Ejected: Why the Nostalgia Movement Won’t Touch the Cassette
The vinyl revival is one of the more welcome nostalgic movements in popular music. For all the talk about how younger generations do not appreciate the physical medium of music, it’s heartwarming to see kids in their early 20s fishing through the vinyl sections of their rapidly-vanishing local record stores. So what if some are doing it for no other reason than hipster cred? It’s good to see a physical medium for music thrive.
It took a little less than a decade after the decline of vinyl for a nostalgia movement to arise. In the mid-‘90s, some bands would even have the top of their CD design take the form of an album or a 45. Almost 15 years later, we still have vinyl lovers, but we are slowly starting to experience a bit of CD nostalgia as well. Even though CDs are still very much present and available, people have started to stubbornly cling to them just like albums.
Part of the reason for this sort of “pre-death” nostalgia can be attributed to some savvy marketing by record companies. In the past two years, nearly every iconic album from the ‘90s, from Dr. Dre’s The Chronic to Radiohead’s OK Computer, have been re-released in deluxe packaging CDs. They come with a great deal of liner notes, some sweet packaging (check out Pavement’s reissues), and a ton of b-sides. For a Gen-Xer with more disposable income now than they had while they were in college, these offers are hard as hell to turn down. While this accounts for a tiny fraction of CD sales, these reissues prove there is still a need for some people to possess the physical product. A second reason for this “pre-death” nostalgia relates to a grass-roots desire for many people to want to see their local record stores stay in business. Yes, you could buy the new Phoenix album online, but like shopping at the farmer’s market, you just feel better making the trek to a local store and making the purchase.
Image by Andy Hepburn
If the boomers grew up on the album and the Gen-Yers grew up on the CD, Gen-X certainly was weaned on the cassette. And while it’s evident that there is certainly a market for vinyl, and there is a pretty good chance that the CD will experience a similar, if nowhere nearly as intense revival when it eventually goes away, one thing is certain: there is no such nostalgic feeling for cassettes.
Though cassettes were very much part of the music scene in the ‘70s, they took off in the ‘80s, finally outselling albums in 1983 at the height of Michael Jackson mania. But while the album enjoyed a four decade-plus run as being the preferred medium for popular music, cassettes only enjoyed an eight-year run before CDs overtook them in sales in 1991. Though its reign was relatively short, cassettes were the primary listening medium for virtually all of Gen-X. But upon its death in record stores, the mourning period for Gen-X and Gen-Y for this medium was about as fast as a Family Guy flashback. Hell, even the kitsch factor of 8-tracks gave that medium a longer mourning period.
The lack of mourning for the passing of the cassette is curious, but not entirely surprising. As a canvas, the cassette just didn’t have the majesty of records. Somehow the covers of Pink Floyd’s The Wall and The Beatles’ Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band just don’t seem as iconic when they’re condensed into a space that’s slightly larger than a pack of smokes. Hauling them around was usually a pain in the ass. And finally, the general sound quality wasn’t the reason why most people opted for cassettes. It was for their portability.
If there is a movement for nostalgia for cassettes, it’s not the medium, but for the concept of freedom it offered listeners. For those who thought junior high and high school were exercises in purgatory, a Walkman finally offered some minor refuge. The medium also offered the masses an exercise in freedom with the ability to create their own playlists from blank tapes.
Nick Hornby and Rob Sheffield have both written moving accounts of creating great mix tapes for loved ones with High Fidelity and Love Is a Mix Tape, respectively. Both authors tell about the arduous process of not only making sure the songs could adequately fill each side of the tape, but of having to listen to the entire tack, then pushing “Pause” just at the right time for the next song to be recorded. Then came the mix-CD, cutting this process down from 90 minutes to a mere five. Now, with playlists, this process can be done in seconds. The gesture is the same, but it’s the equivalent of taking your significant other out to dinner instead of going through the painstaking task of fixing a meal for them at home.
Like DAT’s, some mediums are just meant to die and never experience a revival. Cassettes seem destined to fall into this category. When I was packing for my fifth move in about 7 years, I finally decided to pour all the cassettes that got me through junior high and high school in a plastic sack (save three or four for sentimentality). I chucked them into a dumpster and didn’t feel the slightest bit of longing or loss. As essential as they were to growing up, it seems like cassettes were just the training wheels for what was to come later on.
Comments
Not to mention, cassettes have not weathered well physically. Most of my tapes warble now when I try the play them.
Comment by ZUP from SC, USA — October 22, 2009 @ 5:36 am
Good article. As for the return of the cassette….well, stranger things have happened. (PS: DATs survived as a useful pro recording tool for quite some time after the average consumer ditched it.)
Comment by Kiko Jones from BKNY — October 22, 2009 @ 6:26 am
Cassette dont need Nostalgia. They are still the most practical medium. They are VERY durable - the tapes will last for decades. Anyway CDs are over-hyped. CDs themselves are getting under-sold thanks to the free music on the internet and USB pen drives and players. It is more easy to scratch a CD to unusability than to cut a tape.
Anyway tapes have certain features that just cant be obtained any other medium - bookmarkabilty, requick forward/rewind.
Cassettes dont need nostalgia - cassettes are THE CHEAPEST album unit. Only western record companies have removed tapes, contributing to their own suicide due to CDs getting converted into Torrents floating on the Internet. Tapes are going strong in Asia and Africa. Even in US, recent a few albums have been TAPE-ONLY releases.
Comment by Dan — October 22, 2009 @ 6:40 am
But aren’t tapes becoming more popular again? One might cite the tape release of one of the bigger indie releases this year - Dirty Projectors’ “Bitte Orca” - for example. And in some circles they never became unpopular. The return seems nostalgic to me.
