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Not long left for cassette tapes (Where's my 25GB Blu-Ray DVD?)
BBC News ^ | June 17, 2005

Posted on 06/18/2005 11:32:46 PM PDT by Dont Mention the War

Not long left for cassette tapes

Last Updated: Friday, 17 June, 2005, 08:02 GMT 09:02 UK

Some 40 years after global cassette production began in earnest, sales are in terminal decline.

From its creation in the 1960s through to its peak of popularity in the 1980s, the cassette has been a part of music culture for 40 years.

But industry experts believe it does not have long left, at least in the West.

The cassette may have hissed, been prone to wow and flutter, and often ended its life chewed in a tape deck, but it ruled for four decades before MP3s and downloads.

However, the cassette's reign now seems to be over.

"Cassette albums have declined quite significantly since their peak in 1989 when they were selling 83 million units in the UK," Matt Phillips of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) told BBC World Service's The Music Biz programme.

"Last year we saw that there were about 900,000 units sold. It's clear to see that cassette sales are dwindling fast."

Mix tape

Dutch electronics giant Philips perfected the design of the cassette in the 1960s.

It was designed to be a new form of portable entertainment, launched into a market dominated by vinyl LPs and reel-to-reel tape recorders.

Oddly, Philips did not charge royalties on their cassette patent, allowing numerous other companies to use their design for free. This ensured the quick acceptance of it as a new form of media.

It went on to accrue enormous worldwide sales. At its mid-80s peak, it sold 900 million units a year, 54% of total global music sales.

The music industry itself, however, remained concerned about cassettes, in particular the ability of people to record music on them.

They feared piracy, arguing that home taping was "killing music", a similar argument to the one occurring today over downloading.

One thing home taping allowed was the creation of the mix tape - a compilation of songs often put together as a present for a loved one. The process of creating the mix tape was immortalised by Nick Hornby in his novel High Fidelity.

New York music writer Joel Keller laments that personal computers have killed the mix tape star, and that the "drag and burn" method of creating compilation CDs is simply "less fun."

"I liked it when I sat in front of my stereo, my tape deck, with a big pile of CDs, deciding on the fly which songs to put in what order," he said.

"My play and record fingers got a little sore because I had to time it right. Listening to the song as it played, finding the levels - it seemed like more of a labour of love than it is it do CDs now."

Legacy

However, while cassettes are disappearing quickly from the music stores, they are clinging on in the UK in bookshops.

Having begun as a way of providing titles to the blind, a third of all audio books are still sold on cassette. An audio recording of a bestseller such as The Da Vinci code can sell between 60-70,000 copies in the UK alone.

"Audio tapes are like an old friend that doesn't go away," Pandora White of Orion audio books told The Music Biz.

"I think it's the accessibility of it. Where you stop and start is immediately where you left off, whereas CD can be a bit more tricky."

And outside of the music stores of the West, cassettes do continue to survive as a music format, in countries such as Afghanistan and India.

In some markets, performers record directly onto cassette.

Keith Joplin, a Director of Research at the International Federation of Phonographic Industries, said that Turkey still sells 88 million cassettes a year, India 80 million, and that cassettes account for 50% of sales in these countries. In Saudi Arabia, it is 70%.

However, he added that this is because the penetration of CD players "is not 100% in those markets."

With the US's largest magnetic tape factory ceasing production earlier this year, there are fears that even if cassettes are wanted in future, there will no longer be anything to wrap around the spools.

However, terms such as fast forward, rewind, record and pause, everyday words bequeathed to us from the tape era, ensure that in the English language at least, the legacy of the cassette will survive.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Technical
KEYWORDS: cassettes; genx; mixtapes; technology
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1 posted on 06/18/2005 11:32:46 PM PDT by Dont Mention the War
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To: Dont Mention the War

"Where's my 25GB Blu-Ray DVD?"

It's coming as part of the Playstation 3 you'll be buying next Spring.


2 posted on 06/18/2005 11:34:19 PM PDT by Moral Hazard (According to the Catholic church the Capybara is a fish.)
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To: Moral Hazard
It's coming as part of the Playstation 3 you'll be buying next Spring.

Excellent.

3 posted on 06/18/2005 11:39:10 PM PDT by Dont Mention the War (John Bolton for White House Press Secretary!)
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To: Moral Hazard
I don't think I've bought a cassette since about, maybe 1995.  I haven't even played my old collection, quite numerous, in many years.

Funny how these things go away and you don't even notice it.

4 posted on 06/18/2005 11:39:17 PM PDT by softwarecreator (Facts are to liberals as holy water is to vampires)
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To: Dont Mention the War
International Federation of Phonographic Industries

There is way too much phonography on the internet, in my opinion. Although I will admit to having a couple of phon CD's.

5 posted on 06/18/2005 11:40:52 PM PDT by Larry Lucido
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To: Dont Mention the War

It WAS a great medium as long as you didn't know what you were missing.

Same for the Atari 2600 and for all kinds of technology.


