Dead technology : Whatever happened to ... cassettes
Posted on Monday, August 4, 2008
BENTONVILLE - Gone are the days when teased hair, neon clothing and spandex shorts were considered fashionable, the Sony Walkman was the No. 1 accessory to own and cassette tapes were the cool way to listen to your music.
Today, popping a Duran Duran cassette into your boom box on a summer afternoon while wearing your Hulkamania T-shirt simply is not acceptable - not unless you are an extra in a movie poking fun of all the cheesy fads the 1980 s and early 1990 s had to offer.
In 2008, you will need an iPod with its memory filled to the gills with a mix of country, rap, pop and every kind of rock music you can get your hands on. Instead of blaring the music on your gigantic boom box, the sleek thing to do is to wear your white headphones and rock out to the music on your iPod's playlists with no one the wiser to just what it is you are listening to.
With the arrival of compact discs, then digital music players, a person cannot help but wonder - just what happened to the cassette tapes that once filled our favorite record stores and had us shelling out $ 10 for the new Def Leppard album ? For that matter, what happened to the local, independently owned record stores with album artwork covering the walls and a back section filled with vinyl ?
Should a person want to buy their favorite artist's newest release today, they will likely have to go into their neighborhood Best Buy, a nationwide electronics superstore, and browse the store's racks for a compact disc. Shoppers will not find a cassette anywhere in the store.
The same holds true for Vintage Stock in Rogers. Vintage Stock is a store where people can buy, sell and trade music-related items, including cassette tapes if they wish, although the store is likely to just throw out cassettes, according to manager Chris Plake.
With a name like Vintage Stock, one might expect to find things that are "vintage" - such as cassettes - in the store; but that simply is not the case. Plake says the last time he saw a cassette was more than six months ago -when the store sold its last one.
"Every now and then someone will come in and look for them, but we do not have them. A lot of times, those people are looking for some classic rock that is not on CD," Plake said. "At our Springdale location, we had a lot of them, and we would bag them in a large grocery store sack and sell them for $ 5 and people would just go crazy over them. "Now, not even the Springdale location has a single cassette in its stock.
One place buyers can still find a cassette or two lying around is at Janet Davis Music in Bella Vista.
"We still have a couple around. We offer them for $ 1 or $ 2," said Derek Van Lynn of Janet Davis Music. "We used to see a lot of books that had the cassettes with them, but now everything is books with CDs."
Van Lynn admits cassettes can offer listeners a little piece of nostalgia mixed in with the analog sound.
"Personally, I still have cassettes and I have been breaking them out and listening to them and they still sound pretty good," Van Lynn said. "We have had maybe one person ask about cassettes this year. Most people have gone over to CDs and iTunes.
"Even folks with bluegrass have gone over (to CD and digital music from cassettes ). They usually want to hold on to tradition, but they do not even want to hold on to cassettes that hard."
With the advent of Apple's iTunes and the iPod empire, even CDs are finding themselves on the list of endangered technologies.
"CD sales in general have slumped," Plake, of Vintage Stock said," but if you look at the new records, iTunes sales are flying."
"If you look back at 2004, we would sell $ 5, 000 to $ 7, 000 in CDs (each month ), and now we are selling around $ 4, 000, so the slump is not too bad, but it is still there."
One interesting thing to note is that vinyl records are seeing a comeback in sales.
"Vinyl is huge, especially in collectability. A lot of people will buy (the older vinyl albums ) just to hang them on the wall. They have got no real use for the record. They just want the artwork," Plake said. "As soon as we get (vinyl ) in, it just goes out the door. "
Hobby Lobby has even started selling frames custom made for album covers.
Before you start hoarding your Pink Floyd and AC / DC cassette tapes, be wary because the demand for cassettes 20 years from now simply is not likely.
"With the vinyl, you have got the huge artwork and that is not the case with cassettes," Plake said. "Vinyl has a more real feel to it."
"A lot of people like records because of the packaging, and I like them because you can see all the album artwork. Some people like the warped sound of the vinyl and the needle as opposed to the square sound of CDs," said Derek Van Lynn, who works at Janet Davis Music. "Cassettes really are a dead breed."
Then again, Hulkamania has started making its comeback with Hulk Hogan playing host on NBC's "American Gladiators," and dead clothing fashions of years past have been sneaking their way into designers' fall collections.
We may not have seen the last of the good, old Sony Walkman and cassette tape yet, although it is looking likely. So, don't hold your breath.
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