Sony's Japan manufacturers have retired the Walkman after 30 years of service. The last batch rolled off the assembly line headed towards Japanese stores. You can still find them in the US and various countries overseas, but when you type "Walkman" in the search bar on most entertainment store websites, you'll see mp3 players.
Millions of adults remember the good times. Recording any song you liked off the radio. Later on we would turn the dial just right to get the clearest signal and pray the DJ would shut up so you could get the whole song from start to finish. You learned how to push the record button and stop it at just the right time.
With the invention of the Dual Cassette, we would spend hours and/or days making mix tapes for any and all activities. Our best friends got a mix tape. Our love interest or significant others got mix tapes. We recorded others mix tapes because they put together a better mix.
Headphones became permanently attached to our ears much to the disdain of our parents. We claimed listening to rock/funk/hip hop/country music helped us study.
Ear bud headphones allowed us to route one of the buds up a stretched out long sleeve shirt. With the speaker strategically placed in the palm of one hand, our heads just happened to lean into that hand allowing us to listen to music during class. This would be a look symbolic of teenage boredom. But back then we believed we could listen to music and kind of follow along in class. As long as you looked up from time to time and did your best to take notes, the teacher wouldn't notice. Or did teachers know and let us get away with it?
The equalizer switches that always seemed to sound better when put in a "V" pattern. Later on we were blessed with the Extra Bass or Enhance Sound button.
The introduction of CDs had us saving our allowances to get a CD Dual Cassette recorder. Mix tapes got that much cleaner sounding. Even with the invention of the Discman, the first incarnations skipped so easily that those of us with more active lifestyles held fast to our Walkmans.
Soon after Discmans came out with a 3, 9 and 12 second skip buffer and became a more viable option. None the less, the Walkman will always be something that got me through my teenage years.
What are some fond memories you have of your cassette player(s)?
*image from CNN
Sony retires the cassette Walkman after 30 years
2 comments:
I'm with you all the way on creating masterpiece casette music compillations. I would sit by the pause button as I recorded my favorite music off the radio and like you, would pray the DJ didn't cut in and start talking before the song ended. I'd pick just the right mix of music to keep a constant "mood" for each cassette. Best of all it was FREE.
Another great application for cassettes was for me to go to my album collection and record a few key songs from the albums I had bought, hoping ALL the songs were as good as the or 2 I knew I loved. Many times it didn't work out that way, so I could make tapes with ONLY the songs I loved :) Life was surely simpler then......... :)
My late husband,"Alzo", was an incredible casssette taper, mixer genious. Not only did he record his own music on cassettes but was adept at putting together music mixes for every occasion from ancient holiday music to smooth jazz for lovemaking moods. I have tons of his tapes, which I can't listen to because the memories hurt but they were fantastic as was he.
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