Pressing STOP on the Cassette Store marketing machine

Click. Clunk. Click. Whirr ... there we go, just getting the tape player going ... What on earth is all this nonsense about Cassette Store Day? Cassette Store Day! You're having a laugh, right? It’s so bizarrely preposterous it’s almost good. Except it isn’t. More like a piece of desperate novelty marketing shoved into a scratched plastic case of a concept, stuck on a dusty shelf at inflated prices and then ... rightly ignored by most people. It seems a few “indie” record labels are pushing it as a way of drumming up a bit of business. Well bully for them. I’ve nothing against cassettes themselves. I've got hundreds and hundreds (maybe thousands), which are all out on the shelves in my flat, an integral part of the Niluccio music empire. They're played along with my records and other music stuff, and genuinely valued. But really! Cassette Store Day?!

Can't wait for Reel-to-reel Store Day

In truth I used up most of my best blogger bile on the almost-as-risible Record Store Day back in April so I won't waste too much of my precious stock on this trivial little travesty. But put it this way, if this is about finding new ways to sell product at inflated prices then it deserves to die the death. If it’s a wheeze by a few small music labels who think it’s a “rad” form of “acceptable hipsterism” (or somesuch) then it's more-or-less harmless bit of niche marketing - unimpressive but no big deal. But these format-based marketing things are definitely well past their sell by date. Surely after next year’s Shellac Store Day there really won’t be anywhere else to go. Eight-track Cartridge Store Day? Reel-to-reel Machine Store Day? No, it’s definitely time to press the STOP button on all this so-fucking-idiotic-it-insults-your-intelligence-ness. Clunk. So, there you go. Anyway, let me just check the tape machine ... Oh no! The tape’s all chewed up ....