A Brief Return for the Cassette!

[Patrick]

I seem to recall this happening a few years ago with vinyl where one pop band brought out a song exclusively on 12".

Just as it is facing extinction, the clunky old cassette has been reborn. Last year, feted indie bands Deerhunter and the Dirty Projectors both took the unusual step of putting out albums on cassette, and Universal made the celebrity poetry album Words for You Britain's first major-label cassette release in six years. The 6 Music DJ Lauren Laverne celebrates old compilations on her regular Memory Tapes feature. In the US, there are hundreds of underground labels that specialise in the format and package it with a degree of artistry never witnessed in the old Woolworths bargain bin. In the era of iPods and bitrates, the cassette has become the fragile repository of a generation's affection for the analogue age. You can buy iPod cases, T-shirts, computer hardware and even jewellery that pays tribute to its iconic shape.

Still got all of ours. Where the PC is, doesn't make it easily connectible to the Hi Fi to transfer them over. So, they live to fight another day in this house.

[Deleted]

i've got LOOOOOADS of tapes... i suppose i was of the walkman generation.. i have qwuite a bit of vinyl, but thats mostly stuff ive bought as i've got older.. cant play any of it thou..i have 2 record players but for some reason i cant remember they are BOTH round a mates house in South Oxhey. ..
Anyway, cassettes... i generally, as a kid, bought most of my music on cassette, and then duly popped it into my sony walkman cassette player to listen to.
used to really enjoy making mixtapes for friends and sweethearts too

[Patrick]

It's the "Minidisc" I feel sorry for - surpassed by Digital recorders after just a couple of years!

[Deleted]

yep.. apparantly theyre dead good thou, so techie type friends tell me.

CD walkmans were shit.. i had about 2 or 3 different ones over the years and they never lasted long.. kept jumping and freezing and finally refusing point blank to play at all. i stuck with the cassette walkmans after that they were far more reliable. All albums i bought on CD would always be copied onto blank cassette tapes so i could listen to them in my walkman.
even when cassette tapes did go bad.. ( getting all chewed up and the tape all tangled up in the cassette player) there was still a high chance you could rescue it, if you were particularly dextrous, and could just reel the tape back in.

[Alpha Hooligan]

Cassettes have had their day. When they were the only portable, recordable source to be had, they were priceless, but they have been totally replaced by digital music formats IMO.

CD for the home, MP3 for outdoorsyness


AH

[Deleted]

i dont even use CDs aT home, to be honest. everythink is digital now..

[Weyland]

Mar 30, 2010 20:20:46 GMT @costal said:

i dont even use CDs aT home, to be honest. everythink is digital now..

CDs are digital too.

[Deleted]

your mums digital.

[tarzanontarmazepam]

Can't remember the last cassette I bought. It was a very long time ago. I shudder to recall but I think it might have been Queen's Greatest Hits...

[Deleted]

nowt wrong with that christopher
the other genius thing about cassette tapes, back in their heyday, was that it was before the advent of the barcode as well, so it was dead easy to go into your local branch of our price, find tha tape you wanted, take out the album insert, slide it into a cassette case for a lower priced album ( with a £1.99 sticker on the front of the case or whatever) and then toddle up to the counter where the assistant would merrily charge you the preferable new low price you'd selected for the album you wanted. how things have changed. and not for the better.

[motorist]

I just checked, Nemi is a Norwegian thingy.

Back to crap cartoon, I am reminded me of a Finnish one that is popular. The Moomins blech. One good cartoon they do here is "Viivi ja Wagner" which I find chuckleworthy - tis about a woman who is married to a pig that is the epitome of a lazy, beer swigging husband

[Weyland]

Mar 31, 2010 16:42:42 GMT @tarzanontarmazepam said:

Can't remember the last cassette I bought. It was a very long time ago. I shudder to recall but I think it might have been Queen's Greatest Hits...

What's wrong with Queen?

Last I bought was a boxed set of the original (R4) version of tHHGttG.

I think my favourite bit is with Roy Hood as Max Quordlepleen: "A big hand please, for the Great Prophet Zarquon!"

That, and Slarty's fjord pitch, of course.

[Deleted]

am i on drugs now? ;D

[Deleted]

how is the hangover btw matey? hope you are feeling a bit betterer

[Weyland]

Mar 31, 2010 17:08:55 GMT @costal said:

how is the hangover btw matey? hope you are feeling a bit betterer

Guess what -- a hair of the dog that bit you works like a charm. Luckily I had a couple of dog hairs in the fridge. Next project is a bacon sandwich . . . bugger the expense -- a bacon and egg sandwich!

Thanks for good wishes. I like it here.

[Deleted]

bacon and egg- good call

[aubrey]

Pre-recorded cassettes were a rip off - lousy sleeve, muffled sound (ones you did yourself were always better) and often the tracks were in the wrong order (to save tape).