Month: October 2024

Sealed for Your Protection? – Beatles Cassettes Are New Again, Even in the 21st Century

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They say that everything old is new again and I guess in the current musical landscape that includes the evergreen format of the cassette tape.

You heard right, cassette tape.

Who would have thought that in the 2020’s they’d be a market for cassette tapes but apparently that’s the case. It seems that cassette tapes are a hit with a younger crowd and I do continue to see them in used record stores and antique malls more and more recently so someone must be buying them.

Interesting really.

And to top it off this new enthusiasm for cassettes includes Beatles and solo Beatles cassette tapes – now we’re talking my language.

As for me, back in the day in the 1980s, I LOVED the cassette format. I enjoyed making mix tapes as well as tapes of my rarer records that I didn’t want to play that much. I had a ton of Maxell quality blank cassettes that I filled with various vinyl as well as practically every episode of the radio show “The Lost Lennon Tapes” from the late 1980s/early nineties and to this day those cassettes still sound pretty good.

As for store bought cassette tapes those we more hit or miss for me. Some sounded good while others sounded muffled and lousy. I never really bought that many but I still managed to snag a few here and there.

On a decent cassette player these tapes could sound pretty good as long as you never over used the Dolby settings. I found a little hiss was preferable to the blanket sound of using the Dolby settings so I generally stayed away from it.

Now of course these days cassettes are just a curio for me. I still have quite a few sealed cassettes from the eighties and nineties, a relic of an older age, and that’s the way I left it – until recently.

A couple of years ago Paul McCartney started to produce limited cassette releases  of his recent material and of course the collector in me won out and I bought a couple. I still have a really nice high end cassette player from the late 1980s so in the back of my mind I thought why not give them a try and play them; of course low these several months later they sit unopened.

The most recent cassette to cross my path was last years release of The Beatles final single “Now and Then”.  Again it was more a collector fever that hit me than a true need for the format but there you go  another unopened cassette in my collection.

My favorite recent cassette, and the first new cassette I’d bought in a couple of decades, was the cool cassette for Record Store Day 2017 that Paul McCartney issued of three cassette demos he wrote and performed with Elvis Costello – “I Don’t Want to Confess”, “Shallow Grave” and “Mistress and Maid” – recorded in the “Flowers in the Dirt” era from the late 1980s.

I just love McCartney’s handwritten titles on the cover and the whole vibe of one of his cassette demos issued in the format it was recorded on. Someday I plan to actually play the darn thing but for now it will stay sealed in pristine condition until I get the time to really have a good listen.

Speaking of sealed cassettes, I have a small collection of sealed cassettes that for one reason or another I never opened to play. To tell you the truth I’m guessing I picked these up cheap as mementos of a bygone era as I have these on CD so I’m sure I never intended to listen to them, I honestly can’t remember.

Too much tape under the bridge.

I was actually surprised when I found them in a box and had a lot of fun looking at them as they were a surprise to me that I even owned them! It’s like looking at your own store and being surprised what was on the shelf.

Anyway since I found them I thought it would make a nice blog post for folks to take a gander at some of these groovy old (and new) Beatles/solo Beatles sealed cassettes (see photos above and below).

That’s all for now. More coming soon.

Until next time be healthy and well and I hope you’re making time to listen to an old cassette if you happen to have one. And if you do let me know how it sounds, I’d be curious to know.

Double Vision: The Monkees “Headquarters” Then & Now

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It’s weird how lately I’ve been finding a lot of old vinyl still in the shrink wrap. I’m talking albums way over fifty years old and albums that I usually find pretty trashed or possibly in decent shape but rarely in brand new condition.

This past weekend I stumbled upon another one of those unexpected album finds; a Monkees two-fer actually and low and behold one of them was still in the shrink wrap!

As usual on a vacation I happened upon some new antique malls and at my first stop I noticed a stash of records from the 1960’s – my favorite kind of vinyl.

After a slog through three bins or so I came upon a minty, still in the shrink wrap copy of The Monkees 1967 album “Headquarters”. Now I needed another copy of this album like I need a hole in the head but I’ve never found another copy of this album in this good of condition.

The cover is sparkly white with near perfect shrink wrap and the album itself looks as if it was played maybe once or twice with no noticeable marks near the spindle hole on either side (thank you previous owner).

I noticed the matrix number was pretty high, 12S on both sides, so I was kind of surprised it wasn’t one of the later RE copies with the picture of The Monkees with beards. I own two beards copies and both of them had much lower matrix numbers like 4S and 6S – strange.

(Note: RE pressings are RCA records – distributor of Colgems Records – way of indicating it’s a reissue that’s made some sort of correction. The original pressing of “Headquarters” has a mistake in the caption on a photo on the rear of the cover that was replaced on a later pressing with a picture of The Monkees wearing beards. It’s often called the beards cover and is much rarer than the original pressing.

Also the higher the number on the matrix the more times this record has been taken from the master tape for pressing.)

Anyway, I looked on Discogs and it said this particular label style (see photos above) was pressed by MGM Records for Colgems and it also mentioned the 12S matrix so it must be a later pressing right before they made the RE copies.

And of course the price was right – $10 – so I bought it.

If that wasn’t enough later that day I found a record store that had the black vinyl version of the latest reissue of “Headquarters” in stock.

(Note 2: in August I reviewed the multi-color pressing of this reissue only available online through Rhino.com. This black vinyl version just came out and is the retail version of the album and not exclusive)

I hadn’t planned on buying this version but seeing it in person was another story as usual. This retail black final version of the album has a much thinner cover and it also has a barcode on the back of the album cover unlike the issue that came from Rhino.com.

The thinner cover is actually a bonus as it’s much much easier to get the records in and out of the sleeve and that’s one of the drawbacks of the online version, the cover is so rigid that it’s nearly impossible to get the records in and out of the sleeve.

Of course the record sounds identical to the colored vinyl version (and they do sound fantastic) so I’m going to use this as a listening copy and keep the colored vinyl version as a collectible.

So overall I was quite pleased to add these two new versions of this album to my collection. It’s always exciting to find an original pressing of any Monkees album in near mint condition and since this is my favorite Monkees album that’s even better.

That’s all for now just a quick Monkees/ vinyl update.

As usual see the photos above and below and until next time be healthy and well and see you soon.