Cassette Culture

A few days ago I was at a music website and they sold their music on cassettes. My first thought was they ought to put it on CDs. But just a little exploration made it clear that they not only preferred cassettes, for reasons of their own, but that's all they used. Unless there were some 7" vinyl, I don't remember.

It seems like everything that's just about to go by the boards comes up with fans at the last second. Maybe there's an 8 track tape group, too. I have some of those. But they've always had troubles. I do remember getting an 8 track tape player one time and thinking I'd collect my music on 8 track tapes. That didn't last long, though, with some of the creative ways that 8 track tapes can find to break. Plus, I always hated the idea of a song being "continued" from one program to another.

Now cassettes, I've always liked cassettes and reel to reel tape. I used to record the radio on a reel to reel tape player, when I was a kid, and listen to the songs ... obviously without paying for them. It wasn't patched into the radio though; this was just a microphone held up to the radio speaker. There's one song by the Beatles, "Do You Want To Know A Secret?" that I recorded like that, and I can still hear (without knowing the exact words) the announcer leading into it, saying something like "vintage Beatles." This was the mid '60s and by then they were already saying "vintage" for the earlier stuff.

I still have a number of cassettes around. Not collected exactly in one place. Some in the closet, some in the basement, who knows where.