I Love a Bunch of Genres

Joy To The World
Crew X
Christmas Rap

I like cassette tapes, but I’ll admit that they’re a pretty poor audio format. They don’t sound as good as vinyl records, they lack the convenience of CDs, they’re less flexible than MP3s, and they’re not as goofy as 8-tracks.

Like I said, I like them, and I adore my collection of tapes (even though my stupid tape deck would rather eat my tapes than play them, so I can’t listen to them at the moment). Even so, they’re basically inferior to every popular music device since the wax cylinder, and even that had more historical significance.

Years ago I noticed that, while vinyl and 8-tracks had their cults, the cassette tape was essentially dead. No use, and no nostalgia. Recently - within the last year  or two - that changed. Search for “cassette tape” images and you’ll find that most of the top hits are ironic hipster art and accessories. It makes sense - the cassette tape is functionally outdated, but visually iconic. Still, I half-suspect that in time, indie bands will be covering their tables in cassette tapes, and soon they’ll find their niche.

I still do the vast majority of my music-listening on CD, which earns befuddled stares and snark each time I swap discs in public. I love CDs because they’re portable, they sound great, they’re madly intuitive, and they’re tactile. MP3 players, however, are constantly getting cheaper and more user-friendly, and I wonder if one day I’ll be swayed to join the present and buy one.

When that day comes, when the vestigial anachronisms like myself finally move beyond CDs, how will CDs be remembered? I mean, what’s you give up on actually using them to listen to music, what does a CD have? It’s just a shiny circle. Boring.

Will CDs, then, be thrown aside by history? Maybe not. We are a species driven in equal parts by the insatiable desire for progress and nostalgia. Humans are weirdos.