Audio Tapes: The Original School

From a global point of view, the commercial release of the cassette tape was a coup in many ways: culturally, politically, socially. The dull looking plastic shell with twin spools inside has done so much: from smuggling underground rock music behind then-satellite countries of the Soviet Union, and immortalizing popular 70s and 80s Western tunes in far-flung and remote areas, right up to holding the personalized soundtrack of many a teenage angst. Despite the undisputable rule of CDs and mobile devices all over the world, manufacturers still churn out recordable tapes and compact cassettes, and recorders and cassette players are still around, thus guaranteeing years of unadulterated-albeit clunky-fidelity.

For the uninitiated, tapes were used to create musical collections, in the same way that one can log on the Net and buy songs that you can store into your player. Back in the 70s up to the early 90s (when tapes were in their twilight), one could collect their favorite songs at an extra effort (so they must really want those songs!). Without much spending, they can either visit the radio station and leave their tapes and fave list to the disc jockey, or go to a record bar that permits recording, or simply grab a cassette recorder and wait for their favorites to play on the radio. It was common knowledge too that these things weren't made to last forever, what with web like tapes; the elements of heat and light affected the quality of the music on the tapes as time passed. But the idea is that there's always more from where they came from.

With regard to pre-recorded cassettes, some artists would become the talk of the gyms, classrooms and lunch halls for coming up with gorgeously designed sleeve jackets. These wrap around the tape and protect it, and both slip inside a convenient plastic case. Sometimes it was an outright war to design the most eye catching cases. In the mid 90s, a stroll in the record bar would turn up some interesting finds: albums sans the plastic case, and this time resembling a well-known cigar box, albums with shrink-wrapped plastic, ambitious double-albums that hog the space, a single album with varying cover designs...

The durability, high-fidelity and large capacity of CDs was responsible for our sending to the trash most of our tape collection we used to own in the rebellious summer of our youth. Sometime in the early 90s, CDs have already exceeded pre-recorded cassettes sales. By 2001, the rule of cassettes belonged to the past; cassettes accounted for only 4% of all music sold in the US.

But what enables compact cassette recorders and cassettes to hang on? The recorders commonly are less pricier than most media and can be satisfactorily relied upon to deliver as substitutes for note taking. Thus, audiobooks, church services, and other spoken word material are still available in tapes format, since fidelity is definitely not a drawback when it comes to such content.

The tape seemed to have the same durability as our sneakers, boomboxes and school bags. It would get a few dents here and there, but it would always live to get recorded once more, sustaining countless layers of constantly imperfect soundtracks to describe how we felt. If ever the songs get overplayed and boring, it was a matter of covering with scotch tape the indentation on the edge of the case and hitting the RECORD button.

Who doesn't know how to use a pen or a pencil to rewind a cassette tape in just a few minutes' time? Simply make the polygon sidings of the pen align with the teeth of the spools, and spin it in the correct direction. There's not much problem with a transparent tape shell, but woe to you if it's opaque! In the event that the tape gets torn (it's an accident waiting to happen anyway in almost any tape collection), carefully align and reattach the strand ends against some mylar splicing tape. I myself used scotch tape at least once, but I only knew just now that there is the danger that the tape will bleed overtime.

When all the pending paperwork has been dealt and done with, I'll lay aside all the tunes that I got right after graduating from high school. I'll hunt for those dust covered tapes and play them, recalling the songs that made me older and wiser because I listened to them.