising amount of weird and/or ahead-of-their-time recording and playback devices, including wire recordings. British dude who has a YouTube channel called Techmoan gets into it. One of them was some long-form built-in radio-receiver recording device; he found one intact and played back a brodcast of hits and such from what, 60 years ago.
I don't think the cassette revival, such as it is, will be as robust as what's going on these days with LPs. The tapes are more fragile--even if they don't physically decompose, the electromagnetic storage just degrades over time; and I understand production of new tapes is scarce--I read a story claiming high-quality production doesn't exist anymore. Same with playback devices.
Last year vinyl sales surpassed cds I believe.
I play dvds from Netflix and public library all the time. Even have a portable to use in hotle rooms.
"Not if they were recorded with Dolby."
Better, but did not eliminate tape hiss in my experience. And I had pretty good gear back then.
In the 70s in LA, guy in the next apt and I threw a Plain Wrap party - the blue on white bags and cans that only said Peanuts, Potato Chips or Beer, etc. Made 2 cassettes of songs that had to be about night. Graham Parker's "Endless Night", Bruce's "Night", Bill Nelson's "Ships in the Night" etc. It and rest of cassettes are in a box earmarked for a vintage records store. Will probably sit for a year.
"Better, but did not eliminate tape hiss in my experience."
Didn't eliminate it, but reduced it to a level that I found preferable to the noise of vinyl.
I've got a few casset albums left and 1 or 2 "casssingles". I've also got a fair number of sealed, blank cassettes that I bought in the early 90s. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like those are worth too much... yet.
gilbar said...
i'm sorry, i don't have time to keep listening to all this about love of obsolete tech
the tubes on my Fender Twin Reverb have warmed up, so it's time to practice
Whack the dash on your '57 to wake up the oz4 ..
Sold my 1980s Walkman on E-bay years ago. Made money on it. Still worked perfectly. My Maxell Cassettes still sound great. Bought AM-FM-CD-Cassette, (Sony), two months ago. Brandenburg Concertos ride again!
"Can Betamax be far behind?"
Yes, very far behind. 8-track on other hand, is gonna make a come back real soom now! Now get off my lawn.
Never made mixtapes, just recorded albums to cassettes. Nowadays I make mixtapes using youtube.
I wonder who will be the last surviving Beatle and if I will outlive them. I don't hold out any hope of outliving any of the Rolling Stones. Life is so unfair....So far as I can remember, no one mourned the passing of the 78's. There were, however, people who liked the old time radio dramas. I have very early childhood memories of Lux Radio Theater. ... The first time I remember anyone dying was Baby Snooks. Baby Snooks was Fanny Brice who had a radio show at the tail end of her career. She died in 1951.
They might as well buy cassette tapes. After all that shouting at the heavens over Orange Man the hipsters can't hear anything below 200Hz or above 12kHz.
"Do new cars even play cds?" Well I have a 2019 Mazda 3, which does not have a cd or cassette player as an option. It will play pretty much anything recorded to a usb stick, so if you have cds and cassettes that you can record into mp3s or some such you can coy that to a usb stick and play them in the car that way. I have a bunch of cds that I ripped and they work just fine on a usb stick in the Mazda.
Courtney Moore, the New American Girl Doll, is from the 80s. She has a Walkman and plays cassettes. My 10-year old granddaughter is playing cassettes all the time these days. We had thrown most of ours away, but had a few left to pass along. Turntables came back, why not cassettes? I wouldn't bet on 8-tracks, though.
Maybe cassettes are becoming attractive because of ease of use. When I first started having to deal with computers to play music, my reaction was "WTF, how dumb is this?" Still pretty much my view on the topic.
Readering said...
Still have a car with a cassette player. Do new cars even play cds?
I have pretty new car — 2019 model year.
Two USB inputs. (One in the glove box, into which my 80GB iPod Classic is permanently plugged.)
Apple Car Play.
Two SD card slots.
AM/FM
... and ...
A CD player.
Ringo is smarter and gets out more than Biden.
A friend of Paul Simons went to Cape Town South Africa and made a mixtape (kinda) of the rhythms that he used for Graceland, eventually. Cassettes were useful.
