There. I said it. Retro music lovers may sing their praises, but the cassette tape is garbage and always has been.
It’s “Cassette Week 2024”. The cassettes response to Record Store Day I suppose. Your chance to head to select stores and buy limited edition cassettes from your favorite artists. But why?
Cassette tapes had their time. They were convenient and portable. But that is it. There was no other advantage to them. Let’s run through why they sucked.
- They sounded bad.- Vinyl records are older than cassettes. So why are they still relevant? THEY SOUND GOOD!!! Cassettes always sounded like you were listening to your favorite artist through a pillow. Muffled garbage.
- Tape decks even hate them.- Think about it. How many times did you throw a cassette in only to have the tape deck eat it up? You’d have to wind them up with a pencil afterward.
- It was impossible to find a specific song.-Again, with a record you drop the needle. With a cassette you’d have to fast forward and rewind relentlessly to find Jump from Kriss Kross. Sure, some tape decks had the fancy skip feature to the next song, but they hardly worked right. By the time that feature came around, CD’s were already in the picture anyway.
- They weren’t THAT portable.-If you wanted to take a single tape, fine. Portable. However, if you wanted to bring multiple tapes you’d need to haul the dreaded tape briefcase. Those things were huge.
Now, with all of this said, I do need to apologize to anyone who tried to record their favorite song onto cassette from the radio. It’s my job to talk over the music and I’m sorry you had to hear me ask for the ninth caller to win Harlequin tickets.