Cassettes: the revenge of analog

Inevitable: in our Age of Eternal Return, the turn of cassettes has come.

Sales of pre-recorded tapes increase, specialized stores operate and specific labels prosper.

This year, Record Store Day includes hundreds of references on cassette.

More information

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The evaluation of the phenomenon is up to the reader's taste: nice vindication of an analog support or pure

hipster

fetishism .

What's important to remember is that cassettes changed our perception of recorded music.

Although they were not intended for that use: introduced by the Dutch Philips in 1963, they were designed for executive dictations, not to mention journalists and other professions that required capturing other people's voices.

As would later happen with the release of the CD, the industry happily shot itself in the foot (Philips had its own recording arm, which would feel the painful impact of piracy in later years).

It was difficult to correct the mechanical deficiencies and achieve acceptable sound quality.

They improved and even came to be used professionally: the Tascam Portastudio allowed recording on cassette and at home (this is how

Nebraska

, Bruce Springsteen's album was made in 1982).

Its small size was an asset compared to reel-to-reel tapes or eight-track cartridges, which were also used to sell music.

In the eighties, the imperial decade of the cassette, the hardware

was implemented

that would guarantee its triumph.

Players became miniaturized (the Walkman!) and increased in power (the

boombox

, colloquially known here as a parrot).

The cars also signed up for the radio-cassette player.

The cheapening of blank cassettes facilitated cultural practices not imagined by Dutch engineers.

In the (sorry) Third World, they vampirized LP records: any store became a music factory.

In fact, thanks to the double decks, any home competed with the multinationals, which even campaigned with a slogan — “Home copies are killing music and are illegal” — that lent itself to gossip: “Home copies are killing music.” the music industry, and it's about time!”

Certain subcultures encouraged the exchange of cassettes (the Grateful Dead reserved a special area for

tapers

, fans who recorded their concerts).

Many musicians, and not just those with an experimental vocation, released their works on cassettes with a limited run and minimal cost, without going through the bureaucratic and manufacturing hassles of vinyl.

Without forgetting their use as, well, seduction aids.

The novelist Nick Hornby explained it in

High Fidelity

.

The

mixtapes

, generally made by male specimens for the recipients of their desires, expressed feelings that one was not able to vocalize, apart from a certain swagger: “Look at the depth of my record collection, the subtlety of sequencing, my exquisite taste in music".

If a beautiful cover was made on top of it, success was guaranteed (just kidding).

Someone will claim that the same thing is done today by uploading a

playlist

on some platform.

Not at all: the

mixtape

was a handmade product designed for a specific person, not an

urbi et orbi

boast .

It could also be a film made for personal enjoyment, like the

Awesome mix

that we see in the movie

Guardians of the Galaxy

.

One question: do Marvel superheroes also carry a Bic pen?

You know, to rewind the cassette without the batteries dying.

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