by Sunbeam » Thu Dec 15, 2016 10:01 pm
Cassettes were at best a mid-fi medium- with a car stereo market niche, then came the Walkman. Sure there were some high-end cassette decks that folks used to save wear on their LPs, or to play in the car, and for marginal live recording, but that was transitory.
Funny that sales of both cassettes and LPs are up, CDs are down.
I still love my 12" vinyl.
Lovingly cleaning an LP, and placing the stylus in the groove is a God-like moment of expectant reverence. It requires deliberation, preparation, and anticipation, enhancing the experience.
It requires foreplay.
Clicking on a song title on the computer screen just does not require the emotional commitment to hearing a piece of music that playing an LP does.
--it took this much effort to play this, I'm going to enjoy every second-- vs. --nah, something else is just a click away-- No wonder our kids have such a short attention span.
Cassettes certainly had their place, but as a delivery medium for new music, they are deeply flawed. Most of my LPs from 40 years ago are still very playable. Most of my cassettes are not.
That turned into much more of a treatise on the psychology of music playback vis-a-vis media type than I had planned... Of course I still have my nice Pioneer and Nakamichi cassette decks, which mostly collect dust these days, unless I stumble across an old 1-off cassette that I want to rescue into the digital realm.