I have a box of audiobooks on cassette tape. I hope they still work. I kept planning to transfer them to digital but never got around to it. The problem with tape is the audio tape always kept getting jammed up - or breaking. I can't count how many times I had to unspool some tape from the reels because it decided to "Jump the cassette" and got spooled around the cassette thing-a-ma-jig.
First records, then Tape, then CD's, now digital.
The music companies have made a fortune off their format changes.
78 rpm or you're not serious.
Needs a lot of dampening in cars, though.
Thing was the timing. Friend got an 8-track recorder. thing wasn't cheap in 69. Now listening to the radio with him he's bouncing back and forth to stop the recording and start the recording and yikes. But back then the University of South Florida's radio station WUSF would play entire album sides, after midnight on Saturdays or something. I think I used his recorder to make a mixed tape for somebody who'd loaned me an 8-track that I'd lost in Nashville. Had Yesterday on it. That song wasn't released with an album. I got pretty good opening those cassette tapes and splicing the tape back together.
Ringo plays drums.
Biden can ride a bike.
But back then the University of South Florida's radio station WUSF would play entire album sides, after midnight on Saturdays or something.
They're still around, and streaming now, but at night they play all Jazz. I listen quite frequently, but have to blank out the hourly NPR newsbreaks for my blood pressure.
I remember 8 track, My old disgusting used 1974 AMC Hornet had one, when the heads switched to a new track it would often blow a fuse. When I got out of school and got a good job I got a clarion cassette player and a new car, I would drive 19 hrs with few stops for gas from home to Leadville CO with nothing but steely dan and John Hartford cassettes. Quoted from my memoirs "An Old Man Speaks."
I invoke Poe's law, I do not have a memoir.
Let us not forget that tape cassettes were used as the data storage medium for the Commodore 64 home computer, which Fred Flintstone must have used.
Smart Young People .vs. Stupid Jackasses<
These kids today. Take a knee, Progressives, left, right, and center.
When I was a boy, say early-mid Seventies, I got a cassette player/recorder with am/fm radio.
I could record songs off the radio. Made what the brainiacs called a "mix tape" way back then. Spent hours trying to untangle the tape, rewinding with a pencil.
Not sure this technology even exists today.
Panasonic, by the way-
Let us not forget that tape cassettes were used as the data storage medium for the Commodore 64 home computer,
Same with TRS-80s.
"Let us not forget that tape cassettes were used as the data storage medium for the Commodore 64 home computer, which Fred Flintstone must have used."
And my Radio Shack TRS "trash" 80, with 4Kbytes of ram. I was a spendthrift so I had an 8" floppy drive for my Commodore. I liked writing data to the cassette drive. it started, wrote a word stopped and wrote another, no buffering. {unless I was stupid and did not know the best option to use.)
I remember the last batch of tapes I bought. The ceramic casing tape. It was a work of art. You had to be special to get one of these. I gave one to a favorite striper in RT1&9, North Bergen.
Link
Later I found out stripers got mix tapes from guys all the time.
Let us not forget that tape cassettes were used as the data storage medium for the Commodore 64 home computer, which Fred Flintstone must have used.
Me and Fred had a VIC-20
Trash 80 and acoustic couplers.
Feelin' lucky?
"Josephbleau said...when the heads switched to a new track it would often blow a fuse."
That might make for a tense listening experience.
Gabriel said...
@gilbardoes that mean, they sold TWO of them this year? (and rounded up?)
Nah, they sold 100 by this time last year and now they've sold 103.
The media chooses the metric that fits the narrative, and being innumerate are deaf to how they sound.
If cassettes were the largest seller, but had been declining for years, they'd say "largest seller".
Since cassette sales are tiny, they talk about %-age growth.
Just like they do with shark attacks, "assault rifle" deaths, or any other rare and trivial occurrence they wish to magnify. Bloom County was parodying this in the 80s, and doubtless was not the first...
