Sometimes I Miss Cassette Tapes

I live and die by my iPod.

I love the fast clicking of songs. The ease of skipping the tracks I don't like. The ability to add new tunes by the click of a mouse.

Sometimes, though, I miss the old fashioned cassette tape.

First off, cassettes were always cheaper than CDs, so if you were a little short on dough, you had another option if you really needed some new music in a bad way. Second, the format of a cassette meant you either listened to an entire album - or wasted a ton of time searching for your favorite song. It's because of the cassette tape that I know so many B-sides. I was too darn lazy to hunt for songs, so I just popped the tape into the car stereo and let it play.

Remember when cars and boom boxes came out with the functionality to "skip" songs on tapes? Man, that was awesome. Mind you, I never had a car that could do this - but still. I did have a stereo that would let me go back and forth in Hysteria as many times as needed. Great time saver.

Eventually I got a CD player for my car and the cassette player was no more. While flipping CDs was much faster for me, I sometimes found myself missing the cassette tape.

For awhile, labels released singles on CDs but they were usually way too expensive for one song. The cassette single was definitely my friend. I had tons of those. They were usually two bucks or less and - obviously - featured a band's most recent radio hit. To this day I'm still baffled that labels use the term "single" because there really isn't such a distinction anymore. Sure, there are songs released to radio with deliberate planning to sell albums - but it is very rare to walk into a music shop and see a CD single on the shelves. I guess iTunes has replaced this as well.

So, I love my digital music but I also missed the "forced fandom" of some lesser known tracks that cassettes afforded. I remember using my little Walkman on school trips, playing my favorite "mix tape" of the moment while trying my best to block out the noise of the stupid boys inevitably sitting beside me - belching.

Do you ever miss cassettes?

Comments

[doc taz]

I still have plenty of cassettes. Yes, many of them have faded in sound quality a bit, but most of them are in good shape. (I have tapes from as far back as 1976 or so... mmm, Rush!) The good ones actually have great dynamic range, and are warmer sounding to my taste than any mp3. A great cassette recording is less noisier than one on vinyl (esp. if noise reduction is properly encoded onto the tape).

Not that I hate digital; I have mp3's and CD's. Between those two, I prefer the CD. Mp3's are convenient, but I can hear enough of a difference. When I crank the home system, the CD seems to push more air than any mp3.

I wish more recordings were out on DVD-Audio, though. That's the only available consumer format with the dynamic range that surpasses the best analog recordings. (I don't have any DVD-A discs, but I heard a few of them on a high end system a few years ago, and was blown away by the sound quality...)

[Firefishe]

I think that Congress (United States) should mandate open source digital formats like Ogg Vorbis for audio files and Ogg Theora for video.

Either that or we should go back to analog. I tire of the constant legal argumentation regarding digital media and so-called copyright managment that really does nothing more than make what you buy hard to play on a person music player.

I've got a not-too-old Sony Walkman Stereo Cassette Player that I still keep for some personal recordings I own. Cassettes are tough and wear well. Digital is great, but analog is simpler, and sometimes simpler *is* better.

Myself, I prefer simpler.

[Prof. LP]

I prefer both CD and Vinyl, but I have an extensive collection of tapes and mix-tapes that I highly prize.

I used to like when music stores sold both tapes and CDs, that way I could buy music at a cheaper price than a CD, on something that had acceptable sound quality and a rigid, durable case.

I still buy tapes at goodwill for a quarter each, and they still sound good.

I totally understand the CD Single vs Cassingle debate, you can't beat $2 for a true single (an A and B side)as opposed to $9.99 for a CD single with 8 tracks or so.

[reader]

my cassette story, when cds came out, I got a stereo a few years later that had a record player, cd and double tape dubber. I had a number of cds and records were going out but I liked the nostalgia and bought records. Mostly though I would buy tapes, I had a tape player in my car and so when I wanted a new album I bought a tape at any store. It was funny, I kept buying brand new tapes until about 2000 or so. I remember going into the media store to buy tapes time and again, and just never noticed how small the tape section was getting, because they almost always had what I wanted. Then one day I went into a store, had trouble finding the tape section, an employee pointed it out, I found the album, then noticed the section was on the back wall and only about 8 to 16 feet long, and I slowly turned around and I saw rows and rows of cds and cds and cds, lol, it just hit me like a brick, because the stores always had what I wanted, I just didnt notice the change, then not long after that, I couldnt find tapes anymore, this was around 2000, 2001. lol. My car now has a cd and tape in it, so I go to the thrift store and buy old tapes sometimes cause my cd player doesnt work all that well. thanks for the article

[Devin]

hell, i was born in the wrong generation and grew up on cassettes. my parents changed to cd, so i found a box full of gnr, poison, skid row, dangerous toys, slayer, megadeth, motley, ratt, and millions more. i always bought new stuff on cd. i dont do cassette anymore, cd and vinyl for me!