50 years of the Audio Cassette

An image celebrating 50 years of the audio cassette

So do you remember the humble audio cassette and the majesty of the mix tape and recording your favourite tracks from the Top 40 on a Sunday afternoon? It’s hard to believe it’s fifty years old yet at the same time it seems like an age since it was a useful way of storing and reproducing music such has been the progress of technology in recent years.

It was never the most reliable of media with great arm-fulls regularly needing to be fished out of the deck before being feed gently back into the cassette plus it never really sounded good, especially after a spell in the car. But it did (eventually) allow music to become properly portable and accessible almost anywhere (assuming you had enough batteries) which is reason for celebration in it’s self.

Wonder how long it will be before we’re saying similar things about CDs and DVDs?

All images ©Adrian Lyon.