The History of the Cassette Tape
The compact cassette tape was invented by Lou Ottens. He ran the development of the product for the Dutch company, Philips, who first produced them; Ottens was the technical director of Philips’s audio division at the time. The product was introduced at the radio exhibition, Funkausstellung, held in Berlin in 1963.
The reel-to-reel technology that came before compact tapes was unreliable; the products were larger and easily damaged. Ottens took his frustration and decided to create something more user friendly and set goals to "make it smaller, cheaper, and easier to handle." He succeeded in just that.
His tape technology began spreading quickly throughout the 60’s and was becoming even more useful and accessible to a number of ages. Tapes could be played in cars but also used in fun children's toys like the “Talkboy” and “Talkgirl” that were on the market in 1992-1999. Manufactured by Tiger Electronics, they are handheld voice recorders with a fun variable-speed voice changer. You may remember seeing this in the popular holiday movie Home Alone 2; Kevin records his uncle in the shower, and he lost his family in the airport because he was changing the batteries in his “Talkboy.” (maybe do a demonstration or just show them). Another tape recorder, the “Walkman,” was introduced to the market in 1979 and was wildly popular all around the world.
Cassette tapes played a vital role in helping indie and punk bands spread their style; underground artists began recording and distributing entire albums on cassette tapes, reaching a larger audience with more ease. Demo tapes aided hip-hop’s development as a genre. Radio shows recognized the impact of the cassette tape as well, attributing some of their success to the fact more people heard their shows over tape instead of live because tapes could be distributed widely from hand to hand.
Cassette tapes helped in both the distribution and formation phases of content. They have helped authors remember and quickly record ideas and notes that led to them writing great novels. Bands' legacies like the Rolling Stones would have looked completely different if it weren’t for Ottens’ creation. Their number one record, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” would not exist without help from their guitarist Keith Richards’ bedside Philips recorder. The device caught a guitar riff he no memory of writing but had played during the night after waking from a dream.
The invention of the cassette tape sparked what Ottens referred to as a “worldwide revolution in the individual availability of music,” that surprised even him. He will be remembered for his products and inventions, but largely because he created something that was not only efficient for the time but connected people. His invention created a culture based around mixtapes. Listeners could record the radio and compile all their favorite artists into one tape. This recording could be played in the car or most likely passed off to a friend. This accessibility could also be utilized to create personalized albums or playlists as a gift for an occasions like Valentine’s Day to confess one’s feelings or birthdays to express love and gratitude. Cassette tapes were truly versatile and appealed to many demographics.
Although the cassette tape was deemed successful and widely used for two decades or so, the next project wasn’t far behind as production for the compact disc began in the 1970’s, with its commercial release in 1982. Even Ottens himself was recorded saying "The cassette is history," and "I like when something new comes." He himself listened to most of his music on discs which he also helped to pioneer.
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