When We Were Young

I was having a conversation with my younger brother about the good old days of cassettes and suddenly remembered the time when they meant so much to me. Then I stumbled upon these cassettes and it all came back. How I used to have a small, but at the time very valuable, collection of cassettes that I stacked up in my black plastic stand that curved like a filing box, holding 15 tapes exactly. It was probably bought from Argos-the place where they had the 'laminated book of dreams'-with saved up pocket money. I remember very clearly the following artists and their cassette albums that filled little slots: Spice Girls (Spice), Louise (Naked-just after she left Eternal), No Mercy (Where Do You Go-single). 

 

What were the rest? Well, here's where it got interesting and a little sad in hindsight. Twelve other slots were filled with tapes made lovingly and most time consumingly by recording my favourite songs from the radio. I would spend hours listening to the radio, waiting to hear my favourite song like the Carpenters used to sing, and hastily press record as soon as I hear the first beats or in most cases when the host would announce their order of playlist and I would wait patiently. Or sometimes when an ad would play and then suddenly jump straight into the track. If a song is really good I would press record at the end of the ads just so I don't miss anything. In the end I had tapes full of songs with random ads in front and back, or people's requests in the middle. And the most tragic thing would be when the tape would run its course and THAT song would get cut in half. To this day there are songs that I'd listen to now but internally listen to them the way it was recorded on my tapes-the ad that follows it straight away, the DJ's stupid jokes, the sudden halting of the tape in the middle of that chorus that I always anticipate. Only in such imperfect times do you hold onto such perfect memories of when we were young(er). And now music is digital, and most young peole grow up thinking of their favourite songs as mere texts on their computers or phones that you tap to hear a perfectly tuned, edited and cut packages with names, album titles, year of recording and who produced it. Surely the fun can be found in trying to guess the name of the song, or the artist and associating it with memories, events and emotions? Music now sounds more like what we know about it rather than how we feel about it. There's no mystery to it. We only acquire it. I wonder what my son would listen to when he has his own tastes, and would I be able to share it with him?

Anyway, looking up the images for the post has naturally lead me to this, and then ofcourse this. Most fun singing along to this in spanish! And to my surprise I found this little gem-where was I when this happened?! Apologies for all the this and that but I suddenly want to sing along to lots of 90s pop music. The last time I felt this giddy was at the Spice Girl Reunion tour, where I went with my best friends, sang our hearts out and bought the t-shirt to prove it! 

Lovely how a little rainbow of cassettes take you on a journey-how much can we say about a digital file?

[Photos: Dulguun Batkhishig]