Cassette Collecting As An Alternative To Vinyl

Some days I wake up and I think to myself, "What is absolutely the dumbest thing I could do today?" And a few weeks ago I sunk to a new low with my answer: collect cassette tapes. 

What?

I hated cassette tapes. Perhaps nothing in my lifetime was more lowly and uninspiring than cassette tapes.

The number one reason cassettes sucked is the number one reason vinyl records are still cultural artifacts: the artwork and liner notes. However, I never envisioned myself collecting vinyl records ever again, until a couple of years ago. When I considered all the albums and bands that had made a difference in my life, it occurred to me that I had no physical obejects that commemorated that. Just digital files. So I slowly started collecting some of the albums that had been my favorites. Devo's Freedom of Choice was the first, but Queen's The Game and The Cars and R.E.M and The Police soon followed. Even AC/Dc and Judas Priest. Soundtracks like The Monster Club and The Return of the Living Dead.

But soon my collecting habit was becoming expensive. So, I wondered if there was a more economical alternative. Like 8 Tracks or cassettes. The reality is we never owned an 8 Track player, so I have no sentimental attachment to 8 Tracks. I really don't get very sentimental over cassettes, either, but when I used to go into the record store they often would have the album I was looking for only on cassette, so I'd buy it in that format. 

The first thing we'd do back then when we bought an album is record it on cassette. If we'd been smarter that would have been the only time we ever played the album. We'd have put it in storage and just listened to the tape. But who thinks of that kind of thing at the time?

So, here are a few of my first acquisitions...

Devo!

Of course it's Devo. I got these for like five dollars each, which is still about half of what I might have paid for them when they first came out. I'm still not entirely convinced cassettes are something I want to collect, but there are about 50-100 albums I'd like to get in this format.

The Twin Peaks soundtrack will run you about $50-$100 on vinyl, but I got the cassette for seven dollars. Of course it doesn't have the feel and impact of a full vinyl album, but who can afford vinyl at those prices? 

It's still possible to find cassettes on the cheap. I bought Paul Simon's Graceland for a quarter Wednesday night. Still a lot of people just looking to get rid of them. Will they ever be highly collectible? Probably not, but it really depends on the artist and album, The ones that are nearly impossible to get on vinyl are often available on cassette. It's not an entirely satisfying substitute, but it's something. 

August 9, 2026 update. Ya, it's a great idea, unless you use the storage bin you keep the tapes in to prop up you air conditioner and it leaks all summer and when you finally open the bin you've got a compartment of mold. 

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Why Gilbert O'Sullivan Is Alone

I don't know much about Gilbert O'Sullivan, or why he's alone, but it could be because of this song. What is this song about? Is it about a dog, or a woman? 

What the hell is going on with you people? Have you lost your godamn minds? I don't think I understand any of you, but most of all I don't understand Gilbert O'Sullivan. 

August 9, 2026 update. To be more fair than I was originally, this song often pops up now on my You Tube playlist, and I listen to it happily. It's a song about grief. I think once I stopped being a prick I understood that. 

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This Dude Abideth

August 10, 2026 update:

This Dude Still Abideth

Looking at this picture now, I realize it probably says more about me than I intended it to when I posted it. I have spent a considerable portion of my life sitting in rooms like this, watching old television shows and terrible horror movies, listening to records everyone else forgot, reading books about subjects I had no practical reason to know anything about, and following whatever rabbit hole presented itself until another one came along.

I used to think a person was supposed to turn all those interests into something. Become an expert. Build a career. Find a niche. Become the Dungeons and Dragons guy, the horror movie guy, the poetry guy, the record collector, the publisher, the local history guy, the guy who knows why the original Holmes D&D set didn't have a ten-sided die. During the great blogging era especially, everybody seemed to be searching for the subject that would become their thing. I tried that occasionally. It never lasted. I always moved on.

But looking through this archive years later, maybe moving on was the thing. I wasn't trying to become a cryptozoologist when I wrote about the Dover Demon. I wasn't trying to become a film historian when I wondered what happened to Peter Carpenter. I didn't need to become an authority on Japanese progressive rock because Shingetsu occupied one afternoon. Sometimes curiosity only needs an afternoon. Sometimes it lasts forty years.

The things that did last are obvious now. Poetry. Dungeons and Dragons. Horror movies. Music. Old television. Publishing books. Rockford. Objects that somehow carry their previous lives around with them: vinyl records, eight-track players, polyhedral dice, old photographs, obsolete word processors. I've spent an unreasonable amount of time wondering why certain things disappear and why others refuse to.

Maybe that's why this photograph still appeals to me. Nothing is happening. I'm not accomplishing anything. I'm apparently sitting there changing channels. But somewhere between Dark Shadows, Mannix, The Incredible Hulk, an obscure horror movie, an old record and whatever I happened to be reading that night, something would eventually catch. Then I'd write about it.

Most of it didn't lead anywhere.

It didn't have to.

The Dude abideth.

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