The Internet as a Force for Good
In 1981, I finally got the cassette player for my stereo when my sister went off to college. While I had a turn table, I’d been waiting for the cassette player and my parents assured me I’d get it eventually. I wanted to mix tapes after all.
In addition, I could also buy cassettes instead of always buying the vinyl (though I’m not sure why that was a good thing), but I started buying the occasional tape.
The first tape I bought was Tommy Tutone’s Tommy Tutone-2, which contained their hit, “867–5309.” It was very catchy, and, frankly, really the only good song on the album. In fact listening to the album now reinforces that perception. That is not to say that the band is bad; its just that beyond writing the catchy hit, they were just an okay, almost generic band.
As I grew older and my disposable budget shrank (I finally got a car), I was bit more discriminating with my music choices. Usually if a song was getting airplay I’d check in with my friends who also bought music and we’d trade albums or cassettes and weigh whether we’d buy it or not. It pretty much had to have three decent songs on it for me to buy it. While I don’t have any of those albums or cassettes anymore, the ones I liked I ended up being replaced with CDs (my first CD being the 20th anniversary release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band).
