The Obituary
Philips introduced the Compact Cassette in 1963 as a dictation medium, then licensed it freely, and it grew into the dominant recorded-music format of the 1980s. Its real power was recording: anyone could dub the radio, copy an album, or build a mixtape, which made it both beloved and the target of the “home taping is killing music” campaign. The Walkman made it portable. The compact disc offered cleaner sound and no rewinding, and through the 1990s it displaced the cassette; major labels had largely stopped issuing cassette albums by the early 2000s.
Worth remembering
- A loose tape could be wound back into the shell by spinning the hub with a pencil or pen.
- Home dubbing made the personal mixtape a cultural ritual and a record-industry panic.
Sources
- Philips introduced the Compact Cassette in 1963 Wikipedia
- Cassette sales peaked in the late 1980s before CDs overtook them Britannica
A graveyard tradition: leave a stone to show you came, and remembered.