Audio Cassette: Holding On To Its Illustious Past
There was once a time when records ruled the world. These shiny pieces of vinyl were all you had to take the music home with you. People bought tons of these records. And they were the best that was available for the time. It was always a sad day when you discovered that your favorite song had a scratch on it. That was the problem with records.
And then the audio cassette was introduced. It was a huge advance for two reasons- first, cassettes were more durable than vinyl discs; second and much more importantly, you could record onto them! That means that for the first time, people could record their own audio tapes of whatever they felt like with the same technology used by the professionals.
The invention of the music cd, and the walkman, was truly revolutionary. Before the cd, the most portable form of music was a radio or a boom box. The cd freed the music lover. The walkman not only meant portable music, it also meant no one but the walkman owner had to hear the music. This was a great relief for society's ears.
There was a major problem with the audio cassette- there was no way to skip forward or backward reliably on the tape. If you were wanting to skip over one particularly disliked song, for instance, you would have to fast-forward beyond it and then hope that you didn't go too far and have to backtrack, or not go far enough and be stuck listening to part of the disliked song.
The audio cassette has lost most of its old market, but not all of it. There are still many people who swear that the audio cassette is at least the equal of the CD or the MP3. In addition, the creation of digital audio tapes allows the humble cassette to have a new lease on life. If you prefer your IPod, that's your concern; we'll stick with what we enjoy.
For those of us who grew up with the old fashioned mix tapes, we will always hold a soft part of our hearts' for the tape that let us be our own DJ. But now that we all have laptops and MP3 players, we have kind of let that art die out. It will never be forgotten though.
Audio cassette tapes replaced the gramophone records of the past. The audio tape had several advantages over records. They were more durable and you could record on them. The walkman revolution took place when youth could take their music with them. One disadvantage was that you could not pick and choose which song to listen to on the tape. Digital audio tapes still have their place, even amongst today's CDs and MP3s. The generations of the past will always remember the old fashioned mix tapes of our favorite songs. These mix tapes will always have a place in our hearts.
Published August 9th, 2007
Filed in Motivational
