Route to Fame: The Band Demo Tape

In the UK, we might today be tempted to think of the delusional pop star dream as something that was manufactured in some truly evil phonecall between Nigel Lythgoe and Simon Fuller – cunningly wiretapped by Simon Cowell.

But it’s a dream that goes back a lot further than the early 2000s. Right through the heyday of audio tape cassettes, it was possible to find hopeless hopefuls throwing good money at the dartboard of fame, and missing not just the bullseye, or indeed the board, but the entire wall. And actually, if anyone, or anything, sparked that delusion, it was probably punk…

The Jam – Snap Audio Cassette

With a classic red Polydor paper label, Snap, by The Jam, is a reminder of the transition period for pre-recorded audio cassettes in the UK. By the time of this tape’s 1983 release, some manufacturers had dumped trad labels and were screening the relevant details directly onto the plastic casing. Good to see that this release had retained the far more attractive red stick-ons.

Sonic Youth – Sister Audio Cassette (UK (1987)

You get a perfect sense of what sort of album this is going to be from the fact that the labels are stuck on the wrong sides of the tape. Side 2’s label is on Side 1, and vice versa. I’ve often wondered whether this was deliberate, given Sonic Youth’s approach, but even if not, it’s entirely in keeping with with the chaotic and contradictory attitude of the music.