Interesting read.
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/arti...tte-revolution
Interesting read.
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/arti...tte-revolution
Vinyl is back, but let's face it, vinyl just isn't scratchy enough - and you miss those nice squeaks from tape slippage, and the pitch changes resulting from tape stretching and the like. Cassette tape sound is so WARM.
That was a really excellent and thorough article.
It's interesting how the whole format thing can kind of exist on a perpetual loop of justification: the resurgence in vinyl from computer files happened, in part, because some people wanted the opposite of a computer file - the most tactile experience you can have with a music product. But now I guess some people are going to cassettes because they cost a lot less than vinyl and have fewer barriers to entry for the bands. But then the next logical step would be to CDs, because they sound a lot better, have bigger artwork, don't break as easily, are cheap to produce, etc. But then if you're going to use CDs - which are just computer files in a fixed media - why not just go save the space and put it all on a hard drive? But then by doing so, you lose the tactile experience with the music...
A tape "revival" seems very likely to stay very small for a number of reasons, the main ones being that it has virtually no advantages over the CD (even cost, these days) and would seem to be propelled almost entirely by nostalgia.
Great read, thanks
BG
"When Yes appeared on stage, it was like, the gods appearing from the heavens, deigning to play in front of the people."
I'm hanging on for the wax cylinder revival.
Not me, I'm waiting for the reemergence of the phonautograph, sound waves on a printed page,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonautograph
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Will live music ever make a comeback?
or isn't it warm enough?
Who??? "Big name"?Over the last decade, the retro format has gotten so hip that an annual event called Cassette Store Day launched in 2013 and big-name artists like the Flaming Lips, They Might Be Giants, Animal Collective, Madvillain, and Karen O have put out limited-edition tape-only releases for the celebration.
The picture of man with the wall of cassettes takes me back to the memory my old departed friend(and cassette collector)Doug Walker's basement in St.Albans Queens, where an entire room,from floor to ceiling, was stacked with cassettes.I wish there was a photo of that room.Most of Doug's band,Alien Planetscapes 'releases were originally on cassette.As was Carl Howard's releases.
Last edited by walt; 06-02-2015 at 06:25 PM.
"please do not understand me too quickly"-andre gide
I was at a concert a few years ago where one of the bands(I think the opening act but I forget which show)was selling cassette tapes. They wanted ten dollars per tape. I thought(and still do)that they were crazy for charging that much for a cassette tape especially in this day and age. Yes it's true vinyl has made a bit of a comeback but I doubt if tapes ever really will(at least in any significant way). I still have tapes but it's not something I go around advertising.
Those darn kids. Can hula hoops, play-dough and water wiggles be far behind?
Well, if cassettes are coming back, that means its time to buy stock in companies that make Number 2 pencils........
I owned hundreds of cassettes back in the day, but that guy in the article with that WALL of tapes (which is only a "portion" of his collection)...damn.
I still have about 900 of them. All except for a dozen or so are self-recorded. Factory tapes always sucked.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Many people under 40 know who they are.
I've haven't read the article yet but I wish I had a cassette player. I got lots of mix tapes and I don't know what's on them. I also miss making my own edits; I swear I have a 90 minute tape somewhere that has Thick As A Brick and Karn Evil 9 edited down to 45 minutes.
The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off
My personal effin' problem these days - as concerns the dispositions of my music collection, that is - happens to be that hardly any retailers even stock cassette or CD players anymore. You can't get the buggers, and still when you explain the dilemma to folks under 30 at the store, they sorta don't 'get it' why you should need one. Just like some don't 'get' why anyone would want to hear "whole albums" or why it's important who the artist "is" and how they actually created the music - seeing how it's all just basically random yet nice noise belonging to YOU once it's on YOUR phone or in YOUR home.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
Great stuff.
Some of the names sound familiar to me as I was fairly involved in the so-called "Cassette Culture" of the late 80s. I self-released some things and also had a couple of albums on Carl Howard's 'Audiofile Tapes' label. The thing is that I don't recall anyone being all that enamored of the cassette as a medium back then, it was just the best way to independently get one's music out there. I suppose it also fit right in with the tape trading of the time period, since people would trade bootlegs on cassette.
IMO, the amount of stuff out there became nearly impossible to keep up with, but it was an exciting time for independent musicians. Particularly those of us involved in electronic music.
Brilliant article!
However, the negative result for the small number of existing passionate collectors like myself is that these are the type of articles that will soon make it difficult for me to pick up original rock cassettes for about €0.20 cents. To date I've been able to add some great old albums to my collection, which was already large in the 90s. But with this news, I'm sure hipsters (probably part of the cause anyway) will jump on the bandwagon, clean out flea markets etc., and then prices in secondhand shops will rocket, as they did a couple of years ago with secondhand vinyl.
Dude, get yo' ass down to some fleamarkets. I picked up a Denon DRS-640 a year ago in a thrift shop for just 10 euros. And the DRS-640 was made in 1993!
http://img.canuckaudiomart.com/uploa...sette_deck.jpg
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