Went through a music site earlier, and found that they were selling vintage cassettes along with some cassette players. Thought it might be a good topic to post about, for those of us who even remember listening to cassettes. And maybe for some who don't as well! So what was the first cassette tape that you remember buying, who was the artist and which album was it?

Mine was actually a recorded TDK cassette that I had in 1993. It was a 60 minutes cassette and had about eight to nine songs on each side.




Jessica.

I was 15  and I actually bought 5 cassettes (as I finally  had a part-time job and had money of my own). I also wanted to change some of these over from the records I had. They were ...

http://i1122.photobucket.com/albums/l531/gibbopg/albums5.jpghttp://i1122.photobucket.com/albums/l531/gibbopg/albums1.jpghttp://i1122.photobucket.com/albums/l531/gibbopg/albums2.jpghttp://i1122.photobucket.com/albums/l531/gibbopg/albums3.jpghttp://i1122.photobucket.com/albums/l531/gibbopg/albums4.jpg

It took awhile for me to make the transition, actually it took someone to steal the 8-track player and 8-track tapes out of my
car, to switch to cassettes. I replaced most of my 8-tracks with cassettes but the first one was Jesus Christ Superstar,
The double album version. By the time I replaced all my 8-tracks with cassettes it was time to replace the cassettes with
CDs. Albums seem to making a comeback, I'm okay there, I still have all of those.

Mine was actually a recorded TDK cassette that I had in 1993. It was a 60 minutes cassette and had about eight to nine songs on each side.


Narrow it down a bit.  No, really, narrow it down.  Which TDK C-60 was it?  From my own dusty memory banks, I recognized TDK A-60, TDK D-60, my go-to tape was TDK SA-X60 or 90 (in at least three or four variations on the site), I think I had some ancient software on a TDK C-30 or something like it.  To this day I had no idea that a TDK D-C180 (90-minute-per-side casettes?!) even existed.  And that's just one tape manufacturer out of at least four or so that I recall fumbling for in my car's glovebox.

With the benefit of hindsight, it occurs to me that the differences between the hundreds of models of magnetic tapes were essentially inaudible.  I bought at the high end of the midrange cassette market, and regardless of the manufacturer, it was all good as long as I remembered to set the switch for Type I, Type II, or Type IV before dubbing.

Someday (like, in about 10 years) there'll be a site where people scan in their old CD-Rs.  Thousands of brand names for what was essentially two or three lines of the same product.

Narrow it down a bit.  No, really, narrow it down.  Which TDK C-60 was it?  From my own dusty memory banks, I recognized TDK A-60, TDK D-60, my go-to tape was TDK SA-X60 or 90 (in at least three or four variations on the site), I think I had some ancient software on a TDK C-30 or something like it.  To this day I had no idea that a TDK D-C180 (90-minute-per-side casettes?!) even existed.  And that's just one tape manufacturer out of at least four or so that I recall fumbling for in my car's glovebox.

With the benefit of hindsight, it occurs to me that the differences between the hundreds of models of magnetic tapes were essentially inaudible.  I bought at the high end of the midrange cassette market, and regardless of the manufacturer, it was all good as long as I remembered to set the switch for Type I, Type II, or Type IV before dubbing.

Someday (like, in about 10 years) there'll be a site where people scan in their old CD-Rs.  Thousands of brand names for what was essentially two or three lines of the same product.

Mine was a TDK D-60 type 1 :) I remember that much lol!

I had tons of cassettes, a mixture of albums of my own, borrowed from my brothers or friends, or the mix tapes of singles (Too Numerous To Mention I called all mine) all recorded so I could listen on my Walkman.

I think I only bought one proper commercial cassette and that was

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0b/Life%27s_a_riot.jpg

I got my first cassette recorder at the age of 9 or 10. Two of my sisters also got one, too. The three of us mainly used them for recording each other-or creating our own radio shows, etc. The funniest one was when one sister recorded the other one as she was singing in the bathtub. The thing was, she wasn't just singing-but really hamming things up and such. ;D ;D ;D ;D  If I'm not mistaken, I think my sister STILL has that tape. Every time we listen to it, we still crack up.

I don't think I ever really started buying albums on tape until I went to Greece in the late '80s because they "stereo" at the time was only a portable cassette player with a radio.


Cat

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f249/vandelay7/mchammer-vanillaice/vanillaice-totheextreme.jpg

Yup.

http://s.ecrater.com/stores/110247/4bfc99e8812db_110247n.jpg

Yup.


(Yup Yup.)  My condolences.  My answer is probably the Stars on 45 album, no less cheesily-embarassing:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/70/Stars_On_-_Stars_On_Long_Play.jpg

But whether distributed as cassette or LP or CD, at least those were full-fledged albums. 

In response to the success of the CD single (a CD that cost $1 to produce could earn $10 for the "one good track and one or two otherwise unobtainable 12-inch remixes"), the industry came up with one of the dumbest formats ever to hit music distribution:

BEHOLD!  The Cassingle!

1niYGZYHcJI

All the manufacturing costs of the expensive-to-produce cassette tape (expensive compared to both the CD-single and the 45 RPM vinyl), but only a quarter of the music.

It was 1986.  The first word in the song was "Supercomputer".  The song was called Hack Attack.  The YouTube video shows a vinyl album cover, but just imagine it with a different smudging and in a casette case.  Why, yes, I paid money for it.  Not even the college radio station's DJ had it on 12".  And if he did, he wasn't admitting it by acting on requests for it.  I REGRET NOTHING!

EDIT:
I think I only bought one proper commercial cassette and that was




I knew I forgot something important tonight.  (And I still REGRET NOTHING!)