Plastic audio cassette fragment

A familiar face to anyone over the age of 30, audio cassette tapes are a peculiarly physical and democratic form of music media. With tape you can edit bits out with scissors and Sellotape, re-record new audio onto the same cassette, and wind and re-wind it using a hexagonal pencil or biro in the holes – the perfect tool for tape spooling. The original mix-tape media, it allowed us all to create our own portable playlists, and record and distribute our own music on the cheap.