I was looking through the drawers in the guest room of my house (which was built in 1980) and I found this Michael Jackson cassette tape that I assume is from the 80’s.

I asked my mom if she recognized this tape and she said her and her sister used to have a lot of these. This tape specifically is from the “Bad” album by Michael Jackson. When I tell you I was quite shocked I found this item laying around in one of the drawers in my home, even though it should be common to find these things in my house due to it being over 40 years old, I still never would've imagined to feel see and touch a cassette tape from the 80’s.

Oh the 1980’s, a time where geometric patterns, neon colors, chunky pieces of technology, and cultural resets were present. I know this might not seem like a very big find and not considered a big event in history, but at least just read the rest of this article and hear me out when I say the cassette tape is more important than what you think. Based on my sources and what I’ve looked into, this tape is from 1987 standing out about 6 cm and weighs at 50 grams. Cassette tapes phased out around 2002 and most companies stopped continuing the production of cassette tapes in the early 2000’s. These kinds of cassette tapes were overthrown by CD’S in 2003 and now they are collectable items ranging from multiple prices. Cassette’s like these were very accessible where you could just walk into a store and buy one, but now most cassette tapes have to be purchased by retail stores, or online.

This cassette tape in particular has the contents of the songs “The Way You Make Me Feel, Speed Demon, Liberian Girl, Just Good Friends, Another Part of Me, Man In the Mirror, I Just Can’t Stop Loving You, Dirty Diana, and Smooth Criminal”, which were all released during 1987. I can try playing it to see if it still works but I doubt it will. I don’t think my family still has stereos and the inside looks pretty damaged. It would be cool though if we can get a taste of the 80’s through the traditional way and not through streaming services.

The exterior of this is a regular black cassette with a white center that says the contents and the name of the album and singer (Michael Jackson). These kinds of items should be remembered and preserved because this was forwarded to the making of the CD, and then to the making of online apps such as Spotify and apple music that lets us listen to our favorite songs.

Although not all cassette tapes are worth a lot of money, they still changed the way we listen and record music and are a big part of people advancing technology. The only purpose this finding serves is the fact that we look at this now and think to ourselves “this is what they used before to play music”. This serves as a remembrance of a simpler, chunkier, more colorful time. This is a piece from the golden age of music (1960’s-1990’s) that will hopefully be remembered throughout time.

References

(October 21, 2020). Bad Album. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_(album)

Hamill, J. (February 7, 2019). Millennials prefer music from 20th century ‘golden age’ to the pop of today, research suggests. in Metro UK. Retrieved from https://metro.co.uk/2019/02/07/millennials-prefer-music-20th-century-golden-age-pop-today-research-reveals-8462993/