Earlier this week, high-street electrical retailer Currys announced that it would no longer stock blank cassette tapes once its current stocks are gone. T’was a sad, sad day in the DiS office.
It’s not like the major retailer’s decision couldn’t be predicted – sales of cassette tapes, particularly blank tapes (aaah, TDK 90, five-pack, in my stocking every Christmas), have dropped sharply since the rise of the iPod and its digital brethren. Why spend an hour and a half recording an hour and a half’s worth of material onto a format that’s almost certainly going to be chewed up by your dad’s aging car stereo in a week when you could sit at a computer and upload three or four days of music to a tiny shiny box in just a few seconds? Why? Because of the skill, that’s why.
There are few things in life more satisfying than the successful compilation of a great mix tape – without wanting to get all High Fidelity, there is a craft to mix tape manufacturing; there are rules to follow, and to break. Are these lyrics too revealing? Do they send out the wrong message? How will track A fit between tracks D and E, and shouldn’t song Y really be where song Z is? Will the tape make the girl or boy in question fall in (or out of) love with you, and if their boy or girlfriend accidentally hears it, will he or she beat the daylights out of you?
Rules, ladies and gentlemen – they required respect, attention and careful consideration. While many would simply dive headfirst into a mix tape project without substantial planning, the mix tape expert noted the lengths of songs, and arranged the sequencing, before beginning. You needed skills – foresight and just a little luck – to make the perfect mix tape; 12 songs on one side, 12 on the other, with a perfect balance throughout. Glorious.
And fun, too. Currys’ decision – their managing director Peter Keenan also predicts that tape decks will no longer be stocked a year or so from now – is indicative of the manner in which music is now consumed. It’s disposable, readily available and purely quick-fix; downloadable and forgettable and low-risk. There’s no romance to clicking ‘download now’, but there was something appealing about getting cramp from sitting on the floor before the stereo for the best part of two hours and holding a final, physical product that you could either call your own, or call a present and pass to a friend or potential paramour.
Me, I rarely made mix tapes for girls – I had a girlfriend at 15, so my taping peak a.k.a. my university years was spent compiling collections for friends – but I did make up a series of tapes for driving. I passed my test at 17, and promptly went about sound-tracking my journeys from home to Sainsbury’s, and back. Mum didn’t think much of Vanishing Point-era Primal Scream, but my post-club comedown cassette – a mix of Endtroducing-period DJ Shadow, David Holmes, Portishead and assorted Ninja Tune randoms – was a week in, week out success. I recall one drive through Southampton with something from Let’s Get Killed drowned all but out by the sound of a pair of knackered revellers snoring on the back seat. I may have been dressed as a witch at the time. I forget. On purpose.
But anyway, the tape. Its demise has been a long time coming, but of all the formats to come and go and return over the years, it’s most certainly the most romantic, if you like. It’s the holder of secrets and a terribly fickle beast, one that can harm itself irreparably just minutes after delivering the most spectacular goods. Unpredictable and untamed, the cassette tape is – was – the format that meant most to many an explorer of sound. It was the gateway and the key, the wide open space and the constrictive tunnel, the light at the end always there, as tempting as the dangling carrot. It’s how I found out about a lot of bands – from friends, and from radio taping – and I thank it from the bottom of my now thoroughly over-nourished soul.
Finally, R.I.P. the cassette - 95 million blanks sold in 1990, fewer than a million expected this year. Missing you already, but don’t tell Steve Jobs…
DiScuss: Obviously the era of the cassette tape was over long ago, but do you still make mix tapes? If so, do you do so in addition to using iTunes, etc? Did you ever buy much material on cassette, and if so why? It was really cheap, and available in Eastleigh WH Smith… that’s the only excuse I have for owning Stoosh. Otherwise, unforgivable…
I'm gonna buy
Some stocks of Blank Tapes.
I like making mix-tapes
You are so right about the skill
It does take thought, planning and an intial need and idea. There are pitfalls, the cassette time constraint meant endless lazy tapers slapping Song 2 at the end of every compliation to fill every last lead filing on that precious TDK. Imagination please! The mix tape will NEVER die.
The tape player on my stereo is broken
and I have half a binbag full of tapes wasting away. I do still use my Tascam 4 track occasionally.
i'm gonna buy a load too.
mixtapes have elbow grease in them. mix cds don't at all.
I love listening to tapes
it makes the music sound 'warmer' and mroe closer to the heart. to me it did anyway.
I made loads as a teenager, to give to my friends for christmas. My friend Chris made me one called 'Kayleia's intro to Emo' which I hail as the tape that has gone me into the music that I am into today.
