Over the weekend, someone in the building did a full-on Media Cleanse, first getting rid of their dual cassette/CD player:
I'd say this is a pretty good find, except that it has no speakers... although some might argue that the cassette I found inside more than makes up for that:
A copy of 1996's "Older" by George Michael, which scored about zero hits in the States, but was a massive hit everywhere else in the world. In addition to "Older," this NeighborGooder also dumped the rest of their old audio tapes onto the Big Blue Table:
This collection seems to be made up entirely of crappy compilations, such as...
...Christmas Time with Elmo & Patsy (and others) featuring that wacky holiday anthem "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer."
Elmo & Patsy are featured amongst more traditional crooners such as Gene Autry, Julie Andrews and, for some reason, Jim Nabors...
...who was TV's Gomer Pyle. But still, they get top billing on the cover of this cassette.
In addition to terrible holiday music, this box is also full of Mix Tapes. For the young whipper-snappers out there, Mix Tapes were something we did before we made Mix CDs, which were something we did before iPod Shuffles were a thing. Get off my lawn.
I believe Mix Tapes are second only to diaries if you want to get a glimpse inside of a person's head and find out just how weird they really are, especially if you find tapes that were only meant for the creator, such as "Ecclectic Instrumental..."
...or "Mellow Classical..."
...or the hopelessly generic "Mixed Music I."
I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that these mix tapes, which are all haphazardly encased with no regard to each cassette's manufacturer (this woman was not brand loyal at all) all seem to be the lamest Mix Tapes Ever. Mellow Classical? BORING! Ecclectic Instrumental? First of all, spell eclectic right...and secondly, instrumental? Jesus, I'd hate to be on a road trip with this chick.
Mix tapes gained popularity in the 70's, with the introduction of Sony's Walkman. At the time, the record labels panicked and started slapping labels on all of their LP's and cassettes:
Turns out, the record labels were right... and mix tapes are why we don't have recorded music anymore. So as boring and terrible as these NeighborGoodies cassettes are, they may well be the last new music that was ever produced. Because Home Taping Killed Music. And this woman's terrible musical taste killed everyone around her.
1 comment:
As you know, I am a huge fan of cassette tapes and have thousands of my own, collected over the years 1976-1989, and even though they are never played, they represent part of my history I cant even imagine dumping. Up until just a very few years ago I fondly believed this collection would have some resale value, but I guess mp3s have put an end to all that, and there they sit, a humungous monument to the past, reminding me constantly how much better it would have been to have used all that money to travel instead.
Mix tapes. Was anything so touching as listening to all that music that the donor *wanted* to tell the recipient how much they loved (or at least lusted after) them, but that more often than not had them cringing like the cat in "Pepe Le Pew" cartoons?
I still have a few I never quite plucked up enough courage to give. One in particular I made for a young man I was so desperately in love with for the longest time and took to give him one day, in a fit of unusual bravado, only to be met with the news that he had *FINALLY* met the girl of his dreams just the night before.. (They are now married) sigh...
I congratulated him with all my heart and carried that tape back home again. I guess the NeighbourGoodier in your building has just such a story, but now its time to move forward and she has cut her ties with the past
Ahh la folie d'amour...
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