The time cassettes got into my mind and thoughts about the retro analog tapes became a blog post.

Remember cassettes? My brother and I used to visit the local music shops to get tapes of our favorite bands or singers of the moment. I went gaga over Backstreet Boys, 911 and a few retro mix of sentimental ballads. This was in the 90s. I had a sentimental taste in music. I can't believe how fast the years blew by when I typed the previous sentences.

Anyhow, we used to get excited over the cassette covers and things. Gawking at the lyrics and sniffing the scents of the new tapes and the feel of the plastic covers that carried them. Perhaps, that was just me. I have a thing for sniffing things out like a dog. My nose was and is always busy.

Back to the tapes - the highlight of buying cassettes when they first came out was to get free gigantic posters! I had a Backstreet Boys poster that I planted across the back of my room door. During a seriously nonsensical sibling argument, someone had scratched the faces of the boys and I remember the teen angst brewing to explode but of course, I couldn't destroy stuff so I was left with the understanding that stuff might get ruined after a delightful sibling fighting. I have to say I'm grateful that at least, I get to reminisce about the days of posters getting ripped here on the blog after like close to two decades.

By the time, my sister and I got to visit a music shop together, the CDs were taking over the shelves. The first CDs I had was the first albums of Norah Jones, Josh Groban and Maroon 5. The cassettes though, will remain dear. I remember listening to good songs on the radio and recording over blank cassettes, or over old cassettes with music we gave no toss about.

This was the time you actually had to hang out by the radio to wait for the song you liked to come on and then get ready to press the button to record after the DJ ended his or her chattering. You'd also have to press stop after the song ended. To watch an official music video, you had to wait by the TV! And you couldn't press repeat when the moment ended. To record the music video, you had to unleash some of your real video-taping skills and hopefully not tape over someone's treasured stuffs.

Those were the days...And then there were the mix cassette tapes. Though I never got into making them but for some, these cassettes were filled with music carefully compiled to express and declare a love or bond they have with a special someone.

Then there were the weird things that we did with the tape reels that I'm unsure why exactly now. I remember seeing the brown magnetic plastic film being out of their reels, tossed about in a tangle of mess.

And with that said, here's a short poem that formed itself after I sat around doing absolutely nothing but thinking about the days of the old retro analog magnetic tapes.

Cassettes,
you take
a slice
of a moment
in my life
and fill it
with sounds
that for
a moment
stretch out
flinging some of me
intensely in the present
and then some of me
out into
a fuzzy spot
nestled in between
fantasy, past
and sheer
imagination...

--

To end this post, please tell me your cassette memory! Share your story below - I love reading them and will reply and stalk you back.