The old-fashioned way of listening to music

With the advent of iPods, shared music and illegal downloads, there are very few people who still listen to music in the old-fashioned way. CDs are a thing of the past and casettes and records, of course, have been relegated to the dusty shelves of antique stores. But in a world where music has been completely digitalised, people who still own extensive collections of casettes and records find themselves facing a peculiar problem — they no longer have the equipment to play it. There are practically no manufacturers of casette players and picking up an LP record player is an expensive deal — very much like any other vintage item. Metrolife speaks to a few old-fashioned Bangaloreans to find out what they do with their old collections and why they choose them over the newer forms of storing music.

Adarsh N C, a documentary film-maker, is one music-lover who likes to listen to his songs the old-fashioned way. He has a collection of around 800 LPs and 700 casettes, as well as thousands of CDs, which he began to pick up in 1987. “My collection is predominantly rock, but spreads to genres like jazz, the blues, Hindustani classical and other off-beat types of music too. I play my LPs on a turntable that I’ve had for years. However, it isn’t all that difficult to find equipment like turntables these days either — it’s easy enough to pick up on the internet,” he shares.

He admits that collections like his do take a lot of storage space and aren’t as convenient as an iPod, which can literally store thousands of songs in a pocket. However, he still feels that the charm of a turntable and old-fashioned casette players remains. “I like the feeling of taking out a record and playing it on a turntable. You don’t get that feeling with an iPod or mp3 player,” he adds.

Manjunath, a retired employee, also has quite a collection of casettes, which he keeps for sentimental value. Although he is fully aware of the quicker, more practical forms of getting music these days, he staunchly avoids them. In fact, he searched far and long until he found someone willing to sell him a casette player. “I have a collection of old Kannada film songs. I prefer listening to my casettes because the music really sounds better — it has a more original feel to it. When you buy a casette, you own it completely. Partly, I also stick with my casettes because I don’t approve of illegal downloading; it’s a moral issue as well,” he explains.

However Amit, a professional, has a very practical view on this issue — he discarded all his casettes years ago.

 “The alternatives are far better in terms of quality, sharing and availability. At the end of the day, casettes are bulky. I’ll need to carry ten of them to listen to 200 songs — whereas with an mp3 player, I can carry thousands of songs in a two-inch USB stick,” he reasons.

Of course, there’s the financial angle to this as well — something that Amit doesn’t shy away from speaking about. He candidly says, “Truth be told, downloads are free — whereas one has to pay for casettes. So why go for them?”