Guybrush

For various reasons. The days when sharing bootlegs and underground music on cassettes was the most practical option is long gone, so I find the current fad kinda inauthentic. It's just cultural mimicry with no real basis to it other than it being fad-y.

But mostly, it bothers me due to the reason posted above. If people wanna listen to tapes, someone has to make tape decks and someone has to make tapes. These things have to be shipped by container ships and trailers. It creates plastic waste and other kinds of pollution. And all for novelty items which noone needs which are ultimately comparatively impractical.

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Trollheart

The only thing cassettes were ever good for was when blank ones were the only way to record something. Even then they were inconvenient. Leave one too close to a magnetic field (eg speakers) and you'd lose elements of what was on it (what we used to call drop outs) - "I never meant to cause you - le rain! Purple ra- want to - bathing in the - honey I know..." etc. Jesus it was annoying.

Then as tore says, the mere "inconvenience" of running the tape forward or back (we didn't see it as such then because like I say, there was no other way and so we just accepted it) - if you'd not recorded up to the end of the tape you'd have to fast forward so you could flip it over and not end up in the middle of the first song on the other side of the tape - and as for tangles! Jesus. Every other tape, after a while, would get caught up and ruined. So not only had you this: I CAN'T GET NO-OH SAT-IS-FACTION! I CAN'T GET NOBRLURRBLKEWURBLEWEEIOOOOOOOO...." Tape AND recorder ruined, so you had to extract the cassette from the deck and TRY to untangle the actual magnetic tape from where it had twisted around the spindles before you could use the deck again.

No ****ing thanks. Cassettes were a necessary evil but I never want to go back to the tyranny of the tape again thank you very much.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Guybrush

This. I've never met a person who grew up with cassette tapes who ever thought highly of them.

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jwb

If you could perfectly replicate the sound of a live performance would you just skip the concert then?

Nah cause it's not just the sound, it's the experience of being there with other people getting trashed / trying to get laid / etc plus being in the same giant room as the musicians you idolize

Just like vinyl isn't just about the sound. It's about novelty seeking. Looking for that special sound that "can't be gotten" digitally. Plus the whole vintage aesthetic involved in the medium. Like, I get why people like that as a hobby. Doesn't bother me if that's what you're into. I used to collect Chinese garbage and scraps of cardboard from trucks I unloaded at Lowes distribution center cause I loved the idea of having a weird connection to another part of the world that I interacted with only inadvertently. So I totally get novelty seeking behavior.

I just get annoyed/amused by how every single person with vinyl records claims it's all about the pursuit of this unique sound and don't acknowledge that at least 50% of it is that they like the idea of vinyl. Just say that instead of pretending to have special ears or something and I would respect vinyl hipsters more. But hipsters can never own their hipster behavior. They're like vampires hiding from the daylight.

Guybrush

Sorry if I've annoyed you. I have gone on bashing something you like and work with, after all. It's nothing personal.

You got a point about there being bigger fish to fry, but it also seems fallacious to say something good is not worth doing because there's an even bigger, better thing that could potentially be done.

Or that it's okay to throw candy wrappers on the street because waste problems are so much bigger elsewhere.

Something that is special about media like music, books and films is that their digital representations serve us very well, so western society could basically get on just fine without these things existing physically even today.

It's a step we're basically ready for.

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jwb

lol @ the idea of giving someone a cassette of music you recorded. That's proper psychopathic behavior in 2021 bruh. I would certainly laugh at you for that one pal.

Reminds me of when I worked at Walmart in Florida

It was like 2009 or so.. CDs were still a thing sorta... And on break we're all outside smoking and it's me and pretty much half the Haitian dudes I knew in lake worth.. we all got hired on at Walmart at the same time in a hiring frenzy... And so this white guy sees this group of mostly black men standing outside smoking and decides to come up and give us the spiel about do you like to check out local artists.. hands my friend Nelson a CD and says that's his music and to check it out. Real heartfelt moment. You could tell he was nervous too but Nelson played it off like yeah man definitely we'll check it out.

So anyway he walks away and as we're heading back inside the store this fat black cashier girl is walking the opposite direction Nelson walks right up to her and is like "Yo, this that new transformers" (movie had just come out) and hands her the CD then we keep walking. **** was hilarious

rostasi

yeah.

hilarious.

rostasi

Actually, I can see where he’s coming from with that.
With a live band, you can’t have them move ahead to
a favorite song. On YouTube, you can. So saying that
you can’t easily move ahead on a cassette is missing
the point.

rostasi

All of these formats do have their own sound to them whether they’re vinyl, cassette, mini-disc, DAT, and so on. Because of this, there are various desires coupled with rituals that people will go thru to hear them. I see no problem with that. Sometimes convenience is the driving force, sometimes not. I have all kinds of recordings not available digitally - even new stuff that’s available completely or partially away from digital. Actually, cassettes are being offered by all kinds of labels now. On meeting one of our forum members here a couple years ago, the first thing he did was give me a cassette of his music. Even tho I already had a digital copy, I accepted his gift and I still play the cassette, because it does have a different sound to it (and a convenience). Cassettes dropping out or being eaten up just means that you either stored them in a crappy way or haven’t cleaned your deck in ages. Yeah, LPs are now too expensive for the often lousy pressings, but there’s a historical reason for that having to do with the closing of several pressing plants, and other factors. ...and this idea that some people are too cool to accept CDs from someone just trying to ply their trade is just asinine. What the fuck do you think all of this product is anyway? They’re audio business cards. Like nearly all activity, people don’t always have some secret desire to annoy or feel superior or whatever nefarious quality you want to pin on them, it might be that they have a ritual or convenience that works for their current lifestyle.

innerspaceboy

Relevant quote -

- Brian Eno, A Year With Swollen Appendices

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