Bonafide Magazine @ MSN: Committed to tape: cassette culture and the fringes of dance music |  |
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Posted: 23 Feb 2016 03:18 PM PST
In the world of the hipster cognoscenti, tapes are big apparently. Not quinoa big, or adult colouring-in book big, but big enough to warrant Reddit threads and a new annual subcultural circle jerk in the form of Cassette Store Day. You may have seen a famous cartoon that states “the two things that really drew me to vinyl were the expense and the inconvenience.” Well for the nay-sayers, the appeal of cassettes would seem even more bewildering for those into their dance music. For one thing, tape is an impractical method for DJing – you can’t beatmatch, one can’t consider the concept of forwarding and rewinding without the word ‘clunky’ coming to brain and tongue. Releasing a functional 4/4 banger on tape would seem to bury any dancefloor potential merely by the awkwardness of its format. Tracks like this little banger released on the Where to Now cassette label seem a little wasted on a tape: Tapes, despite increasing coverage and sales, are still niche and small-run units, even compared to vinyl. Runs of 50-200 even from the more celebrated tape labels are the norm, are quickly snapped up by the fastest-finger first enthusiasts. For dance music lovers who buy vinyl, a concern is often if the tunes are mixable – this differs them from the Led Zeppelin-reissue buyer who tends to view the record as a boutique item, to be savoured and treated with the same care as an exotic delicacy. The awkwardness of forwarding and rewinding a tape compared with being able to flip the stylus over any passage instantly focuses attention on album-length formats that people who normally get their dance music on vinyl would not otherwise be able to expend. The presentation, technology and functionality of dance music would seem to not be suited to the tape medium. No one can deny the cassette's place in history, though their use in the present and the future may be considered an anachronistic throwback. The use of obsolete technologies is unique in music compared to other activities – vinyl and tapes retain their appeal and usage despite infinitely more portable, cheaper and convenient technologies such as mp3s, yet none but the most Luddite or most Amish of individuals would use a mangle rather than a washing machine. Tapes are not entirely dysfunctional though, and their cheap, portable and relatively democratic format provided exposure to emerging music in previous times in ways that the more luxurious vessels of vinyl and CD would not have been able to do so. |
