The cassette tape is the audio equivalent of the AK-47: cheap and easy to mass manufacture; highly usable with the minimum of skills and experience; and a symbol and tool of revolutions. Marc Masters doesn’t use that metaphor in his excellent and truly exciting book on cassette tapes, but he doesn’t have to. He outlines the story of how the cassette came to be the dominant recording medium on a global scale during the 1980s and into the mid-1990s, and by doing so shows how essential cassettes were to so many musical movements that they would have been impossible without the tapes that, as he points out, are so easy and satisfying to hold in your hand.
Sixty years since the cassette tape was invented in Germany, Middle East Eye traces how it became a vehicle for cultural, political, and religious innovation across the Middle East
Syria online: Digital archives reconnect a generation scattered by war syriadirect.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from syriadirect.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Quest to Preserve Syria's Cassette Tape Era atlasobscura.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from atlasobscura.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.