I'm much less of a U2 fan than I once was, but on a whim I bought the remastered version of "The Unforgettable Fire" last night. I bought it on cassette, back in prehistoric times, and lost interest in the band before CDs came out. So, I've never heard it on anything but crappy tape through a long series of crappy tape decks.
"Bad" just popped up on the iPod, and it's truly an amazing difference from what I remember. There are all kinds of sounds in there that I have no recollection of hearing: various seagull guitar sounds, a tambourine occasionally shaking throughout the verses, a high-pitched tinkling sound on the strings in the second verse, a strange stereo echo on a ride cymbal in the second half, etc.. I had to check to make sure it wasn't a remix of some kind. Sounds great, even in MP3. Most impressive. Makes me wonder about the "Boy" and "Under A Blood Red Sky" remasters... I still won't touch anything after "Rattle And Hum", but it's nice to hear the old stuff again...
Cassettes really were shit, weren't they?
I effectively skipped the cassette generation. I went from buying vinyl to buying CDs, and the only pre-recorded cassettes I bought were a handful of albums I didn’t care about — En Vogue comes to mind. Not sure why I even did that; maybe it was cheaper.
But, I did own several 8-tracks. So I paid my “shitty audio” dues there.
Cassettes were bloody terrible. I even used to splash out on ‘chrome’ or ‘metal’ blanks thinking I could tell the difference. I couldn’t – it was all a hissy mess. I still have a bunch of cassettes somewhere in the loft but nothing left to play them on. And we’d use those tape-to-tape decks to copy a copy of a copy…
BTW I stopped at Achtung Baby.
cassettes rocked for making mixed tapes for your girlfriend (High Fidelity, anyone?), and to explore new music before you bought it. I still remember listening the shit out of “Fear of Music” around ’79, back when David Byrne gave most people nightmares. The only cassette I bought was “The Catherine Wheel, because the cassette had a bunch of songs not available on the album.
That said, I really miss LP’s. Mostly because of the mass and the ritual of putting the record on the player, followed by flipping it over at the end of the side. And the cool artwork that will never translate to a jewel box size.
As far as U2 is concerned, I pretty much stopped after “Under a Blood Red Sky.” I saw the show on British TV soon after it happened while studying in the UK summer of ’83. I was so jealous of my friend Eric when I saw him front and center in a crowd shot of the show. It was the only time I missed Colorado that summer.
Earnest question: did kids ten years ago make mix CD’s? Do kids these days make custom playlists for each other? I mean, it should be easier to bake your own album now, but do people bother?
I can live with jewel box artwork (see Fishbone and Branford Marsalis for examples of fold-out leaflets) but the new world model of downloads is going to kill me. I’m a liner notes junkie, whether for lyrics or musician credits or photos, and online purchasing just hasn’t arrived at a satisfying replacement for this.
…and I missed the whole 8-track fiasco.
Thank god
I had a killer cassette playback component. I think it was Sony’s top of the line c1980 or so. Inherited from my dad. It was the lynch pin in my cobbled together stereo system throughout the 80s. The hiss wasn’t too bad and there was a lot of depth to the sound.
Oh, and I had half a dozen Walkmans (Walkmen?) who played the role of my only real friend through my teenage years.
Even as they are excised from dictionaries, cassettes will always be close to my heart.
sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
i pulled my tape deck down from of the attic this past weekend, to make a digital copy of a cassette – an collection of R.I.T. bands from 1992. Mrs Wife and i have a song on it.
the motor is so old it could barely pull the tape. took many starts and stops to get everything moving as it should. and i still think the pitch is off a little.
mechanical music playback devices are so 1980!
Same thing happened to me. I promised my brother I would digitize a tape for him, and both of my cassette decks’ motors had weakened to the point where they couldn’t pull the tape for more than a few seconds. >:(
eddie van cleek is mucho disturbing.
Jump!