I cringe when I read a stats based article and the writer uses something like “three times less” to describe a decline. Does that mean something is one third of what it was? “Viewership of the Grammies was five times less in 2021 than 2019.” I don’t even know what that is supposed to mean. Isn’t five times something supposed to be a bigger number?
"cringe when I read a stats based article and the writer uses something like “three times less” to describe a decline. Does that mean something is one third of what it was? “Viewership of the Grammies was five times less in 2021 than 2019.” I don’t even know what that is supposed to mean. Isn’t five times something supposed to be a bigger number?"
As an investor I want to know what is your sales in dollars and what is your return on sales before I want to know what the rate of improvement is.
A good cassette is music as a good cigar is a smoke.
Be safe Girls, there is a Democrat Politician who wants to abuse you. Clinton, Beiden, Como, Beiden, Kennedy(All), "have fun adding".
""Some days it’s a journey through hell in my home too. I have things I do to pass the time. Some days I’ll be down and...""
Being 100 times as wealthy as an Egyptian phaoroah or a 1920s monopolist doesn't seem to fill that hole inside us.
Shocking.
Cassettes suck, period.
Actual records are really good, defects and all.
Digital recordings were far superior, briefly.
"Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way..."
Dylan Thomas advised to "rage against the dying of the light"
Old men's eyes dim. It is not the light that is dying. It is the final grasping for the light of life that is slipping away.
Men protest, "I have more to do!' Sorry, time's up.
You had your moment to 'strut and fret your hour upon the stage.'
"...tape cassettes were used as the data storage medium for the Commodore 64 home computer, which Fred Flintstone must have used."
Luddite. I had a Commodore 64 with the floppy drive! Yabadaba-doooooo.
I have an old Mercedes with a working Becker Grand Prix radio/tape head unit. That car is a time capsule: so perfect that you’d think it came off the assembly line yesterday.
Anywho, I say that the Becker is working, but I’ve only used the radio, not the tape player. I’ve thought about buying a tape and shoving it in there to see what happens. Presumably I should use Althouse’s Amazon portal to buy Bleach. If the Becker still plays tapes, it’d be fun to pop in Nirvana when I’m driving around w/ other people. OTOH, I think it’d be even more fun to get a bunch of tapes that date back to the time the car was built. Maybe make a custom “mix tape” from those olden days.
Mixtape by Tift Merritt, a North Carolina singer who works in the Americana genre. This one is Motown-influenced.
In the 1970’s I remember my dad and his audiophile friends playing reel to reel tapes on a big machine the size of a dorm refrigerator. If I recall, they thought the sound quality was superior to vinyl. Later, I found cassettes to be a Godsend because I could play them on my Walkman and tune my parents out completely.
I thought I posted this yesterday, but I don't see my comment. Anyway, cassettes are becoming popular because they are an inexpensive and kind of kitschy physical medium that bands can sell at shows or on Bandcamp. Vinyl records are fairly expensive to manufacture. A small pressing can cost a few thousand, with each record costing $10-15 and then having to be sold at $20-$30 to make any profit. You can order a bunch of cassettes for a couple hundred bucks. Usually the cassettes include a digital download code. Buying a cassette gives the fan a physical object, with artwork and liner notes, which is something you can never get with digital. I'm not sure how many people are actually listening to these cassettes, rather than collecting them. But selling these makes sense from the economic perspective of a small independent artist or band.
I have a collection of old political speeches on 78s. Found them in an estate sale. It was once popular to disseminate speeches and famous sermons to be played on record players. Sort of like a giant version of the hundreds of pieces of political mail littering our mailboxes recently. You’d gather at one person’s house and listen to the speech.
When I lived in Ruskin, my elderly friend had the original town phone, used only to call the New York City bound train station south of there to tell them to stop when they had enough vegetables to load for sale. Mostly cauliflower, a delicacy that travelled well. And gladioli for funerals. It was hard for us to figure out where they ran the phone lines. Turned out they ran them under the train tracks. Once the town got a second phone, then a third one, everyone could listen in on everyone else’s calls. Sort of like the first Facebook, and it caused problems just like the current one.
Cassettes aren't coming back, it's passing fad fueled by broke 20 year olds.
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