Pre-recorded Cassettes

You know that I was 13 when I started collecting records, falling in love with everything about singles and albums. Well, it could have gone in a different direction. Because around the  same time my brother bought Focus At The Rainbow on pre-recorded cassette. It was the first such thing I had seen. He bought quite a few, but when I played them, in the mid-70s, they were poor quality. I wasn’t bothered at all by hi-fidelity, it was the wow and flutter I hated. That distinct swooping and muffled sound was awful. Even when not doing it, the sound lacked treble. I loved the Focus album and put up with the rubbish sound for what seemed like ages, but the more it was played and rewound, the worse the sound got. I had thought that a pre recorded cassette would be better quality than a blank tape, but this wasn’t, in fact, the few times I played one the quality varied massively. I got Mahavishnu Orchestra’s ‘Between Nothingness and Eternity’ on tape by CBS. It was terrible with very loud hiss audible in the  quiet sections added to that it was quiet and muffled. I would have been mortified to release my music like that.
Those early experiences were so terrible that it put me off pre recorded tapes for good. It was a near miss. Because there was no doubt they were more convenient to carry around. Russell had them to play on his ITT portable cassette player. But even at a young age I wanted the music to last because I couldn't afford to keep buying it and I must say, the album artwork was inferior, folded up and crammed into a plastic cassette holder. They weren’t even any cheaper, and the ability to play them in public, which was desirable, didn't persuade me to spend my pocket money on them, so I gave them a swerve. I was unaware that a lifetime of music collecting lay ahead so I got off very lightly and although the quality improved in  the late 80s, I was rarely tempted back.