Musical Lament

Kids have it so easy these days.

Way back when, we listened to cassette tapes.  We had to wait for them to rewind, fast forward and had to flip them over manually.  If the tape got pulled out, we had to use a pencil to wind it all back together.  And to this day, I still sing a section of Billy Joel's Pressure all wonky - the tape had twisted in one section and played a warped version of the flip side.

When my kids want to hear a song they like, they pull it up on Spotify.  No waiting for a parent to drive them to Camelot Music to spend their hard earned pennies on a new cassette!  They look for about two seconds, then listen to whatever they want, for free. 

And does anyone remember taping songs off the radio?  You kept your blank cassette in the deck, (with record and pause both pushed), waiting for the moment the DJ would play your latest fave.  Then as soon as you heard the coveted strains, you released the pause so it would start recording. Then you hoped no one would enter your bedroom and talk and ruin it all.  Or worse yet, the DJ come on at the end, jabbering over the last chorus.  Lucky were the kids who had a dual-cassette deck player - they didn't have to worry about parents coming in and messing up the recording.

Remember the days of listening intently to catch that garbled lyric?  Now we can just google the lyrics and be rewarded instantaneously.  Or use SoundHound to find out who the group is - or push info on the Sirius!  Gone are the days of calling the radio station to ask who sang the last song.

And one last thought to my rant:  Storage!  Now our music is in the palm of our hands.  Our iPhone, iPod or equivalent holds it all.  Gone are the days of special cassette-tape-storage boxes.  When you go to college, you don't have to make choices such as this: "Do I take my extensive cassette collection, or do I take my clothes?".  Kids nowadays can have both!

Sheesh.  If only they realized how good they've got it.