{"id":224,"date":"2005-09-26T00:00:33","date_gmt":"2005-09-26T05:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/?p=224"},"modified":"2026-03-12T01:49:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T06:49:35","slug":"entry-59","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/?p=224","title":{"rendered":"The Tape"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(edited 7 May 2024)<\/em>
It occurred to me that most of my first comment was actually part of this post, so I moved it (mostly unmodified). Look at the end of this post to see it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was cleaning out the truck this evening, and I found The Tape<\/strong>. I can\u2019t believe it. Over 21 years ago, I was passing the time on a summer afternoon recording songs off the radio on my dad\u2019s cassette radio. Basically, if a song sounded interesting, I kept it. I ended up filling up most of one of those good old cheap \u201clow noise\u201d C-60 cassettes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

A couple of those songs became pretty important to me (see this post<\/a>, this one<\/a>, and this one<\/a> for three references). Most of it, though, was just random music I found interesting. It\u2019s a real slice of memory that I\u2019m glad I dug up. The cassette itself is going in a case in my \u201cmemory box\u201d for safe-keeping (though I don\u2019t know how much longer it will last).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, now that I\u2019ve had a chance to listen to it again, I\u2019ve decided to dig up all the music in digital form and turn \u201cThe Tape\u201d into \u201cThe CD\u201d.  A lot of the songs I already had, of course. All but one of the rest were available from iTunes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, just for fun, here it is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Side A:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Caribbean Queen<\/cite> by Billy Ocean<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Everything She Wants<\/cite> by Wham!<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Smooth Operator<\/cite> by Sade<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Every Breath You Take<\/cite> (AKA \u201cThe Stalker Song\u201d) by The Police<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Walking On Sunshine<\/cite> by Katrina and the Waves<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. The Search Is Over<\/cite><\/a> by Survivor<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  7. I Saw The Light<\/cite> by Todd Rundgren<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Side B:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    1. One More Night<\/cite> by Phil Collins<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. Angel<\/cite> by Madonna<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
    3. Invisible<\/cite> by Alison Moyet<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
    4. Late In The Evening<\/cite> by Paul Simon<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
    5. Possession Obsession<\/cite> by Hall & Oates<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
    6. Can\u2019t Fight This Feeling<\/cite><\/a> by REO Speedwagon<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
    7. One Night In Bangkok<\/cite> by Murray Head<\/a> (from the Chess<\/a><\/cite> soundtrack)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      (text moved from my comment follows)<\/em>

      This tape is actually pretty odd for a few reasons. For one thing, I really wasn\u2019t that much of a radio listener then (and we didn\u2019t have cable, so no MTV). This is probably one of a handful of times before about 1990 that I listened to pop radio for more than a few minutes at a sitting. I really didn\u2019t get fully into radio until I started working for gas money (see       this post<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      So, to give you an example, I had no clue who most of these artists were for quite a few years after I recorded the tape (and I still didn\u2019t know at least two of them until the night before I wrote this post<\/em>). It took three years for me to discover the title (and more importantly the artist<\/a>) for The Search is Over<\/cite><\/a>, which undoubtedly became my favorite song. I can literally trace my love of power ballads back to this exact tape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Another thing is that it shows that my tastes were actually a little bit broader then. Later, when I discovered who some artists were and started picking out music, my tastes narrowed quite a bit. They\u2019ve since broadened again, but it\u2019s interesting to me, for instance, that I latched onto a Paul Simon song. Even now I wouldn\u2019t really peg myself as a particular fan of his music. I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that I really had no concept of \u201cgenre\u201d at that point. I either liked the music or I didn\u2019t. I hadn\u2019t started sorting music into any other kind of mental bin yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Finally, keep in mind that this tape was recorded in the space of one day from a single pop hits radio station in Florence, Alabama sometime in 1985. I think that speaks volumes for how much better of a selection of music you used to hear years ago. There\u2019s obviously the hand of a creative DJ behind this list. I can\u2019t see a modern conglomerate-based radio station doing anything like that these days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      (edited 7 May 2024)It occurred to me that most of my first comment was actually part of this post, so I moved it (mostly unmodified). Look at the end of this post to see it. I was cleaning out the truck this evening, and I found The Tape. I can\u2019t believe it. Over 21 years ago, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4,5],"class_list":["post-224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-memories","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=224"}],"version-history":[{"count":43,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1849,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions\/1849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}