A 13 year old kid tries out a walkman for the first time. Wow. This took a while to process. I fondly remember my Walkman as a kid…sure the discman was out but it was too expensive for my family at the time. Not to mention I had a plethora of cassettes my brother had left me in addition to my parents own collection. They even had “portable” bags to carry around your collection in which resembled a small cooler. He was right about one thing, the battery life definitely sucked. My carrying case contained a zippered compartment that held four more batteries which were a necessity on those long bus rides…It seemed at times half the trip was spent rewinding and fast-forwarding trying to find your one song. It was almost easier to just listen to the album straight through. Was that why the singles were strategically placed throughout the album? *shrugs* To me it seems like a recent past but when I was using that equipment the kid in the article wasn’t born.

Who can forget painstakingly fixing a cassette that had been eaten–probably due to me rewinding and fast-forwarding so much. Hoping against hope that the reel hadn’t been damaged. Of course, today we have to worry about a hard drive failure which can destroy an entire collection vs one album we can pick up with the next paycheck–or in my case allowance.

I was probably in 7th grade before I had purchased my first CD. I grew up on vinyl, it was what my parents listened to and they had a MASSIVE collection. Their line of thinking was–why do I want to go buy new equipment just to buy the same songs I have now? Vinyl and cassette are well buried and gone. CD I believe is going in the same direction. I do miss “release days” though. Hitting up the record store to be first in line for your favorite bands new single or release…Now one simply can open iTunes: click on “purchase,” wait 5 minutes (or less) for everything they want.

whew.