University Star

Sony announced on Monday that it would stop producing its popular Walkman device in Japan. Early incarnations of the archaic piece of technology appear to have been made from a material known as "plastic." It is not easy to tell where exactly the touch screen was located on the device by looking at pictures of the thing but I will update when I figure that out. 

Sources (some of whom graduated high school in the...gulp...90s) confirmed that syncing the device was about as easy as syncing an iPod—the only difference being that instead of a cord running from the device to the computer that automatically updates the music library, one would have to insert a blank "cassette tape" (I know, I know. I'm confused too, but there is only room for so many explanations in this blog), wait by a radio (a what? I'm wondering if my sources are performing some sort of Ashton Kutcher-esque Punking on me), for a song to be broadcast and then activate the device's "Record" feature. I'm told that this "Record" function was similar to a manual Tivo, but for audio. 

The extra work that went in to filling the device with music paid off in the form of nearly limitless space for music to be stored on the—shoot. Dang. I just Googled this and it turns out the average "cassette tape" could store about 60 minutes of music. I can't even fit an entire Sufjan Stevens album on one of these things? What about the 37 remixes of "1901" that I spent — literally — minutes scouring the Internet for? I almost missed Glee so I could get No. 37 (thank God for Tivo. The real Tivo) and I'm not about to split up Daft Punk's 41-minute remix (that's really more of a sonic odyssey and commentary on the financial crisis in Greece) onto two sides of a "tape." 

What one loses in storage space and ease of use, they make back tenfold in durability and sound quality. The "tape medium" was flame resistant, stronger than most alloys and basically indestructible. Or that's what I thought until Brendan Fraser, Steve Buscemi and that one guy who did that one song about sloppy joes showed me something else at the :44 mark of this trailer. 

Airheads is an interesting documentary about a band whose career was ruined by the "tape medium" (I think members of that band went on to join acts like The Big Lebowskis, The Big Daddies and The Mummies). My local blockbuster only carries it on something called "VHS" (WTF?) but it's also available on Netflix Instant Stream. 

To understand the phenomenon, one must look at the people who were demanding this complex, fragile piece of equipment. In an advertisement for the product, a young person, probably no older than 18, is seen smiling and listening to the device while wearing a shirt adorned with an image of Ice-T. Ice, as we all know, is famous for his "killa" cop character on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (Mr. T — excuse me, Mr. Ice — apparently also rapped a bit on the side but that never took off, as evidenced by the cancellation of his reality television show Ice-T's Rap School). Obviously, a significant amount of Walkmen owners were television enthusiasts. 

Another ad shows a couple roller-skating, a couple skydiving, a couple lost in each other's heart-melting "God Bless America" gaze and another couple who looks like they may or may not be on the run from police officers for lewd conduct in a public area. One can deduce that Walkmens were aimed toward sporty, horny caucasian couples. 

These seem like completely unrelated markets, but MKT 3310 taught me better than that. It's obvious that the couple that plays together stays together watches television together listens to music together. 

"Do you mind if we interrupt you and your spouse's viewing of Real World: Season Three to show you this cool new music playing device? What's that? Oh yeah, Puck has, like, three of these."

Today, we have the convenience of one-click album downloads. We don't have to wait hours by the radio to hit "record" as soon as we hear the first chord of Matchbox 20's "Push" come on Rick D's Weekly Top 40 and we're sweating because we don't know if we're going to have to leave for church before the song is done playing. We don't carry fanny packs around to carry our extra "cassettes" with us. We do it because they look awesome! 

I can show you scenes from my favorite episode of Hey! Arnold like *that* (Ask me to. I'll Facebook you a clip of Arnold talking to the pigeon man, and you'll cry a little bit).

We don't have to work for our music. We don't have to work for any of our media.

And I think this is a good thing. I hope this is a good thing. I'm not sure if this is a good thing. I really only have one reason: When I hear a song like "1901," that on a technical level is head and shoulders above "Push," I think of how I downloaded it from Strike Gently. Or maybe a friend burned me the album. Or did I get it from someone's flash drive? Or was it iTunes? "Push" is a decent song but when I think of how much I love it (still), I'm mostly hearing my Dad yelling at me "Here we go! C'mon! Here we GO!" while I just stare at my thumb as it hovers over the Stop button of my Walkmen, trying to remember which Bible verse I'm supposed to have memorized for Sunday School, which starts in 15 minutes.

-b. thorne