Record Tapes
This text was written friday night, offline.I heard three times already this year that "record tapes aren't commercialized anymore". The third time was today, after having a morning conversation with Nuno Nunes, where, among other things, I was telling him I had just ordered one CD and one Tape.
What comes to surprise to most people is not only that record tapes are still commercialized, but, mostly, that record tapes are being released nowadays, and people really buy them. My case? It's the seventh record tape I got this year, from which three of them were released in 2006 and two in 2007. Why get record tapes instead of CD's? Well, as scary as it might sound to you, I actually know people that prefer record tapes to CD's. But in my case, I (almost) always try to get the CD release, but sometimes it is sold out and other times there's no CD release of that album. Like I usually avoid to buy digital music (even if there's no physical release of that album), I also usually avoid buying a cassette even if there's no CD release. But there are some records you need to have, right?
Finally, I recall Nuno Nunes telling me, when he moved to his new home, that he still had no other way to listen to music at home but listening to his vinyl records (which was being surprisingly good since he was listening to some great stuff he wasn't listening as often as he wanted to). I also recall him buying Dead Combo's latest record (released in vinyl only). So we're really in the same position here: besides using the computer the only way I have at the moment to listen to music (something I want to fix this weekend, BTW) is listening to tapes. Also, I buy tapes when I don't have how to buy the same album as a CD.
In conclusion: record tapes are not dead. There's still a market for them, believe it or not. They are still manufactured (there's one company in Portugal doing it), pressed and sold. Also, there's still those who like the format, being their preferred format or not. Yes, I believe that record tapes are going to die in the future (I cannot say the same about CD's and specially vinyl), but that future is still more than a couple of years distant.
... Now on monday, Nuts pointed me out for an article called "Vinyl May Be Final Nail in CD's Coffin" [1].
[1] - http://tinyurl.com/2b6fzl
OH come on! Tapes just suck - the sound is bad, skipping tracks is... well, you know the drill, and they have a limited lifespan. Why invest in such a format anymore??
ReplyDeleteOh, and just because it's still being made it doesn't mean it isn't dead - just take VHS as an example.
VHS isn't dead! Take, for instance, this wikipedia sentence: "In spite of the decline of pre-recorded VHS sales, blank, recordable VHS cassettes are still the most popular medium of recording live television programming in the American household."
ReplyDeleteRecarding to Compact Cassette, "investing in such format" is not a bad move as a consumer since there's still stuff you can only get in this format, and it is not a bad move to artists/record labels/whatever since there's people that actually prefer cassette to any other format... BTW, I think that vinyl is going to "kill CD", but I also think that it's vinyl that is going to kill the cassette, since most "cassette fetishists" are, well, fetishists, so will more easily move into a heavy fetishised format such of vinyl than into digital (un-fetishable) or CD's...
What is a "record tape"?
ReplyDeleteA "record tape" is a "cassette tape"...
ReplyDelete