Okay, it's no secret that most people dig Prince"s "older" stuff. And a previous post got me thinking about how back in the day, it seemed easier to listen to an album all the way through w/out skipping songs. Now when you buy a full CD you barely listen to half of the material.

So could all of this be due to the ease of pressing a button to the next tune rather than having to sit and fast forward? Is it just that maybe FULL albums grew on us cuz we had NO CHOICE but to listen to the whole thing, over and over to get to the GOOD STUFF? Essentially TRICKING us into loving the WHOLE thing.

Am I on to something here? Did technology ruin music for us? DID video kill the radio star?

No, I think technology made it easier for us to not settle for tracks that were BS just because we were to lazy to skip to the next

when tapes were popular, i used to buy new P albums on tape AND cd, because even though i could just make tapes from my CDs, i wanted to have a professionally recorded cassette version for my walkman.

Anxiety said:

Moi aussi!!!

Anxiety said:

Hmm, I just bought the cassette cuz I was to cheap to buy the CD!

IMHO cassettes are better anyway, they don't skip, and they have a longer life!

luv4all7 said:

hardly! lol

soulyacolia said:

That's just my preference.

Well tapes arent even being made anymore. And thats cause of the crap quality!

I had a Fast Foward Button on my Tape Players.

mymocha said:

Remember the "music search" feature, or whatever it was called? Would fast forward to the next significant gap in the sound (usually the dead space between songs), so it was a prelude to the CD "skip" button. Except it was hardly foolproof: it would often stop on short quiet moments during songs...and of course if there were no gaps in the sound between songs (ala Lovesexy), it wouldn't work at all!

I guess Prince didn't like the skipping tracks bit either, look what he did with the original CD release of Lovesexy (at least in the U.S.), he made it all one track!

I grew on cassette...guess that influence my habit of listening 2 an album from start 2 finish!

I sure loved my cranberries and alanis tapes!

I think the main issue around CDs for a lot of artists is that they now feel that the full 80 minutes must be utilised and you therefore get a lot more filler than with a 9 or 10 track album lasting 40 minutes.

You have to pad that extra 40 minutes with something and most artists choose to fill it with crap that should have been left at the demo stage!

I have all of Prince's 80's output on cassette and trust me, they sound better than the cd's.

I never bought cassettes until vinyl went out of style. The only reason I bought them then, is because CD players were too expensive back in the day. I saw no reason to buy a cassette when I could record the vinyl onto one myself. Also, tapes wear out over a period of time. I have tons of of old cassettes that sound muffled and on some of them, the sound drops and comes back up. All my old vinyl is as good as new.

We never were forced to listen to an entire album all the way through. The reason for the track buttons on CD players is not to correct the disadvantages of cassettes such as fast forwarding and rewinding. The track buttons are there to recreate the convenience of vinyl. On vinyl, you simply picked the needle up and placed it wherever you wanted it. There was no fast forwarding or rewinding.

PurrfectKitty said:

There's your answer right there! Regarding trickinng us into listening to the whole album, what about LoveSexy? You couldn't skip ahead with that cd and I think it hurt the sales. I believe that to be one reason why Ana Stesia seldom gets the credit it deserves...

BlurredEye said:

CO-SIGN

luv4all7 said:

they get warn out eventually

Cassettes are so unpopular now though I found it's now a good option to hear hard to find albums because everyone sold 'em to used stores.

I like that cassettes never skip. I started buying music in the 80s so I also learned to be patient and just listen to entire albums at a young age.

People who grew up on needle-dropping vinyl or track-skipping CDs don't have the same patience.

Although sometimes cassettes wear out sooner than they should and start doing that wavering/phasing/muffle.

Not me. In the few years when records were fading out and I didn't have a CD player yet, I used to wear my fast forward and rewind buttons out. I even broke a few in the process.

Now, if you want to talk about patience, you really have to have patience with 8 Track tapes. The only 8 Track players with fast forward buttons were the really expensive ones. Other than that, you had to listen to it all the way through, for at least one of the four programs anyway. That's why I bought very few of them back in the day.
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[Edited 11/19/05 15:02pm]

i grew up on vinyl and cassettes. i love them for what they represent to me. i still have a huge box of old cassettes and i love going through them from time to time.

CDs are a wonderful invention of course, and are superior in many ways to vinyl and cassette, but there's something less "warm" about them to me than vinyl/cassettes, and i also miss the packaging that would come with vinyl, especially.

the one thing i did hate about cassettes was how that little square of felt or whatever that is that's glued right up on top (underneath where the tape itself runs across the open top of the cassette) would sometimes come unglued and then the tape was f*ed for good if you couldn't glue it back on. at least CDs dont do that.

Back in the day it was all about vinyl. Even then I had the patience to listen to the albums all the way through the first few times, just to get a feel for them.

all my old white cassetes sound like shit now, I still listen to cds all the way through I dont skip tracks

luv4all7 said:

You crackhead why did you uyse cassettes? You shouldve said records (vinyl as some posers like to say). I mean if you're talking about listening to music with out the skip button, records are the ultimate format as far as sound is concerned. Why the hell would you use an inferior sounding format like cassettes? What the hell is wrong with you?

kdj997 said:

And people say Prince is rude.

PurrfectKitty said:

I should whack you upside your head with a jelly bean for sayin' that sh*t! Don't you mofo's get it? Prince albums aren't good unless you listen to them ALL THE BLOODY WAY THROUGH!!!!!

vainandy said:

And there you have it. You sound like someone who has a clue about music formats.

I've been playing music since the days of my old Snoopy record player and making tapes with my old Snoopy (AM only) radio up next to a tape recorder, telling everyone "Shhhhh.....I'm making a tape".

I like to still listen straight through

Does anyone remember those discs in the early 1990s that looked like a CD but were the size of a vinyl record album? What were those? They sure didn't last long.