6 posted on 06/18/2005 11:42:55 PM PDT by SteveMcKing (What happens in Vegas -- stays on your record.)
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To: softwarecreator
Same with LP wax records, and of course:


7 posted on 06/18/2005 11:50:44 PM PDT by Clock King
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To: softwarecreator

I guess I'm a dinosaur. I play tapes all the time on my Walkman. I still listen to my old cassettes and copy new CDs to tape to put them in the Walkman. If I didn't play the CDs on my computer, I'd probably still buy tapes.

I have a 2 hr a day bus commute and I need the noise and distraction from my fellow travellers. I find the CD players are too big to put in a pocket. I am a big talk radio fan and like to have a radio available as well; I go back and forth between music and the news. Unless iPod comes out w/a radio attached, I probably won't switch over.


8 posted on 06/18/2005 11:50:52 PM PDT by radiohead
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To: radiohead

I recently purchased a FLASH memory digital music player... it's much smaller than an iPod (size and memory-wise) but stores enough for my needs, and besides that it includes a radio


9 posted on 06/18/2005 11:59:54 PM PDT by okstate
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To: Dont Mention the War; ItsOurTimeNow; PresbyRev; tortoise; Fraulein; StoneColdGOP; Clemenza; ...
Xer Ping

Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.

Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.  

10 posted on 06/19/2005 12:04:15 AM PDT by qam1 (There's been a huge party. All plates and the bottles are empty, all that's left is the bill to pay)
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To: radiohead

Check out the post right under yours.


11 posted on 06/19/2005 12:13:11 AM PDT by softwarecreator (Facts are to liberals as holy water is to vampires)
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To: Dont Mention the War
I still haven't updated to CDs yet, For some reason I always seem to find cars that still uses a cassette player.

I like cassettes better though, without the white noise in the music you get on cassettes that you don't get on CD it's just not the same.

It's like caffeine free soda, it basically taste the same but there is just something missing in the flavor.

Dazed & Confused by Led Zeppelin is a perfect example, the cymbals during the guitar solo are just to clear on the CD version which causes it not to have the same kick
12 posted on 06/19/2005 12:14:56 AM PDT by qam1 (There's been a huge party. All plates and the bottles are empty, all that's left is the bill to pay)
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To: Clock King
man, I hated those things ... I just can't believe that they would actually cut a song in half to play on the next track if it went over that tracks maximum time.  Coincidently, it always happened to be the one song that was your favorite.
13 posted on 06/19/2005 12:16:30 AM PDT by softwarecreator (Facts are to liberals as holy water is to vampires)
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To: qam1

Yeah, but when you think about it, the orginal recordings did not have that hiss so what you are hearing on a CD is what the artist intended the song to sound like.


14 posted on 06/19/2005 12:20:14 AM PDT by softwarecreator (Facts are to liberals as holy water is to vampires)
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To: okstate; softwarecreator
I recently purchased a FLASH memory digital music player

I'll look into it. If it's something that can be banged around in a backpack when it's not in my pocket, sounds interesting.

15 posted on 06/19/2005 12:21:22 AM PDT by radiohead
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To: Dont Mention the War

Just a couple weeks ago I went through boxes of hundreds of cassettes, and threw out all but five of them. Two of those have one song each that I wanted to jot down so I could download them (thanks for the reminder!) and three are mixes that I want to have transferred to CD.


16 posted on 06/19/2005 12:21:53 AM PDT by AntiGuv (™)
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To: qam1
Here's a coincidence, as I read your post I was playing Led Zep's "Black Dog" on my guitar (unplugged of course, wife & kids asleep).  When I finished reading I noticed I was doing "Dazed & Confused" ... ah, the power of suggestion.  =)
17 posted on 06/19/2005 12:24:10 AM PDT by softwarecreator (Facts are to liberals as holy water is to vampires)
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To: okstate

I looked at some of these flash players on Amazon. Not too many have comments, and the comments that are there aren't that great. I'm concerned by one comment that the heavy duty batteries he was using were only good for 5 hours. I'd burn thru a fortune in batteries the way I use my walkman.

But, I'm not deterred yet. It looks like an interesting device. I just need to find a good one - of course, they all just have FM and talk radio is mostly AM, but since Rush has gone to podcasting, maybe it won't matter. Otherwise, I have to listen to NPR. : )


18 posted on 06/19/2005 12:34:59 AM PDT by radiohead
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To: SteveMcKing
What I miss are those cassette/radio boomboxes that had equalizer knobs or switches that allowed you to adjust the sound hundreds of different ways. I can't stand the CD boomboxes they sell now that have only a few audio options: regular, vocal, live, rock or pop, etc. I liked the ability to adjust the sound to exactly my preference. In fact, I used to copy songs off of CD onto cassettes and then play them on the old boombox until it died on me. I got better sound - to my ears anyway - with the old technology.
19 posted on 06/19/2005 12:35:57 AM PDT by billclintonwillrotinhell
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To: billclintonwillrotinhell

Even most receivers are like that now, not just all-in-one systems.


20 posted on 06/19/2005 12:44:57 AM PDT by SteveMcKing (What happens in Vegas -- stays on your record.)
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