Cassettes obsolete? Rewind!

As someone who not only still owns LPs, but occasionally purchases more, I was tickled to see a post in the Dominican blog EnSegundos.net about how the cassette has not quite kicked the bucket yet (thanks to remolacha for the tip).

Around Santo Domingo's Parque Enriquillo, vendors report sales of between 50 and 100 daily, which may not seem like much, especially in a city of 2.2 million, but is pretty amazing in the digital music age.

I have not visited that park in years, but in the 1990s, Parque Enriquillo was an amazing bazaar of things you didn't know you wanted: used sneakers, pieces of pipe, and the first place I saw one of those brilliant only-in-the-Third World moneymakers: "Pésese por un peso" (get weighed for a peso), basically a guy with a bathroom scale on the sidewalk.

The reason for the cassette's survival? According to the vendors, they're bought by poor people who can't yet afford a CD player. Because the park is near a big transportation hub, it's a convenient spot for people coming in from the provinces and going to the more marginal areas of the city. The going rate for cassettes is RD$35-$50 (about $1-$1.50). And it's not just old music, either: some of the more popular artists are bachata and merengue stars like Anthony Santos, Tulile, Camilo Sexto, Aramis Camilo, Frankie Ruiz and Alex Bueno.

Santo Domingo is not unique in preserving cassettes. Turkey still sells 88 million cassettes a year, India 80 million, accounting for 50% of recorded material sales in these countries.

It's a pretty durable technology. I still own a mixed tape my high school boyfriend made for my 16th birthday and it still sounds pretty good. (I'll leave it to those of you in the know to do the math on how old the cassette is.)

[images via flickr and ensegundos.net]

Comments

[jimmy]

so what was ON the mix tape from ex BF, the actual playlist...do tell.

[caro]

Damn, Jimmy. Finding the tape was easy. Finding somewhere to play it was HARD.

The cassette had no playlist, so I had to reconstruct (and reminisce):

[caro]

Side A
Captain Beefheart -- I Love you, you big dummy
[unidentified no-wave horn-filled instrumental]
Robyn Hitchcock – I’ve Got the Hots for You
Pere Ubu – unidentified song
Wire, Lowdown
Wire, Start to Move
Wire, Brazil
Wire, Feeling Called Love
Jonathan Richman, My Little Kookenhaken
Jonathan Richman, The Morning of Our Lives
Jonathan Richman, Hey There Little Insect
Jonathan Richman, Ice Cream Man
Patridge Family, I Think I Love You
Nervous Breakdowns, I Dig Your Mind

[caro]

Side B
Electric Prunes – Get Me to the World on Time
Electric Prunes – Try Me on for Size
Moving Sidewalks – 99th Floor
??? – I Got Love
The Zombies – Love Conquers All
Little Boy Blues, I Can Only Give You Everything
Circle Jerks – Just Like Me
Circle Jerks – Put a Little Love in Your Heart
Gun Club, Sex Beat
Elvis Costello, Mystery Dance
?? – The Original Sin?
Unidentified post-punk song, female singer
Unidentified post-punk song, female singer
?? – World Goes By?
Unidentified hardcore punk song
The Meatmen – Orgy of One
The Meatmen – Becoming a Man/Freud was Wrong

[Kiko Jones]

Ah, cassettes how I loved thee...I still own some 200 of 'em and have a pretty decent deck to play 'em in (not to mention the boom box in my bedroom).

Aside from the other reasons given I'd say portability is also a reason for the technology to still exist. Did you know that up until their very last day Tower Records' 4th & B'way location in NYC was selling a brisk amount of pre-recorded cassettes at $3-$5 a pop? Not too long ago, the store's cassette buyer once mentioned that most of his customers were going on road trips and their vehicle either lacked a CD player or they feared losing their CDs on the trip.