High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape

by Marc Masters

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469675985
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	10/03/2023
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	350,288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Marc Masters is a music journalist whose work has appeared in the Washington Post , Pitchfork , Bandcamp Daily, NPR Music, and Rolling Stone. He is the author of No Wave.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Tapeheads rejoice! Marc Masters has crafted a joyous but detailed history of the cassette, as quirky and personal as the mixtapes you used to make!"—Patton Oswalt, comedian and actor

In this deliciously deep dive that spans from the birth of hip-hop to Deadhead show tapers to the Japanese underground, Masters reveals why cassettes continues to endure, deftly illuminating earlier analog eras and the very digital now."—Jessica Hopper, author of The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic and Night Moves

Who knew that the oft-disparaged cassette was responsible for literally bringing the world together? Marc Masters knew, and he does an astounding job tying endless threads into a story that is entertaining, surprising, and ultimately inspiring, showing us all how the cassette tape changed the culture time and time again."—Tom Scharpling, author and host of The Best Show with Tom Scharpling

Editorial Reviews

08/14/2023

Music journalist Masters (No Wave) unspools an affectionate ode to the cassette tape and how it revolutionized the music industry by freeing artists and fans to “create, invent, individualize” and distribute sound in innovative ways. The author begins in 1963, when Philips debuted the first portable tape recorder and licensed the design to other companies, stoking increased sales. Later, amid the “boom box phenomenon” that began in the 1970s, Sony invented the Walkman by “replacing the recording capability with a stereo amplifier,” allowing users to “listen to music on the go without subjecting other people to it,” while at nearly the same time, the Tokyo Electro-Acoustic Company introduced its Portastudio, a multitrack home recording device. The two technologies propelled the cassette into a “category of artistic creation” and distribution all its own, according to Masters: hip-hop music fans circulated cutting-edge sounds not yet available on the radio, and even Bruce Springsteen recorded his 1982 album Nebraska on a four-track. Wending his way through the 1980s and ’90s mixtape “glory days” and the cassette’s eventual decline with the 1980s advent of CDs, Masters constructs a lively and detailed case for the cassette as a vital driver of cultural creation. This charming history is sure to please anyone nostalgic for the mixtapes of yesteryear. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

High Bias makes a persuasive case that . . . cassette-based activity functions as a sort of understory in the forest of music, a substructure in the shadows that nurtures and fortifies the canopy of successful commercial artists above. . . . An extended, paperbound mixtape of cassette-based music. . . . Revelatory."—New Yorker

An affectionate ode . . . Masters constructs a lively and detailed case for the cassette as a vital driver of cultural creation. This charming history is sure to please anyone nostalgic for the mixtapes of yesteryear."—Publishers Weekly

Not just for the Gen X-ers on your list, but for anyone curious about the history, cultural and otherwise, of the humble cassette tape . . . This charmer of a book goes down fast and easy. . . . He does it all with narrative economy, academic rigor, a personal touch, and genial good humor. A gem."—Esquire

A thoroughly enjoyable romp . . . With energy, insight, and wit, Masters provides a welcome examination of an often overlooked cultural turning point."—Kirkus Reviews (STARRED review)

This accessible primer unravels past and present uses and misuses of cassettes. . . . Masters builds a generous lineage, where it is clear that as much as 'sounds realign magnetic particles on a tape . . . the tape realigns your brain.'"—The Wire

A loving tribute . . . High Bias is a clever taxonomy of cassette culture and its various subcults."—Wall Street Journal

Knowingly written from the perspective of an entangled enthusiast rather than a distanced observer, [High Bias] carries an awareness that an objective history of the impact of a piece of technology isn't possible, all we can do is collect the stories we tell through it. . . . High Bias is a material history, but it's also a folk history."—The Quietus

An energetic, expert tome . . . Music's most overlooked format gets the celebration it deserves."—MOJO

A passionate love letter written from an unabashed fan of the format. Its thoroughness, detail, and historical accuracy make 'High Bias' an essential resource for pop culture historians and obsessives."—PopMatters

Masters brings together a fascinating technical history of the creation, limits, and virtues of the cassette tape."—Dusted

"Masters, whose work often goes far below the surface of all things sonic . . . offers a fascinating look at the shifting role of cassettes over the years—and some of the fascinating ways in which people have used them."—InsideHook

An excellent and truly exciting book . . . [Masters] outlines the story of how the cassette came to be the dominant recording medium on a global scale during the 1980s and into the mid-1990s, and by doing so shows how essential cassettes were to so many musical movements that they would have been impossible without the tapes that, as he points out, are so easy and satisfying to hold in your hand."—Brooklyn Rail

A wonderful book, whose title is derived from the term for tape quality."—The Goo

An irresistibly informative and charming book for any reader interested in gaining general knowledge about sound art and musical cultures in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. . . . [The book] is also a valuable research source for scholars who examine underground artistic movements, the social functions of musical traditions, musical mavericks, and sound technologies."—H-Sci-Med-Tech

From the Publisher

★ 2023-06-21
In a thoroughly enjoyable romp, Masters delves into the secret history of the cassette tape.

People of a certain age can remember the day they made their first mixtape, putting songs recorded from the radio or borrowed records onto a cheap cassette. This was new; this was personal; this was insubordinate; this was control. Masters, a journalist who contributes to an assortment of publications, sees the rise of the cassette as a critical pivot in popular culture, moving the center of gravity from industry music producers to consumers. This line would end with streaming, but there were many important stops along the way, and Masters examines them all with the passion of a true aficionado. When blank cassettes and recording machines began to appear in the late 1960s, record industry executives went into a panic. However, they were unable to stop the wave, and the music business continued to grow regardless. Bands like Metallica got started with self-distributed tapes, and many others followed. Over time, the recording quality improved. Bruce Springsteen’s classic album Nebraska was recorded on a four-track tape, and the emergence of hip-hop also owed much to the cassette. The Walkman and its clones played to another strength of cassettes: inherent portability. There were many culture commentators who argued that the advent of digital devices would spell the end for the cassette, but Masters responds: not even close. Wandering through the back alleys of the indie scene, he finds a new generation of musicians making good use of cassettes, often mixing found sounds into their recordings. Some of these creators break into the mainstream, but many others are happy to remain underground. "The compact cassette has an uncanny ability to rise from its grave time and again," the author concludes, often in an unexpected form.

With energy, insight, and wit, Masters provides a welcome examination of an often overlooked cultural turning point.

Kirkus Reviews