It's the third day of my Eighties Challenge, a seven day foray into the neon palace of memory, plucking songs and related gibberish from the ether as I go.
The Sony Walkman might have been around since 1979 but it came into its own in the 80s; a portable music player it finally provided relief for the millions of people that want to left alone on the bus (though, in turn, it created an arguably larger portion of society sat behind them wondering what song that tinny noise was supposed to be). In a nod to this growing market of sullen folk sat on trains and buses, and perhaps in a not so subtle move from The Man to try and stop The Kids from killing music (and his profit margins) with home taping, the music industry introduced the 'cassette single'.
On paper it might have appeared, to a bean counter at least, to be a grand idea; the same form factor as the cassette but, as it only had to hold a limited number of tracks, it contained less tape and was cheaper to produce. There was no A or B side as the tracks were repeated on both sides and, as it edged nearer to a 12" single than a 7", they could bump up the cost accordingly. All the people who listened to music on their Walkman, an ever increasing number, would buy one. The money would print itself. The trouble was that most everyone with a Walkman would either buy the album the single was from on cassette or, more likely, buy their tunes on vinyl and collate them into mix tapes. Who wanted to carry around a bag of 'Cassingles' (no really, I looked it up) when a couple of C90s would do the job nicely? And so the 'cassette single' went the way of all flesh.
That's not to say, of course, that I wasn't suckered into the shininess of this new item on the shelf. Today's offering came in a shiny gold cardboard flip-top box, looking vaguely like a slightly trim packet of Benson & Hedges, that caught my eye on a visit to Venus Records one day (and, contrary to what I wrote above, I'd already bought the album it came from). From 1985 then I give you Scritti Politti's Perfect Way...
The Sony Walkman might have been around since 1979 but it came into its own in the 80s; a portable music player it finally provided relief for the millions of people that want to left alone on the bus (though, in turn, it created an arguably larger portion of society sat behind them wondering what song that tinny noise was supposed to be). In a nod to this growing market of sullen folk sat on trains and buses, and perhaps in a not so subtle move from The Man to try and stop The Kids from killing music (and his profit margins) with home taping, the music industry introduced the 'cassette single'.
On paper it might have appeared, to a bean counter at least, to be a grand idea; the same form factor as the cassette but, as it only had to hold a limited number of tracks, it contained less tape and was cheaper to produce. There was no A or B side as the tracks were repeated on both sides and, as it edged nearer to a 12" single than a 7", they could bump up the cost accordingly. All the people who listened to music on their Walkman, an ever increasing number, would buy one. The money would print itself. The trouble was that most everyone with a Walkman would either buy the album the single was from on cassette or, more likely, buy their tunes on vinyl and collate them into mix tapes. Who wanted to carry around a bag of 'Cassingles' (no really, I looked it up) when a couple of C90s would do the job nicely? And so the 'cassette single' went the way of all flesh.
That's not to say, of course, that I wasn't suckered into the shininess of this new item on the shelf. Today's offering came in a shiny gold cardboard flip-top box, looking vaguely like a slightly trim packet of Benson & Hedges, that caught my eye on a visit to Venus Records one day (and, contrary to what I wrote above, I'd already bought the album it came from). From 1985 then I give you Scritti Politti's Perfect Way...
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