Cassette tapes revived

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Many of us like to listen to music on our smartphones these days, but some of us can still fondly remember the slighty hissy sound from cassette tapes.

watch it here.

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A guided tour of Bucks Burnett’s Eight Track Museum

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Growing up in the 1970s, Bucks Burnett never even owned an eight-track tape: When his parents purchased their first post-LP stereo console, they went straight for a cassette player. “They were visionaries,” he says.

But that hasn’t stopped Burnett from becoming the eight-track’s most vocal champion, amassing an incredible collection of Stereo 8 cartridges, and opening the world’s first museum devoted entirely to the format. Located in the Deep Ellum neighborhood of Dallas, Texas, Burnett’s original Eight Track Museum opened in 2011, offering visitors a peek at an often overlooked medium plus an archive of every audio recording format created since the earliest wax cylinders of the late 1800s. In October of 2012, the second outpost of Burnett’s homage to the 8-track opened at the Orphic Gallery in Roxbury, New York, expanding the reach of his crusade for lesser known forms of audio recording.

Eight-Tracks-from-the-Bucks-Burnett-Collection-photo-©-Allison-V.-Smith

Burnett’s obsession with Stereo 8 tapes began after a chance encounter at a garage sale in the ’80s, and he’s never looked back. The quirky vibe of each Eight Track Museum is perfectly matched by Burnett’s outsized personality (when the Oxford English Dictionary decided to remove the entry for “Cassette Tape” in 2011, Burnett retaliated by banning the dictionary from his museum). During the ’80s, Burnett befriended such music world notables as the ukelele-playing Tiny Tim, as well as Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, the founding members of the Talking Heads who went on to create Tom Tom Club in 1981. Among others, each of these stars is a part of Burnett’s unfinished documentary on the 8-track tape, called “Spinal Tape,” which is expected to be completed in 2013.

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Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska recorded on a cassette-tape

Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska sixth studio album was recorded on a Portastudio 144 cassette 4 track. The tracks were originally intended as demos of songs to be recorded with the E Street Band.

“I got a little Teac four-track cassette machine, and I said, I’m gonna record these songs, and if they sound good with just me doin’ ’em, then I’ll teach ’em to the band.” Bruce Springsteen

However, he and the producers felt that the essence present on the home tapes was lacking in the band performance, and so they decided to release the demo version as the final release.

cassette bruce springtsteen

“It’s amazing that it got there, ’cause I was carryin’ that cassette around with me in my pocket without a case for a couple of week, just draggin’ it around. Finally, we realized, “Uh-oh, that’s the album.” Bruce Springsteen

In 1989, Nebraska was ranked 43rd on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s

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Why tape

On Record Store Day 2015 the best-selling release was a cassette!!! Metallica’s “No Life Til Leather” is a replica of the demo tape that would eventually get them their first record contract.

Metallica Record Store Day cassette release

Cassette tapes are here to stay. Great way for bands and labels to put out an analogue release that is way cheaper than a the vinyl production.

Probably we’ll see more cassette-only releases…

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