1983 Memorex HBII 60 High Bias Audio Cassette

I must say I got a serious buzz of excitement when I finally unearthed this. I knew I had at least one old 1983 Memorex HBII (High Bias II) audio cassette kicking around somewhere, but my huge hoard of old possessions is in such disarray that searches have long since fallen into needle-in-haystack territory.

Aswad – Live and Direct Audio Cassette (1983)

That music dealing with the issues felt by disillusioned and disenfranchised youth had such a presence in the early 1980s, says as much about today’s environment as it does about that of three decades ago. The issues are still there, but it feels today almost as if the music business has tried to fence off the disaffected as some kind of ‘worthless market’, unable to provide a sufficient return on a record company’s investment.

1983 Memorex dB Series 60 Audio Cassette

Despite the fact that the Memorex dB Series tape doesn’t appear on Vintage Cassettes.com until the period forward from 1985, this dB 60 is definitely from early 1983. It appears on Vintage Cassettes as if the MRXI was replaced by the dB, but in ’83 (here in the UK at least), the dBs were running concurrently with the MRXIs, and consumers had a choice between the two.