I haven't made one in a couple years, I make Mixcds for people now. I understand about not stocking tape decks anymore, I don't even own a CD player now - just an iPod stereo.
*Sniff*
RIP Cassettes. To be honest, it's just nostalgia now though innit. I remember when making mix tapes how I would wish I could make mix cds instead so that my two odd hours worth of work wasn't a waste when the tape eventually did get chewed up by some shitty stereo, and the sound quality would not dip massively after 20 odd plays.
However, there is something great about chopping up selotape into small pieces to stick back together a snapped tape that you love, and keeping your finger's crossed that it held, even though the part of the recording lost by the break was the peak of some guitar solo or other that you played along your tennis racket to. Also the effort that went into making tapes, particularly for girls was appreciated more I reckon, thus meaning the tape was listened to more intensely and (hopefully) producing the desired result (whatever that was...).
I also remember doing a crazy 10 minute tape sample mash up experiment song thing, fusing together snippets from various other cassettes into each other that a la ...'and you will know them by the trail of dead' intro. I think I wanted to be in PWEI at the time.
Best cassette I ever bought from a shop - Pavement's 'brighten the corners' for £1 from Our price in Aldershot. I hadn't paid attention to them since 'Slanted & Enchanted' and this led me into tracking down one of the finest back catalogues around. I still have the tape, although 'Shady lane' is all warped and fucked now.
I love making tapes but
Most people I know don't have tape decks anymore. And one of my decks (I have double) is on it's way out. It's all very sad.
Oh, and down the road from Aldershot (Farnham), I got 'Viva Hate' by Morrissey for 70p in Help the Aged, brilliant!
I've never made a mixtape
and I've only ever had one album on cassette. And that was bought for me.
Maybe I'm just too young to appreciate tapes. For me, it's always been CDs that have been important.
I regularly made my own compilation CDs about 5 years ago, but never tapes.
I should also add
that whenever I made compilation CDs, I did put thought into the running order and whatnot. So I appreciate that sentiment.
I had loads of tapes
& we're near about the same age! I only startd buying cds when I was about 11/12.
And
when the tape got slightly screwed up, it was like tripping on acid without tripping on acid.
tapes
i made a mixed tape last summer composed entirely of radiohead b-sides and rarities, was tremendous, spent ages compiling them all.
fuck ipods, make music about as special as an asda smart price can of shit.
Mixtapes
As someone already said, I put effort into making mixtapes. They take longer to make than just dragging and dropping files to burn to a CD, so you put more thought into it. RIP Tapes.
Man!!!
I'm gutted. My sony walkman died the other and I've just spent 9 quid on a new one off ebay. I'm stocking up, I still only ever listen to tapes on the go. I hate Ipods!!!!
but
if you do mix CDs properly, working on the track transitions in a waveform editor, it can be a much finer art than making mix tapes could ever be...
Ha ha
with the Artists bit!
I love this article
The format was a little before my time, but the sentiment is still true I think. There really is nothing better than a mix CD with some fabby hand crafted artwork and a really smooth tracklisting! (Except maybe a mix TAPE with some fabby hand crafted artwork and a really smooth tracklisting, though I'm yet to experience this)
I'm sad
but are cassettes really dying out? In the last 18 months I've bought over 10 new tapes and there are loads of tape only record labels at the minute.
Check this
http://deathbombarc.com/cassettegods/
the mixtape...
... is the central theme of the latest play by Daniel Kitson (probably the best stand-up alive today). It's called C90. it'll be on in edinburgh, and probably around the country.
go and see it, it's absolutely fucking brilliant.
blah blah blah
pointless and predictable nostalgic whinge-athon about the advancement of technology. This thing about cassettes is so Belle and Sebastian that it makes me want to eat my hand. I used to have a tape player, and used to make mixtapes as well. It was shit.
Tapes suck
Vinyl also sucks. CD's? They're OK... MP3's. Brilliant.
The same
Belle & Sebastian it appears you profess to like?
bring back 8 track
Pffft...
Wax cylinders FTW
I still use cassetes
i love them.
Ah memories...
I used to make mixtapes, although it seems a long time ago now.
In fact it was so long ago, I remember one had 2Unlimited, MC Mario, Haddaway and Snap! on it. :O
I also remember a friend and I recording radio show type things (I think you'd call them podcasts now). We had jingles on a Spectrum and everything!
I don't even own a tape deck anymore. Minidiscs killed that off. Remember them?
Hi-FFidelity
pissed me off.
