Feature:

Changing Tunes

Remembering the “cassette tape” generation

By Pepin

As far as I can remember, it was for almost three decades that the cassette tapes ruled the audio stores. They replaced those huge and flat gramophone records in the 70’s, and became top sellers in the 80’s until the late 90’s. In fact, millions of people have been collecting them since they were out in the market.

I used to receive audio cassette tapes as presents for my birthday, and my collection consisted of various albums, like Oasis, Air Supply, Eraserheads, Bon Jovi, Ace of Base, and Backstreet Boys. I would usually buy one if I want to get hold of a copy of the song I heard over MTV, then I would play it over and over again on the car stereo or the karaoke at home. Oftentimes, I would push the play-rewind-play for the nth time, until my last song syndrome was finally relieved. I just can’t get enough of these audio materials as I was growing up. Honestly, the last time I played a cassette tape was five months ago. My car was still having a cassette tape player back then.

Cassette tapes are more than just collectibles; these have been considered by many as their comfort zones. These have been soothing respites of daily mood swings, especially during desperate moments. Moreover, these served as storage spaces for intimate love songs, and even used as recording materials for a baby’s first laughs and cries. It is without a doubt that being in the limelight for three years; cassette tapes have served a lot of purpose to humankind.

But today, if these are not kept as collections, they are seen on the dumps. Little children would destroy their casing and play with the two miniature spools. The magnetically coated tape is a wonder toy for them, and they would often knot this around their body or on both trees to create a fence. This only shows that today’s generation are unaware on how precious these items were used to be.

Music artist of the cassette tape generation would also earn a lot by selling their albums through this format (audio cassette tape format). But today, songs and other audio materials are easily copied and are reproduced illicitly (talk about piracy). Other songs can even be downloaded on some websites over the internet without respect to copyright policies. All of these caused a decline on the music industry, and even discouraged hundreds of music artist to make quality songs.

It’s quite impossible for cassette tapes to regain their glories. However, no one can erase the fact that they became a big part of many cultures. Eventhough compact disks and other portable media players are readily available in the market today, the valuable contribution and exceptional tunes of these old-fashioned audio materials will never be over and done.