My U2 "Best of 1980-90" cassette broke two weeks back. Made me kind of sad. I dont have a CD player in my car, and my old cassettes give me good company during long drives.
A lot of my cassettes have special memories associated with them. Especially because as a student in Pune, Rs 125 on a cassette was a guilty pleasure. You couldn't buy these too often without making a dent in your "allowance money".Actually, I didn't have a fixed allowance, but my parents had a good idea of how much money I'd have to spend per diem in Pune as a indigent hostel student.
Not that they'd mind me buying music. But, with other indulgences including movies, concerts, (and dinner outside on weekdays when the mess food was bad, which was often) supported on the same budget, buying cassettes was a special occasion, something you didn't do on a whim.For instance, my Bon Jovi "Crossroads" was among the first albums I bought after starting engineering. It was in a hole-in-the-wall place somewhere on M G Road. Then of course, there's Scorpion's "Acoustica" bought at the MusicWorld near Blue Nile, just before a long train journey to Chennai.
The advent of MP3s changed that to a great extent.But, there is something distinctly boring about a Gig of songs with plain file names. Unnamed actors in a plain iTunes window.They don't speak to you the way a well-designed inlay does.
So, I am returning to the old days -with CDs this time around. I somehow missed the album covers, and neat inlays with lyrics and notes. Pearl Jam's "Ten" cover is enough justification for the love affair to begin again.
A lot of my cassettes have special memories associated with them. Especially because as a student in Pune, Rs 125 on a cassette was a guilty pleasure. You couldn't buy these too often without making a dent in your "allowance money".Actually, I didn't have a fixed allowance, but my parents had a good idea of how much money I'd have to spend per diem in Pune as a indigent hostel student.
Not that they'd mind me buying music. But, with other indulgences including movies, concerts, (and dinner outside on weekdays when the mess food was bad, which was often) supported on the same budget, buying cassettes was a special occasion, something you didn't do on a whim.For instance, my Bon Jovi "Crossroads" was among the first albums I bought after starting engineering. It was in a hole-in-the-wall place somewhere on M G Road. Then of course, there's Scorpion's "Acoustica" bought at the MusicWorld near Blue Nile, just before a long train journey to Chennai.
The advent of MP3s changed that to a great extent.But, there is something distinctly boring about a Gig of songs with plain file names. Unnamed actors in a plain iTunes window.They don't speak to you the way a well-designed inlay does.
So, I am returning to the old days -with CDs this time around. I somehow missed the album covers, and neat inlays with lyrics and notes. Pearl Jam's "Ten" cover is enough justification for the love affair to begin again.
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