1) A One-to-One Communication Medium

When individuals crafted mixtapes for friends, it represented a form of direct communication, as Masters notes.

The cassette tape is a means of personal dialogue. Its uses, benefits, and quirks create a language that often incorporates music. A mixtape can serve as a code, a message, or a conversation.

Often, discussions about new media's societal impact emphasize broadcasting—technologies enabling one person to reach vast audiences. While these tools are undeniably transformative, I am particularly fascinated by new forms of one-to-one media. They carry a unique intimacy, where communication with a single person alters the dynamics of thought—differing significantly from the experience of addressing a crowd.

This type of interaction is akin to thinking aloud, where the conversation remains focused yet avoids the overwhelming nature of larger audiences. In one-to-one exchanges, our messages take on a particularity reminiscent of face-to-face dialogue, even when they occur asynchronously.

2) A Permissionless Medium

Recording a cassette required no external approval.

This was a subtly revolutionary aspect of cassette recorders upon their introduction. Other media forms often necessitated significant capital investment: broadcasting a television show demanded studio resources; radio shows and films required similar infrastructure; producing and distributing an album also involved considerable effort. Furthermore, audiences needed distinct technologies (televisions, radios, projectors) to access these messages.

However, cassette recorders quickly became affordable. By 1968, prices had dropped to under $30, equivalent to about $300 today. In the mid-80s, a decent quality Walkman-style cassette player could be obtained for around $50, or approximately $150 today.

Crucially, the cassette recorder served both as a production and reception device. You could record on it and listen to others' tapes. Very few other media offered this duality at the time (with the possible exception of BASIC home computers, which allowed users to create and play games).

Thus, no one needed permission to create a cassette, mixtape, or spontaneous recording. Listeners also required no authorization to enjoy it. This lack of restriction, as Masters illustrates, empowered numerous indie musicians to produce and share their work.

Entire mini-labels formed through cassettes, with artists' careers blossoming as well: Liz Phair gained recognition after circulating her "Girly Sound" cassettes, which quickly spread through underground networks, leading to her first record deal. Hip-hop styles proliferated via cassette tape, as DJs and artists could release their work independently, a stark contrast to the mainstream industry's slow recognition of the groundbreaking shifts occurring around them.

The freedom inherent in cassette culture evokes memories of the early internet, particularly during the 90s and early 00s—before social media dominated and algorithms dictated visibility.

3) Curation as Creation

The culture surrounding mixtapes demonstrated that curation itself is a creative act.

The process of discovering songs and audio materials, arranging them in an engaging order, altering their context, and presenting them to an audience is a culturally sophisticated endeavor and one that requires skill.

Archivists and curators in museums understand this well. However, discussions about “creativity” often overlook the talent needed to be an effective curator. This neglect is ironic, as amateur curators have historically played crucial roles in advancing culture. They would uncover exceptional works, select the best, and package them for broader audiences.

In her insightful book Too Much To Know, Ann Blair chronicles the trade in floreligia: scrapbooks assembled by readers who meticulously copied notable passages from numerous volumes, creating collections for affluent patrons. In 19th-century America, particularly among women, scrapbooking became a popular practice, where individuals would compile useful or inspiring articles into personalized collections. These compilations often gained significant value, being passed down through generations; as Ellen Garvey highlights in her work Writing With Scissors, women heading westward would prepare extensive clipping books filled with various information as survival literature.

Cassettes marked the first time the average person could engage in audio creation, sparking a wave of artistic expression! Curation has always held creative potential. Two decades following the rise of cassette culture, bloggers began to engage in similar practices using HTML on the web.

4) Embracing Glitches

In High Bias, Masters extensively discusses the lo-fi sound quality characteristic of cassette recordings and how artists transformed these imperfections into desirable features.

Mechanically, cassettes were notoriously finicky. Many issues could arise during recording or playback. Motors might spin inconsistently, tapes could jam, and repeated recordings on the same cassette could leave echoes of prior tracks in the background. The constant background hiss was another common flaw. Cassettes were subtly haunted by their glitchy mechanics.

Yet, as musicians experimented with cassettes, they discovered that these low-fi traits could be intriguingly appealing. The imperfections became fascinating, prompting them to embrace these qualities. Bruce Springsteen, when recording his 1982 album Nebraska on a four-track cassette, found the captured sound to be captivating, despite its irregularities. His attempts to re-record the songs in a high-end studio failed to replicate the charm of the original cassette recording.

As Masters recounts...

“He kept pulling out the cassette and saying, ‘I want it to sound more like this … There’s just something about the atmosphere on this tape’,” studio engineer Tony Scott recounted to Tascam. Another engineer, Chuck Plotkin, explained Springsteen's struggles with re-recording to biographer Dave Marsh: “The better it sounded, the worse it sounded.” This paradox succinctly captures the influence of the four-track on decades of music production. The process, centered around the unique anomalies and quirks of cassette tapes, cultivated a distinct sound that blurred the lines between "good" and "bad" audio, as well as "right" and "wrong" techniques.

For an exceptional example of the haunting quality of lo-fi cassette recordings, listen to The Story of Valerie. Created between 1990 and 1991 by singer-songwriter Carola Baer, the album was recorded onto a single cassette, featuring her vocal parts alongside ethereal piano, synthesizer, and drum machine. She never released it, and the original cassette was lost until music collector Jed Bindeman discovered it in a Portland Goodwill in 2017. Captivated by the eerie music, he established a label and contacted Baer, now a teacher in the UK, to obtain rights for its release.

I listened to The Story of Valerie recently on Bandcamp, and it brilliantly exemplifies the lo-fi sound inspired by cassette recordings—compressed and filled with the soft hum of low-resolution recording tools.

Cassettes revealed that the flaws of a medium—the aspects it struggles with—can ultimately yield aesthetic richness and even allure.

(If you enjoyed this, please consider clicking the "clap" button—up to 50 claps per reader!)

I publish new posts on Medium twice a week; follow me here to receive each update via email.

I also contribute to the New York Times Magazine and Wired, and I'm the author of “Coders.” Connect with me on Mastodon or Instagram, or subscribe to my pay-what-you-want newsletter “The Linkfest”: it’s designed to be the opposite of doomscrolling.