Though someone did once give me a motorhead tape from a charity shop for my birthday. That was awesome.
in the begininng...
i remember making mix tapes on my dad's hifi and making my very own (and probably) not very great artwork on microsoft publisher!!
i also remember having a tape recorder and pretending to be on the radio talking to myself.
mix cds never held the same brilliance but i do try to maintain the making of a good playlist for a cd
however recently being a student i acquired a cassette walkman from a charity shop to connect to my hifi and have the princely albums of rem "monster" and "document" and tears for fears "the hurting" (an album i would not have previously listened to and is actually quite good)..i also have an old texas album knocking around and had a brief period of mixtape nostalgia for my university graphics studio
i do miss mixtapes however i find i do not have a need for them which is a shame but they will always have a fondness in my heart
(as for whoever said vinyl is shit they are wrong, act anybody with a heart)
I just bought a copy of
The Velvets & Nico offa eBay.
Just so my cassette alarm can wake me up with 'Sunday Morning'...
I remember
recording stuff like the stranglers onto a tape from the radio when I was little, and I currently make lots of mixtapes...but only from my vinyl collection onto a tape, putting a cd onto a tape is cheating...! (The tracklistings are also all typed up on my typewriter, no modern technology here). I also have one of Jamie T's panic prevention mixtapes, which is rather good.
In the event of a fire in my bedroom
the first thing I would rescue is a stack of mixtapes made for me over the years by various people. Each one is completely unique, some have changed my taste in music irrevocably.
The other day I made The Last Mixtape. I just pressed stop on the last song and then my tape deck died :(
Short songs
There are several songs that I only know because they are short and can fit at the end of side 1. I can recommend the Nirvana live album side 4 with all the in between song talkie bits separated out as great for this purpose too. There are also still several songs that I expect to finish in certain places when I had to turn the tape over (before the days of auto reverse). THEY'LL NEVER TAKE MY DENON 510!
Cassette DJ
What's this guy going to do now?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kde-head/19313082/
boo
my most prozed posession is a shoebox of tapes from recording demos at home and band practices, we've always used tpae to record and have almost a hundred tapes of crap mostly!!!
my wife despairs of the 1000 tapes i have in boxes, "why don't you make them into mp3's?" - erm, each tape roughly an hour long x 1000= not the best idea ever
Hmm
I think all formats have their merits, and the younger you are the less you appreciate those that may well ahve passed you by. I still love my records but don't really buy tapes except for aesthetic reason, and price. i love my germ free adolescents by x ray spex that cost me 50p
My dad used to make me mix tapes when i was a kid with my fave pop albums (madonna, micheal jackson etc) spliced with his favourite latter day pop (anything form 60;s stuff to elo, frankie goes to hollywood) and i still have them and they're still awesome...
I think we need to look to the generation before us and see how much mixtapes and cassettes meant to them..
Did anyone ever get prosecuted for home taping?
In middle of one
I've still got good tape deck, and record mix tapes constantly for mates and stuff and for my walkmen, I record music from my keyboard onto tape, by putting two mikes in hi fi, the way the tracks mix, it's just so easy, select track, whack on tape, I like the whole real time situation, you've listened to the music, and also if you get a good chrome tape the sound qualitys alright and a few car stereos still have
Mixtapes equal heart
You've got to make them in real time.
That's time, and effort.
Still have an amp and a tape deck gathering dust in Bromley...
Maybe one more tape... Just for old times sake.
one of the first albums I bought
was Help! on tape, and I used to buy so many singles (including some decidedly 'dodgy' ones). I used to use tapes to record things off the radio to listen to, and I had a couple of friends who I used to exchange tapes with, I still have them all stored somewhere. the CD quickly took over, but I still spend ages deliberating over what tracks to include on a mix so the thought is still there. plus it's also good to know that you're not going to run out of space unexpectedly on side 1 and have to swap to side 2.
I tried to 'do' tapes.
I don't have an mp3 player, and I needed a cheap walking-to-uni solution. I bought 10 tapes and a cheap player for £10 total, and I was quite excited about it. In about a week, they'd been consigned to a drawer, a failed experiment, because the thing drained a pair of AAs in about an hour. Duracells, no less.
To hell with tapes. They're better to touch and use than CDs, but making mix CDs ain't so bad. Better than just emailing someone a download shopping list.
I
used to buy tapes because I had no cash. CDs were a lot of money! When you're a kid or a teenager you certainly don't have that kind of money (where do you get it???) I still buy 2nd hand tapes from time to time, and vinyl at that.
Course I'll miss them. I'm not against technology but anyone who thinks shuffling about on an ipod is better than owning a product (with sleeve; lyric sheet; remember them?) I just can't understand.
Although I do like ipods, to be fair.