This week the humble cassette tape turns 50 years old. Happy birthday!
It may be pretty much defunct now but it was a beloved essential of 80s music lovers.
It gave us the mix tape and was responsible for many a romance. It also got chewed up in our CD players and made a racket when rewinding.
Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show listeners shared their memories of the cassette tape this morning:
- Gearódín Ní Chatháin: First cassette album was Hits 5!! I was a LP girl before that! :o)
- Paul Gearoid Ó Ríaín: My First tape was guns n roses appetite for destruction ,god i’m getting old
- Orla Maher: My first tape was Kylie......feeling old right now
- Lucy Crockford: Sadly I was some1 who MADE a mix tape for a boy...oh the shame
- Kay Sims: Used to tape off the radio all the time, in the days of poparama with Ruth baucannon & some guy called Ian Dempsey???!!!!!! I've been a listener for long time Ian
- Gavin Woods: I have loads of tapes still and upto about 2 years ago I was still making classic 90's and 00's mix house music tapes. I bought The Prodigy's 'Music For A Gilted Generation' on tape, cd and vinyl I love the album so much
- First two cassettes were dire straights money for nothing and bruce springstein born in the usa, both of the fabulous texaco collection. Ah them were the days. Shane
- Maura O'Neill: My very first cassette was Ghost in the Machine by the Police, played to death on a crappy little cassette player. Remember cleaning the cassette player heads with nail polish remover on an ear bud when you didn't have one of those cleaning tape
- John O'Mahony: Used spend my Sunday afternoon taping Irelands top 40 with Larry,my mix included,Men at Work Down Under,ZZ Top Legs,Ultravox Vienna, David Bowie Lets Dance and Foster and Allen Limerick You're A Lady...I think that was an Irish No.1 for about 2 years.
- Sue-Ellen Carroll: Glen Mederious 'Nothings gonna change my love for you'. Surely I should get a gold star on my forehead or something for admitting that!
What are you memories of the cassette? Do you have a drawer full of old tapes but no player on which to play them?
