Last week I made a mix tape for a friend's birthday, just like she requested a few months ago. That's "mix tape" as in cassette (see example above). It was the first mix tape I've compiled in the last five years. In this download-mix-burn era, I forgot how much work goes into making a mix tape. Cue the tape/disc/record, check the levels, press play and record to tape a song, rinse, lather, repeat. And if you decide midway through recording side two that the fifth song on side one doesn't fit, you have to either live with it, or record the whole side over, or find another three minute and twenty second song that does fit! It takes at least three hours for me to make a 90-minute tape, but I can burn an 80-minute CDR in less than 15 minutes. It was a lot of fun to practice my tape making skills, but it's already a forgotten art.
One of my main concerns about Tower Records' going under last year was "Oh no! Where will I buy blank tapes?". Even after Tower's musical selection went downhill and their prices for new records went uphill, you could still buy a 5-pack of Maxell XLIIs for $6.99 , sometimes $5.99 on sale. Tower was the place for blank tapes, but in hindsight, being the best place to buy something I didn't need could have been a major reason they went out of business. I rescued two four-packs of Fuji 90 minute high bias cassettes (all XLIIs were gone, damn!) for $1.99 each from the Tower clearance sale last Fall, which should be enough blank tapes to last the rest of my life. I'm saving the rest of my blank tapes for times "when the moment is right", and hording them like they were Cialis tablets. Each one may be the last tape I ever make.
I started pondering the sad fate of the cassette after reading Rob Sheffield's book Love is a Mixtape, which explores his romance and marriage to fellow rock critic Renee Crist (who died of an aneurysm in 1997) by listing the songs the mix tapes that they sent to each other. The Rob and Renee story has a really sad ending, but I was almost as sad about their mix tapes, each one from a various stage of their relationship with their own story to tell. And there are millions of other tapes just like them, that no one ever listens to but can't bear to throw away.
Some of you may even have tapes that I've sent you over the years (Loud Family bootlegs, holiday mixes, swap mixes, and more) cluttering up your homes, or landfills near your homes if you've managed to finally throw your cassettes away. Cassettes were too popular and too pervasive to ever have the kitschy coolness of 8-tracks, and eventually they'll all be tossed in the trash with 5.25" floppy disks, VHS videotapes, and other magnetic memories of the way we were.
6 comments:
Thank you for the mixtape, Steve. I haven't listened to a cassette in oh gosh, but I'm one of 'em who can't throw the doggone things out. The cassette is a format in its death throes, but it's a shame from the audiobook angle - you can't stop a CD and start it up again later in exactly the same spot. And, we have plenty of elderly book-lovers who can no longer handle print, and it's very hard to find a CD player with big enough buttons for low-vision people to navigate. Many of my library's homebound patrons take "cassettes only" and we are truly running out of books for them.
there are millions of other tapes just like them, that no one ever listens to but can't bear to throw away.
You've been looking in my basement, haven't you?
I've seen some audiobooks that are embedded in their own standalone flash audio players, which seems like a good use of the new technology. If the buttons are big enough for low-vision people to navigate, and would also work for little kid "turn the page when the bell rings" stories.
Yes, a lot of libraries are investing in Playaways. Not exactly big-button but relatively easy to use, even for some readers with low vision, unsteady hands, or others among the vexing limitations often accompanying advancing age...
Re "you can't stop a CD and start it up again later in exactly the same spot": you certainly can, at least with some CD players. The players in both of our cars do it.
Anyway: I'm not nostalgic for cassettes, although I haven't just tossed my recorded ones (I did donate all my remaining blank ones several years ago, however). Despite all that, I do still have a cassette deck connected to my home stereo. When was the last time I used it? Don't know... I know I've used the second cassette deck, which is connected to my turntable (neither of which are hooked up to the amplifier), more often, since that setup is the one I connect to the 'puter to digitize stuff in outmoded formats.
With your renewed interest in cassettes, perhaps this would be a good year to re-release some of the old holiday mixes on CD!
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