The,Rise,and,Fall,the,Cassette technology The Rise and Fall of the Cassette

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The compact cassette, sometimes referred to as the standard cassette orsimply cassette, is a familiar sight to anyone who has grown up in the 70s and80s, but how many of us really know where they came from? Many of us rememberour first car, floor mats lost in a shallow sea of tapesingles and albums. They defined a generation, in the same way that the MP3 andother digital formats are defining generation Y.Reel-to-reel recorders were one of the most prevalent ways of recordingsound in the late fifties, but they weren’t practical, affordable, or portableenough for the average consumer to find useful.Numerous companies tried to create a cartridge that could play backprerecorded sounds, until the 8-track found its market in the mid 60s. Themedium was far more portable and resistant to damage than vinyl records, butsuffered numerous technical and design problems that kept the eight-track fromeventually dominating records in the music market.During this time, the cassette tape was slowly refined into a mediumthat was not only the most durable mode of music transportation, but also smalland affordable to produce. The original compact cassettes were known for havingrelatively low sound quality, but this improved during the seventies andeighties, when the medium began to rival the older music formats. By the lateseventies it had become a rival of the vinyl record as a means of playingmusic, due to the fact that the cassette could be re-recorded.The Cassette Catches OnThe early recorders and players were not well suited to music, however.They were intended for dictation the same way the microcassette after itwas.  The late sixties saw very little inthe way of music cassette tapes and it wasn’t until 1971 that high fidelitycompact music cassette tapes became a viable means for distributing new music.In the 1980s however, the cassette tape grew in popularity because ofthe portable Sony Walkman which was introduced in 1979. This portable tapeplayer revolutionized the way people listened to music, and cassette salesfinally overcame long playing vinyl records.The ease with which one could record and pass on the music made thecompact cassette a tool for political change. During this time westerninfluences in Russia were marked as contraband, but the cassette made itpossible for punk and rock music to reach the ears of young people and createdan opportunity for the eventual end of the Cold War. Another example is thedissemination of political propaganda in audio cassette form by AyatollahKhomeini in Iran before the 1979 Iranian Revolution.For a short time, cassettes were even used in data transfer forcomputers. Along with the 5 1/4 inch floppy drive discs, which were slightlymore expensive, cassettes were used to store programs for 8-bit computers(upwards of 60MB by the late 80’s) from the late seventies through the middleof the 80s. This was especially popular outside of the United States, inparticular the UK where it remained in use through the early 90s.TheUnraveling of a GenerationDuring the 1990s, the prerecorded audio cassette tapes fell into asharp decline. The compact disc was beginning to take more and more of themarket away from cassettes.  This declinewas most notable in the year 2001 when the total sale of all compact cassettesaccounted for only four percent of the overall music sales for all of theUnited States. All major record labels and music companies had abandoned theformat by 2003.The audio cassette tape was still a viable medium for some time duringthe 90s, as it was still a superior format for car stereo systems. Audiocassettes were not only more resistant to heat and dust, but the motion ofautomobiles and bumps in the road would cause compact disc players of the timeto skip.It wasn’t until the year 2000 when shock proof buffering technologyallowed manufacturers to replace audio tapes with compact disc technology asthe preferred medium in automobiles.  Even into the new millennium the audio cassette still remained part ofthe market as a home for the audio book. Still today, many publishers offer“books on tape” in cassette tape format, but audio books on CD now dominate.Blank cassettes are still available today, and while growing steadilyscarcer, the players and recorders are still featured on many Hi-Fi systems.Recording facilities for mass producing recorded content are still around andindependent rock and punk groups often sell their music in compact cassetteform. The cassette tape has begun to develop something of a cult following –although not at the same level as has vinyl. The compact cassette may now bewidely regarded as a piece of history, and it may not be the most popularmedium, but its use will continue running parallel to mainstream formats for awhile.