owning physical media: cassettes
What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a cassette player? Perhaps your mind instantly recalls the iconic introduction to the first Guardians of the Galaxy, or perhaps Stranger Things (which I've never seen). Season 2 of the Last of Us featured the Sony Walkman WM-1 where Ellie listened to the recording of the Apollo 11 launch, a most beautiful moment of connection between herself and her father figure. I guess for me contemporary media isn't quite where my mind draws to when I think of cassettes.
When I was growing up, my family had a huge selection of tapes for the car which I really enjoyed fiddling with. I used to stick pencils to wind the tapes and mess with them whenever I had the chance (much to the chagrin of my parents and relatives). Sadly, those memories didn't last long when our car was replaced with one that had a CD player instead. No offense to CDs but I quite liked those plastic boxes with fiddle holes. As tapes were made obsolete, CDs continued to become a huge part of my life growing up. But I feel we've come a far cry from the before-times when all we have now are games installed from a service provider and music beamed to us by an app.
Although convenient, to me, it feels intangible.
Listening to music isn't a physical experience like it used to be, unless you're regularly attending concert, and these days I like building a connection to the things I'm doing. Exploring new tapes at a thrift store brings back a layer to music discovery - you're not only looking for the tapes you want but you're also looking at music you've never thought twice about listening to before. I discovered a Japanese heavy metal band (more like power metal really) called X Japan while on my quest to find some tapes for Bon Jovi and Billy Joel and I immediately fell in love. Truthfully I've never heard of X Japan before but I loved this tape of their greatest songs ever, and now I treasure the tape itself. I don't need to look for it on Spotify or figure out the Japanese characters on the title to see which song is the one I want, I just need to slide this tape into my player and press play.
There's a certain euphoria to owning physical media. In fact, what makes cassettes more attractive to me than say CDs, are the quirks of cassettes themselves. The imperfection in the tape recordings, the wobbling, the occasional tape hiss. These are things that bleed into your experience. And these characteristics are all unique to the tapes that you own. Each individual tape has its character and this will change over time, alongside your own little player. The real allure of owning the media you consume inspires more power to the individual, more power over special interests that dictate what you see and hear. And it inspires connection yet with those around you who want to share in that experience.
Anyway, those are just my ramblings for today. As a last little note, much like the people we meet and connect with, I think it's worth building a meaningful connection with the things we own and the media we consume as well.
As I conclude this post, I'm currently listening to Pink Floyd's 1994 PULSE concert recording on my AIWA HS-P12, and I'm loving every second of it. I also brought a Sony Walkman WM-GX300 into the fold as well (the mega bass feature is very cool).
All my blog posts are drafted on my 1975 Olympia Traveller de Luxe