After writing the first article, a new example came to mind.
Walkman
Remember back to year 8. Sony or Panasonic cassette walkmans were the brands sought after by high-school kids around the country. The price ranged from about $80 to $120 for a quality system – a difficult price for any 13 year old.
There were various ways to conceal the fact that you were listening to your walkman during class. The most effective was to have one ear piece run through the inside of your shirt, through your back and come out at your collar right behind your ear while the other wire would pass through your arm and come out of your cuff/sleeve. You would put your elbow on the desk and lean your head on your hand to plug in the ear piece to get stereo sound.
There was a ritual involved.
- Buy blank cassettes
- Borrow or purchase original music cd’s or cassettes (yeah that’s right, you could buy top 40 music on audio cassette back in the day)
- Tape the music onto your blank cassettes (reducing the volume during recording for better playback quality)
- Remember to have charged batteries, and have another pair for backup – my walkman only needed one. I used to pay around $9.00 for a lithium back then, would last weeks!
- Remember to pack it and take it with you to school in the morning with a selection of your best 4 tapes (all of them rewound to the start).
- And the game of cat and mouse between you, your walkman and the teacher began. It would be days of confiscation if you were caught with a walkman at school. Some students even prepared what they would say to the teacher to negotiate a way around the temporary loss of this treasured item.
CD walkmans then came onto the market but for me, they were too bulky and anti-skip technology wasn’t at its peak, meaning that the cd would skip as you walked around listening to the music.
Portable music is still relevant today however I think the importance of the process is less appreciated. The ritual and all the obstacles aren’t as present now. Music accessibility is much greater. Before, it was such a long journey from the recording session to the school yard, to be able to enjoy just one hour of personal music during a school day.
Long live the walkman!
More examples to continue soon…