The first cassette that I pulled out of the box today was The Call’s 1986 album Reconciled. I was quite surprised to see it as this was a massive favourite of mine, oh, twenty-four years ago and I hadn’t thought about it for years. Not many people know about this band but you might recognise the song “I Still Believe” from The Lost Boys soundtrack. I wasn’t exaggerating in my opening paragraph of this post. It is like the years haven’t made one bit of difference and I am as much in love with this album as I have ever been. It is amazing to hear it again.
Of course, I spent the rest of the afternoon going through the tapes and spent a small fortune on old new music. Quite frankly, you’d think I would have noticed before now that my music collection was missing Hothouse Flowers’ Home and several Waterboys and Dire Straits albums. How I survived without the soundtracks to The Piano and The Doors I will never know and not having the 1989 Texas album Southside was just madness. Now that equilibrium has been restored in my music collection and my iPod is completely full, I’m going to sit back and propose a toast to the digital age.
I know it is not cool or trendy to admit that I prefer digital music over LP quality but I am thankful every day that I don’t have to muck about with cassette tapes and record players any more. I can get any song I want and I don’t have to pay exorbitant prices for full albums or countless remixes of a song that I neither want nor like. It was lovely meeting up with my old cassettes today and wonderful listening to a much-loved and almost forgotten album but I am more than happy to carry the tunes with me into the future while leaving behind the hassle.
Article comments
1 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Yea... I can admit that LPs & Tapes were a bit of a hassle,but, it also became an enjoyment, albeit a bit forced (maybe). Though, I'm still torn. I love the convenience & technological progression of this digital age but I feel that that convenience has,in an unfortunate way, spilled over into the recording process. I think with some things, the time spent to carve out a masterpiece really matters. In this case, it's the album format which is basically dead. But, I'm getting way too analytical for this thread. Anyways, nice article. I still keep some of my favorite tapes around and wish that I didn't get rid of my collection.
2 - Emm
Hey Brian. I absolutely agree! I think it is going to be a case of natural selection. If artists continue to take the piss and churn out average albums with only one or two good tracks on then sure, we're only going to buy those tracks and it is certainly going to lead to the death of the album format.