Dinosaur Jr. Joins Cassette Revival
So what do you do if you’re an aging rock band trying to stay in touch with today’s youth? No, skinny jeans just aren’t enough but maybe a cassette release, establishing your connection to a hip underground scene while giving it mainstream credibility, is the path! Dinosaur Jr. seems to be making just such a move with the release of “Cassette Trilogy“, a limited edition box set of “classic” albums on cassette.
If you ask nicely, I’ll explain my animosity towards Dinosaur Jr. in the comments, but I have only good things to say about Joyful Noise Recordings who specialize in unique releases in vinyl, cassette, CD and MP3 formats. I’m not sure why they’re avoiding 8-tracks and reel-to-reel but simply seeing a release available in Cassette + MP3 is pretty darn cool.
Apparently they typically include an immediately downloadable MP3 with most of their releases which also feature some interesting art. Not impressed? Ok, what about a sleeping bag? You won’t see that from Topspin!
The Dinosaur Jr. “Cassette Trilogy” is a box set featuring three albums from the mid to late 80s, “Dinosaur”, “You’re Living All Over Me” and “Bug”:
“Limited to a one-time release of 500 hand-numbered copies, the Dinosaur Jr. Cassette Trilogy is packaged in a custom-built, screen-printed wooden box, featuring the classic Dinosaur Jr. “monster” artwork. The individual cassettes are manufactured on high-quality chrome tape with purple, black, and white shells. Each are individually wrapped with 8 panel original artwork.”
50 sets will also include Sebadoh’s “Weed Forestin'” which was originally released on cassette with “You’re Living All Over Me”. Plus, Joyful Noise Recordings also has some portable cassette players for sale via the above linked news item.
This is a nice offering from a well-established act that connects to both the current cassette scene and to old folks like myself that often bought new releases on cassette back in the day. Perhaps a similar dynamic is at play in the video for “Over It“. Pretty cool for a bunch of aging rockers!
In addition to labels doing cassette releases mentioned in my previous post, here are more participants in the current revival of cassette tapes:
Not Not Fun Records via cyclpsrock.
Night-People Records via “the Strangler”.
Also worth noting are Burger Records and ZAP Cassettes.
Plus, a graph of tape release stats from the late 1960s to now via Mind Booster Noori.
Source: Dinosaur Jr.
