From LPs to Cassettes: The Evolution of Portable Music

Spotify? MP3? CD? Sure, but I listened to music on a plastic audio cassette. Actually, I heard it on an eight-track cartridge in ’77.

Sometimes I forget how old I am and how much technology has passed by me. The music I first heard came from an AM radio in a car. The music was surrounded by static and would fade  as we passed under a bridge. Eight track players were an innovation. The music they gave stayed clear and loud all the time. But its technology didn’t stay around long. Philips had a smaller, better type of cassette. The eighties became the decade of the compact music cassette.

Madonna, Michael Jackson, The Eagles, Genesis, Meatloaf, etc, were available on this new, lightweight, extra-long playing, portable cassette. They came as blank versions too, so you record on to them. If you owned an LP (vinyl) record and wanted to take some music on the road, you could transfer it onto a blank tape cassette from your record player. If you were smart, you’d only transfer the tracks you liked most so to leave space on the cassette for other tracks you’d include from other LPs. A whole cassette tape could be filled with hits, only hits. Road trip music with mix tape music was always perfect music.

My mix-tape music included:

• Huey Lewis
• Cindy Lauper
• Duran Duran
• A-ha
• The Talking Heads
• Queen
• Van Halen
• ELO
• Bonny Tyler
• Air Supply
• …anything from FM radio that took my fancy

Oh, yes, new FM radio broadcasts were a great source of new material for my mix tapes too. Transferring FM music to a blank tape was easier than transferring from LPs. The only problem was capturing some of the DJ chatter at the beginning and ending of each song. That didn’t matter so much, I’d record a brand new, clean version once I bought the record.

What music did you listen to on cassette when the audio cassette was big? Was it The Dead Kennedy’s? The Cure? Visage? Bay City Rollers?

Let me know. Drop me a line.

–Michael (Dark Fiction. Author of SEETHINGS (the first book), free for a limited time)

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