UB40 – Present Arms Audio Cassette

Present Arms was the second album from Birmingham reggae band UB40 – released in spring 1981. In its day, I bought the album on vinyl, but years later, after the band seemed to try and deny their early history, I lost interest and gave away more than half of my UB40 vinyl as a mark of disapproval. Pretty stupid thing to do, but the guy I gave it to (a major fan of the band) was grateful beyond words, and he was clearly not going to sell it. I did, however, miss this album, so in the 1990s I ended up buying it again – this time on audio cassette – the one you see here.

1995 TDK D 60 Audio Cassette

One of many incarnations of the famous TDK D normal bias Type I audio cassette – in this case a 1995 version. This lightbox view of the tape takes advantage of the transparent casing to show both sides of the product, but more importantly, the innards. You get a good sense from this image of how simple compact cassettes really were/are. Other than the two reels and the length of tape travelling from one to the other, it’s just a set of guides, and a soft pad (bottom centre) which gently pushes the tape against the record and play heads in the tape machine.

If you look between the ‘spokes’ in the reels, you can even see where the ends of the magnetic tape have been pinched into the plastic to hold them in place. Quite a primitive system, but it’s remained essentially unchanged throughout the historical lifespan of the compact audio cassette. A tribute to a brilliant design which was pretty much right first time as a basic concept.

Siouxsie and the Banshees – Once Upon a Time (1981)

The classic red paper label of Polydor Records, complete with Made in England denotation printed below the brand logo, adorns 1981’s Once Upon a Time – The Singles, by Siouxsie and the Banshees. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but the back of the case is not black – it’s very dark brown, and marked with the PolyGram branding. The album title is self-explanatory. This is a compilation of the band’s singles, released between 1978 and 1981. For the record, the tracks are set in chronological order.