Do you realise that today, Saturday 7th September, is the first International Cassette Store Day? There is, of course, a website dedicated to this and I'll be exploring Manchester's many second hand and vintage record stores to see how they are marking the auspicious occasion. Cassette Store Day is on Facebook too.
There is a wonderful review of 50 years of the audio cassette which was launched in its compact form by Philips in 1963. I still have hundreds of them, a combo of home recordings, plus pre-recorded music (mostly 1990s indie, shoegazing and ambient) and classics comedy such as Lake Wobegon, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, John Shuttleworth and the 1950's USA drama with Dana Andrews, I was a Communist for the FBI.
There is a certain style to them, perhaps in the same way the less-loved and less-long lived 8 track cartridge of the late 1960s and 1970s had, - the compact audio cassette, as it was known, was flexible and enabled you to record your own voice, songs and of course to make mix-tapes. Millions of us would record (i.e. pirate) friends' vinyl collections, which helped spread the word about a band although many an act may have suffered financially as a result...
The e-How website explains that "Cassettes are able to produce a much higher range of frequencies than CDs. While CDs are only able to reproduce frequencies up to about 22 kHz, a cassette can reproduce a dog whistle. Some believe this gives analogue recordings a "fuller" sound."
I liked cassettes when they were in their heyday and still play the odd one today, but portability-wise the mp3 player beats them hands down. Lugging around a box of cassettes to play on your Walkman back in the 1980s was always tough going. You needed a boxful if you were travelling round Europe by train for a few weeks, or even a weekend away...
But I've memories, friendships, relationships and life markers as well as momentous music all wrapped up in cassettes (and likewise vinyl and CDs and audio files), so this evening I'll be drinking a toast to the humble compact audio cassette and stores that stock them.
There is a certain style to them, perhaps in the same way the less-loved and less-long lived 8 track cartridge of the late 1960s and 1970s had, - the compact audio cassette, as it was known, was flexible and enabled you to record your own voice, songs and of course to make mix-tapes. Millions of us would record (i.e. pirate) friends' vinyl collections, which helped spread the word about a band although many an act may have suffered financially as a result...
The e-How website explains that "Cassettes are able to produce a much higher range of frequencies than CDs. While CDs are only able to reproduce frequencies up to about 22 kHz, a cassette can reproduce a dog whistle. Some believe this gives analogue recordings a "fuller" sound."
I liked cassettes when they were in their heyday and still play the odd one today, but portability-wise the mp3 player beats them hands down. Lugging around a box of cassettes to play on your Walkman back in the 1980s was always tough going. You needed a boxful if you were travelling round Europe by train for a few weeks, or even a weekend away...
But I've memories, friendships, relationships and life markers as well as momentous music all wrapped up in cassettes (and likewise vinyl and CDs and audio files), so this evening I'll be drinking a toast to the humble compact audio cassette and stores that stock them.
Cool event. I have a collection of old cassette's somewhere, but nothing newer that mid 1980s stuff.
ReplyDeleteI've got a lot of cassettes too and play some from time to time - I used to record my singles on to tape so I could listen to them in the car - the records have gone but the cassettes remain - I recorded a lot of stuff off the radio too - quality not so good but great memories - I don't like headphones/earpieces so walkmans and mp3 players have never taken off for me.
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff, those days gone...
ReplyDeleteGone, gone, gone. It's in my rearview mirror, but I have a great memory.
ReplyDelete