High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781469675985)

The cassette tape was revolutionary. Cheap, portable, and reusable, this small plastic rectangle changed music history. Make your own tapes! Trade them with friends! Tape over the ones you don't like! The cassette tape upended pop culture, creating movements and uniting communities.

This entertaining book charts the journey of the cassette from its invention in the early 1960s to its Walkman-led domination in the 1980s to decline at the birth of compact discs to resurgence among independent music makers. Scorned by the record industry for "killing music," the cassette tape rippled through scenes corporations couldn't control. For so many, tapes meant freedom--to create, to invent, to connect.

Marc Masters introduces readers to the tape artists who thrive underground; concert tapers who trade bootlegs; mixtape makers who send messages with cassettes; tape hunters who rescue forgotten sounds; and today's labels, which reject streaming and sell music on cassette. Their stories celebrate the cassette tape as dangerous, vital, and radical.

Author: Marc Masters
ISBN-10: 1469675986
ISBN-13: 9781469675985
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Language: English
Published: 10/03/2023
Pages: 224
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.65lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.60d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 07/15/2023
Publishers Weekly 08/14/2023