Happy Birthday – Our Music Cassette Turns 63!

On August 28, 1963, Philips presented the first cassette recorder at the Berlin Radio Show. The cassette brought music to life. It was small, inexpensive, and portable. And you could record your own music with it. It made your music collection mobile.

The Soundtrack to Your Life

Inventor and music lover Andreas Pavel used it as early as the 1970s for a device that would later conquer the world as the Walkman. The cassette thus definitively provided the soundtrack to our lives.

Mixtapes as Love Messages

In the 1980s, audio drama cassettes like "The Three Investigators" and "TKKG" were all the rage. And then, of course, there was the mixtape for your first love.

Many musicians also used the cassette to quickly and easily capture their ideas for new songs. Many hits wouldn't exist today without it. The cassette tape brought music to the streets, not just to car radios. From the late 1970s onward, it provided the soundtrack for breakdancing, which spread from New York to the rest of the world, via boomboxes.

Digitization spells the end

With digitization, the internet, and streaming, the music cassette almost completely disappeared. But not entirely. Stars like The Weeknd and Taylor Swift are now releasing their albums as limited special editions – on cassette!

 

Last edited: Feb 21, 2026 at 9:45 PM

1963 + 60 = 2023
Yu're late

Sorry dude @PulseWave

 

Thank you so much @thantrax, I must have fallen for a fake, great that you thought of that, I've corrected it! It should say 63 and not 60!

 

Last edited: Feb 21, 2026 at 9:47 PM

Ahh, but still, brings back good memories. Those were the days. The days of cassettes. The compactness and price of a cassette compared to LP's and tapes. And since almost anybody could afford a cassette player, you could make a special cassette with special music for somebody. It was a real nice gift. All disappeared. Nostalgia. Yeah, yeah, I know. I am an old fartz....

 

You can nowadays share a 'playlist' from Spotify with that special someone. But it just doesn't feel the same. The labor and love that went into recording a cassette of 2x45 minutes of music recorded from various records can't be compared to just sharing a playlist from some streaming platform. The whole process of putting a record on the turntable and putting the tapedeck on ‘monitoring’ to check and adjust the input level for each and every track just can’t be compared to just dragging tracks into a playlist.

I still have all my old cassettes and two tape decks and all still work OK.

 

Somehow, whether it's cassettes, records, or real synthesizers, the analog, tangible, and physical always wins. A cassette was the ideal gift; you could even label it yourself, it was light, inexpensive, and compact, and it fit in any pocket.

Analog files can't be erased, and a hard drive might crash, but the cassette remains.
I recently digitized some old cassettes with Audacity; sometimes there are audio dropouts, but they add character.

 

When just playing I still record live takes to cassette cos there is no quicker solution, hit rec that's it, dont even need a computer, i can fill a couple of cassettes with riffs, guitar or keys, each year.


I also record certain samples intentionally onto cassette cos i like how the sound is affected, i dunno, 'tightened' or 'glued' a bit like compression.

 

If you ask kids today about cassettes, they have no idea what you are talking about.

 

Maxell XLII. Stacked in boxes. In my location, I could hear college radio from 5 Colleges in Pioneer Valley, Springfield all the way to UConn, Middletown etc in CT. Record deck always ready to go. Come down off the mountain (reception range!) and go play my new found sounds for my friends and let them copy. Every Tuesday, new hip hop dropped and I'd record the radio show to decide what's next. A UConn DJ on Saturdays was from LA. He'd go home and come back with demos, new LPs of bands not quite known yet. Janes Addiction, Primus, all kinds of stuff. College radio was great.

 

...and they'll probably call you "Boomer!!!!"

 

Ooohhhh yes!!! Nice packages!!

 

Cassette History : A series of fortunate events

What influenced the Philips Compact Cassette?

This and more will be answered in this video event of the century. Be the life and soul of any party by sharing the story of how 3M’s failed music cartridge made the Philips cassette possible. Learn why Philips' terrible deal with Sony was great for everyone else. Discover the only patentable feature of the compact cassette player.

Spoiler: Content

00:00 Play
00:25 The ‘Inventor’
02:45 Proto-tapes
05:35 RCA’s attempt
09:15 3M’s attempt
11:09 Minifon attaché
12:30 It’s all about the width
13:59 Understanding the market
16:01 Cassette’s unique feature
17:06 Philips other 1963 cassette
18:09 Rivals
19:53 The deal of the century
23:00 Quick fire facts
24:30 Load “”
26:08 Eject