Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols Cassette

So who actually did play the bass?… Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols is probably one of the most hotly-debated albums of all time. Much of the confusion probably stems from the insistence by the late Malcolm McLaren (Sex Pistols manager) that the band couldn’t play their instruments. Notions sprang up, in the wake of this, that the songs were recorded with various levels of ‘depping’, right up to a belief that the entire backing track was played by top session musicians and the only band member on the album was vocalist Johnny Rotten.

1986 BASF LH-EI 60 Audio Cassette

Propping up the range of BASF audio cassettes back in 1986 was this LH-EI – a base-level Type I with an attractive look, and a significantly better sound than you might expect. It is a bit on the noisy side, but nowhere near as bad as some direct rivals, and the frequency range is impressive indeed for a tape occupying such lowly territory. This is certainly not a tarted-up ‘voice recording’ product. It’s fine for music. Quite different in tone to Sony’s HF. The BASF LH-EI is brighter (comparatively strong brightness was typical for a BASF tape).

1985 Sony HF 60 Audio Cassette

The first  Sony HF cassettes of the 1980s took up a position which I felt would have sat somewhere between the former CHF and BHF in the range. This is how they looked. This is a 1985 HF 60, carefully looked after and in very nice condition in its 27th year.