Rewind The Cassette Tape

It would appear from recent reports that the cassette tape is not dead after all and is indeed undergoing something of a resurgence.

Let us rewind to 1985 when sales of cassettes actually overtook vinyl before the CD seemed to put the final nail in the coffin of both analogue formats in 1992. Good riddance I thought.

It is true that cassettes served a purpose. Far more portable than vinyl and not prone to being scratched at parties, they appeared to be the way forward particularly when in 1979, the Sony Walkman was released to the public. At last we were able to take music with us when we commuted, travelled or jogged in the park. Also of course it was possible to record onto blank cassettes and create our own playlists long before the word playlist was actually invented. Budding musicians could record their works onto cassette and popped into a jiffy bag it could easily be sent off to John Peel who promised to listen to every one. Many a punk and indie band was born on the back of such exposure. Also, small cassette recorders could be smuggled into concerts resulting in bootleg recordings of some of our favourite artists. Why some were even of decent quality.

Words like C60, C90 and (the dreaded) C120, became part of the English language.

The downside was the fact that cassette tapes were prone to getting jammed in the plastic casing and I lost many tapes when they became mangled or just snapped. Also the quality of some tapes left much to be desired. Frankly I thought that the sound quality over time became pretty awful and tape machine heads had to be frequently cleaned of the brown oxide coating left behind by some of the tapes.

So for me, the emergence of the CD and latterly the MP3 player, was a lifesaver.

Now it appears that some indie bands are reverting to using cassettes and companies including Sony are beginning to mass manufacture these items again.

I don't know what your views are but personally I feel that cassettes, like 78 RPM records were part of the past and should be consigned to history. Apart from nostalgia is there any real demand for these cheap looking chunks of plastic? Perhaps we will also see the return of 8 track cartridges or mini discs. 

Heaven forbid!