This link will take you an extensive list of existent tape labels: http://rhizome.org/editorial/2868
Comment by parallelliott — October 22, 2009 @ 7:36 am
cassettes are actually the most prevalent media in underground noise circles.
Comment by jh — October 22, 2009 @ 11:35 am
Interesting discussion. As a gen-x’er myself, I feel a certain amount of nostalgia for the cassette—particularly for the mix tape, which you touch on—but I have no illusions about the inferior quality. Maybe it was my shitty speakers, but I grew up thinking that fuzzy sound was the norm, which suited my dubbed Violent Femmes album just fine.
Excellent point about album covers losing their majesty on cassette. Maybe I didn’t grow up with a deep appreciation of album art on account of it always being writ so small.
One point that seems to be missing here, though, is that the song title started to wane with the CD to that point that it’s practically disappeared with MP3’s. I don’t even know what Blur’s “Song 2” would be called today.
At least the cassette respected the song titles to some degree. Because they never cropped up anywhere else—on a computer screen or an iPod window, for example—we were forced to actually write them on the insert.
I won’t argue that it made the experience of listening to the music any better, but it certainly helped provide a vocabulary that allowed me to talk about what I heard.
How many times in recent years have I referred to “that one song after the song that has that kind of funky beat”?
Comment by Kirby Fields — October 22, 2009 @ 11:43 am
Swing and miss. As parallelliott and jh pointed out above, there are certain underground scenes and bands that still circulate cassettes. The cassette’s durability, portability, and stubborn “otherness” make it the ideal no-fi/uber-indie medium. It’s the zine of music media. It may never be as popular as it once was, but it will remain a beloved underground phenomenon, raking in cred points as it survives.
Also, Sean: Why dump your cassettes in the trash? A seriously fucked-up move. Bring ‘em to Goodwill. Leave ‘em on the corner. Somebody wanted them and you guaranteed nobody could have them. Weak.
Comment by jz — October 22, 2009 @ 12:54 pm
Interesting article. I have still all of my cassettes from back in the day. I keep telling myself I need to upgrade my favorites, but there are several that aren’t available on a digital format. I just don’t have the heart to get rid of the though. So, my collection sits in a closet, which will help to preserve them.
I don’t think this medium will ever fully disappear. There is always going to be a niche group who prefers one format over another. For me, cassettes take me back to my high schools days. aaahh.. the memories.
Comment by Contrapuntist — October 22, 2009 @ 2:28 pm
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Because I’m an idiot pack rat—and still own a cassette deck—I haven’t gotten rid of all my cassettes. (I’ve given away quite a few, as a matter of fact.) Having said that, CDs are still my fave format, despite having gone thru vinyl, 8-track, cassettes, CDs and now, MP3s. Easier to deal with than vinyl—not so much storing space; no having to get up repeat fave song, etc etc etc—and better fidelity than the other 3, as well as decent-sized artwork and liner notes—not as good as vinyl but better than the res—is why I’m still partial to that old shiny disc.
Comment by Kiko Jones from BKNY — October 22, 2009 @ 4:52 pm
We are prone to nostalgia here in the Midwest. I’m guessing other places as well. For that reason, I have held on to some of my tapes. That, and the fact my good friend’s car still has a tape deck. There is nothing like listening to a tape in the car, singing loudly while driving down the road. Sure, they’re a pain to jump from song to song, but what the hell, who cares? They rarely skip. And, I’ve started to see cassettes reappearing—are they going to come back? Doubtful. Will it be fun to buy a few, if only for nostalgia and trend? Yes. Well written, Sean. Looking forward to reading more from you. However, I believe I will send you a mix tape. Because, there still isn’t anything like a mix tape. Oh, and Kirby, you made some excellent points.
Comment by trac from Midwest — October 22, 2009 @ 8:23 pm
Let’s see, why don’t people care about cassettes the same way people care about vinyl. Oh, I know. They sound like crap and make it hard to skip to specific cuts. The only advantage they ever had was portability.
There are a few reasons I still cling to CDs. First, being used to them. Second, it’s *mine* and nobody can take away my digital rights to it. Third, my 60 CD changer sounds better than my computer or an iPod. Fourth, Amazon or Newbury Comics is only slightly more expensive than downloading digital albums anyway.
I suppose at some point very soon there will be high end digital players that I can copy my entire CD collection from then buy albums wirelessly at will, and sound better than my CD player, in a format that gets the full stream, and don’t have any digital rights management problems. That is when I will stop buying CDs.
But, I’ll never switch to digital so long as I can’t pay for something and then say unequivocally the content is fully my possession.
Comment by Chris — October 22, 2009 @ 9:06 pm
It seems like them majority of comments continue to overlook the fact that tapes actually have made somewhat of a comeback within the indie world, and have never gone away in some underground circles. In terms of how nostalgia factors into this, I would cite Keenan’s much talked about/mocked/loved/hated/ article on hypnagogic pop which emphasizes not just a return to 80s pop sounds, but also to seemingly outmoded methods of recording and distribution, like cassette tapes. One could safely, I think, make the exact opposite claim of this article and still have a plausible argument. This return to tapes is partly economic—because as many point out, tapes are cheap—partly aesthetic—because some like the faded, lo fi sound that tapes provide—and partly nostalgic—because there is a return to these older modes of production and distribution.
Comment by parallelliott — October 23, 2009 @ 5:52 am
Tapes were my first form of media until I moved to CDs. Still have about 10 cassettes, especially some hard to find Metallica tapes. It’s not a bad format, just each time it plays the tape wears out. And Too Legit To Quit just became muddier each time I played it.
Comment by Aaron — October 23, 2009 @ 9:25 am