I was reading Jefito’s blog today and he’s has this ongoing feature on that audio relic, the cassingle. You remember these things, right? A cassette with enough tape for a couple of songs. It probably retailed for a couple of bucks at Tower Records and since “the kids” were buying quite a few of those Walkmans, well, what better way to enjoy your favorite singles than to have them ready for you to buy on tape. No dubbing from an LP, or another tape. Just some pop goodness that would eventually end up melted in the backseat of your car, or chewed up in your tape deck because you never bothered to clean the heads.
Ah…the memories.
I got a little blove from “little boss” Jeff about yesterday’s cassingle because he expected me to rant about the wimpiness of the song. But honestly, I don’t remember listening to that song back in 1990 (FYI: it was Calloway’s “I Wanna Be Richâ€).
1990 was my graduating year in college, and it was a very good year indeed! That year I was listening almost exclusively to Live 105 or KUSF, and one day I heard Steve Masters playing a song by some band called Consolidated. And while I didn’t like the title track because it annoyed me, for some reason I bought the LP at some record store in San Francisco because I was still doing the mobile DJ thing then. I brought it home and was intrigued by the overtly political rantings by the band. Since I was just finishing up my political science degree at “State” I found what they were saying somewhat simplistic, but powerful. I just re-listened to the album, and found it to be just as simplistic as it was in 1990 (Sorry guys, anger, half-baked socialist ideals, and a few 25 cent SAT words don’t make for artistic greatness). Nevertheless, there were a couple of tracks that still hold up– but just barely.
“Brian Wilson (download HERE) is kind of funny and a good lead in to Consolidated’s only “hit:” “Dysfunctional Relationship” (download HERE) — complete with a kind of robotic command by a woman for men to be more sensitive to womyn’s needs. Sexy! 😉
Enjoy?
–PK
la luna
October 3, 2006 at 11:44 amhum,I don’t remember that group, but I do remember the cassetsingle thing.
Ml
October 3, 2006 at 7:23 pmI remember the cassingle. I thought it was brilliant! 🙂
Py Korry
October 3, 2006 at 8:24 pmConsolidated’s music was played on alt rock and college radio stations, but the cassingle was in almost every record store. I think I bought maybe one of them.
Lalapunci
October 3, 2006 at 10:28 pmHmmm. One song $2 on a cassingle, 10 songs $8-10 on an LP or CD. I guess that is why I didn’t pay attention to cassingles. I am so tight with my money my joints creak. Oh well, some ideas don’t fly very far.
Py Korry
October 3, 2006 at 10:34 pmMy friend Jefito has a bags of these things! But he’s a music critic, so he was getting these things sent to him from record labels.
J
October 4, 2006 at 12:02 amI fondly remember Consolodated…but when we were listening to it last night, I thought, Hm. This kind of sucks. 😉 Still, better than the song Jefito was talking about, and better than the crappy new Lional Ritchie song I heard on DV this morning. (I know, “What? We’re talking 1990, not new”…but boy, that song sucked.)
jefito
October 4, 2006 at 12:18 amI don’t know how you managed to escape “I Wanna Be Rich” the first time around, PK, but more power to you.
On an unrelated note, I can’t stop listening to this new Lindsey Buckingham.
Py Korry
October 4, 2006 at 4:50 amThe new Lionel Richie song does blow, but It’ll be played to death. And Consolidated’s album really sounds dated these days. Ah well…
Jefito: I don’t know how I escaped Calloway either, but I consider myself lucky.