News that Curry's - an English chain store business - is to stop stocking cassette tapes has triggered off a global emotional reaction. For many of us tapes hold a particular fascination. Tapes allowed us to copy music, to record our own music, to carry music around. It was key bit of kit that has served musicians well. Cheap and small, it encouraged a DIY appoach to sound. Personally I'm hanging onto my Sharp beatbox and my shoeboxes of tapes. Remember the death of vinyl, widely proclaimed. Now new bands are realeasing on vinyl, old material is being released on heavy-duty top quality vinyl (you can't beat the sound). Analog or MP3. No contest. Sampling an analog wave and then compressing it will inevitably kill the spirit of the sound. Think about it.
The compact cassette
Not long left for cassette tapes
The cassette is facing erasure. Some 40 years after global cassette production began in earnest, sales are in terminal decline.From its creation in the 1960s through to its peak of popularity in the 1980s, the cassette has been a part of music culture for 40 years. But industry experts believe it does not have long left, at least in the West.
Downloads sound the end of cassettes by Joe Best
Why we should mourn the death of the music cassette by Ray Connolly
Currys stops stocking another analogue product: End of the reel for the cassette tape by Amy-Mae Elliott
The end of the reel for cassette tapes by Harry Wallop, Consumer Affairs CorrespondentEnd of the reel for cassettes? by James Sturcke
Finally: How to transfer cassette tape to computer
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