Holy crap. You have to love this BBC News article in which a father asks his 13 year old son to trade his iPod for a Walkman for one week's time. Engadget does a great job pulling out the most relevant slash hilarious quotes in their story entitled, "13 year old trades iPod for Walkman, reports on mysterious ancient artifact":
- "It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette."
- "I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it randomly - effective, if a little laboured."
- "When playing, it is clearly evident that the music sounds significantly different than when played on an MP3 player, mainly because of the hissy backtrack and odd warbly noises on the Walkman."
A few weekends ago I actually discussed the days of the tape with some girlfriends - we reminisced about staying glued to Top 10 countdowns on radio stations in desperate attempts to record a new song for a mix tape. Which brings me to mix tapes. I love iTunes, I love iPods, but I miss receiving mix tapes and CD's - both of which seem to have fallen by the wayside. I'm going to start an advocacy movement to bring these back. Paging Blue State Digital...
Every year at the end of summer I'd buy a new Walkman to take back to college. They'd last the year, through long nights of writing code and frozen U.P. winter, typically dying the spring right before it was time to pack up and leave for home.
I found the last couple I owned the other week when cleaning out a box with multiple moving company stickers on it. My kids were fascinated that a music player had moving parts and took AA batteries.
I agree with the mix tapes. I'd use my radio show as a way to make 'em, since I played what I wanted to hear.
Posted by: JoeA | July 29, 2009 at 09:24 PM