Really funny/interesting. What I found most interesting was that the kid wanted a shuffle mode. I remember fumbling with the buttons on my walkman as kid trying to forward through songs, eventually I just gave up and listened through the entire album. I think that the advent of ipods has kind of killed the idea of an album. The cool thing about walkmen is that you were more or less forced to listen to the whole album. Some songs I didnt like at first started to grow on me. Plus you got to hear the cohesiveness of an entire album. Now I just flip through songs I think I don’t want to hear.
Man I remember those things. I used to get in trouble for listening to Weird Al tapes in class
IMO the trend away from listening to albums is as much a fault of the artist as it is the mp3 player. I have albums on my iPod that I EXCLUSIVELY listen to from start to finish. If the songs were composed to flow as an album and the artist did a good job with it, it comes through. Derek Trucks Band and Radiohead, a couple of the top of my head, do a good job.
I liked restarting the album from where I left off. With digital music I get tired of the 1st few songs quicker than the rest of the album. When the cassette player had auto-fast forward (skips to the next silent area), and the auto-reverse, I thought they were the best features ever invented. Also with cassettes comes with a briefcase sized carrying case of tapes to bring with you
I always listened to albums all the way through, that’s what you pay for and the producers put a lot of thought into the flow of the album (at least the good ones do).
I used to put trackmarks in my dj mixes so that people could tell where one song starts and ends but I stopped because I found people trying to skip around or listening to it in their ipod when on shuffle mode which doesn’t work with dj mixes. I put lots of time into the track selection and order to make the 1-2 hours flow a certain way. If you respect the artists work, you listen to the whole thing straight through.
Unfortunately, too many pop artists only make a few good songs and the rest of their album is filler so it creates this “jukebox syndrome” and people get used to jumping around the albums.
The one thing I REALLY miss with digital music players is the ability to “rewind” or “fast forward” to a certain point in a song.
It’s something that’s really helpful if you are trying to learn a piece of music by ear on the piano or guitar or something. With an ipod or CD player you have to start from the beginning of the song every time and wait for the section you are working on to arrive.
I wonder why this option was left off of most players?
I know on my iPod I can press and hold the back arrow or forward arrow buttons to move around, as opposed to pressing it and releasing it. It only skips songs if you press and release it.
I feel like they should re name the hold button on I-pods to analog style listening so you just sit there and are forced to listen without changing any settings. Or even better, make an analog style listening feature so that no matter what you have to listen to the whole song/album/ so on.
The best part about cassettes was recording stuff. When I was a kid, I’d make hosted radio show mixtapes with my friends, recording sounds from all over, from movies to songs on the radio. Do kids do that stuff today? It’s certainly not as easy to do!
I used to do my own radio show too. It’s not as fun as today since it’s cold digital recordings, but easy to do; plug mic to PC (or use laptop), press record on software. I guess it’s not as physical (analog) so may have lost it’s magic?
Also remember those video cameras that records on cassette tapes, I always wanted one as a kid.
Ask all the voice and video bloggers out there how easy it is. Every smartphone has a mic and voice recorder built in, virtually all laptops have a mic and speakers built in…windows comes with a simple voice recorder…
If anything, it is way easier. And you can edit and fiddle way easier too.
I think “easy” is the wrong word. The difference is that today it is so easy and ubiquitous that no one cares.
When I was a kid, before the internet (oh man ) I’d make my own mix tapes by dubbing tapes and recording off the radio. It took a LOT OF TIME and you had to sit around and wait for something good to play. It was easy to screw up. The cuts were iffy because there was a delay. The tool that is the cassette recorder is so primitive by today’s standards, that a good mixtape felt like an accomplishment that you were proud to share, copy and listen to.
Today, anyone can put together a highly polished, perfectly edited mix CD without any effort. Drag and drop, click burn, poof, 5 minutes later you’re done. Do kids share this way anymore? I doubt it. The last few mix CD’s I made felt awkward and out of place considering no one I know really listens to CD’s anymore.
I’m no luddite, it’s great that it is so easy and accessible. I think analogue has that certain charm because of it’s awkward, clunky, crudeness. This has put me in the mood to make a mixtape.
Back then it was dead simple. That’s practically half of what having a boom box was about and why they all had dual decks. And they didn’t do much more. Now you have to find, install and use software on a computer. I bet it takes dozens more button pushes today than it did back then, and a lot more time. Even on a Mac. Not simple. And my iPhone 3.0? Love the memo recorder, but it can’t do all the things I could do with my boom box. It’s not the same thing at all.
I think the proof is the utter dissapearance of the “mix tapes” that used to be passed around between friends. Is there a modern equivalent that’s as ubiquitous?
?!?!? Hit the center of your scroll wheel until you see a little star show up in the progress/volume bar. Now you can use the scroll wheel to scan through the song the same way you use it to change the volume.
Also, in itunes, you can set the start and stop position on a song so if there’s just one part that you want to listen to for that song (for practice, etc…) just change it in itunes and every time you play it, it’ll start exactly where you want it to.
