Which Physical Media Gives You the Most Nostalgia?

dmaradona10

Short Story: On Dec. 5, 1994, at midnight, I was at the local Hastings with my friends getting ready to get a copy of Vitalogy on compact disc. That night, we all piled into the only car with a cd player and freaked out as we listened to the entire album for the first time. One of my friends had the vinyl before the official release date, but I decided to wait to listen to the album on cd. At the time, I wasn't into vinyl. My question: What physical media gives you that feeling of nostalgia? Leave some stories too.

2-feign-reluctance

Vinyl

Child of the 80s here. First records were 45's of The Pointer Sisters 'Jump' and Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean'

Dead Man Walking

Compact Discs

CD's all the way. I remember bringing my CD book and Discman on the bus everyday.

RobbyD462

Vinyl

Product of 1978 here
Have to say vinyl or 8 track
I remember Ccr chronical on vinyl
and Charlie Daniels Band, Devil came down to Georgia on 8 track

Played over and over again!

hedonist

Compact Discs

Cassettes, only because (unlike vinyl and I never used 8-tracks) they're not playable anymore and I had a shitload of them when I moved into my own place years ago.

INXS, Peter Gabriel, Beethoven, GnR, so so many. I can see them in my mind's eye, lined up in shoeboxes.

Upon said move-in, my sister bought me a cd-player and my very first CD set - Jesus Christ Superstar.

(we were raised Jewish, so go figure )

Still played the hell out those cassettes though.

And the mix-tapes, recorded from the radio? Holy shit, talk about nostalgia.

I wish I'd kept some of them but our home is tiny.

Sometimes you gotta take out the trash!

edit - I did not intend to vote for c-fucking-d's!

Leezestarr313

Vinyl

I hail the wax god too. It's so cool to pick up an album from the 50's or 60's at a garage sale and then spin it at home. That moment when the old sounds become alive and airborne again after who knows how long has something magical to it. I live in the metro Detroit area and every Motown LP I'm getting in my hands makes me think about the history of this very LP. Who bought it and why? Who danced, loved, cried, partied to it? And then that makes me feel a little nostalgic

MayDay10

Cassette Tapes

Pono

Of The Aggie

Cassette Tapes

Nostalgia is a longing for something you don't have or experience anymore and that would be cassettes for me. I have tons of vinyl and play it regularly. I started my collection with cassettes. I used to tape songs off the radio to make mixes and I traded bootleg tapes. Now I own very few cassettes as I gave them all to Goodwill after converting my collection to CDs. I do still have some of my mixes and bootlegs, though but I never play them.

Caught-A-Bolt-Of-Lightning

Cassette Tapes

I love vinyl but voted cassettes. Who doesn't remember sitting for hours trying to make the perfect mix tape for the love of your life...? Anyone..? Okay...maybe it was just me....

MayDay10

Cassette Tapes

I definitely have more of a soft spot for cassettes. As someone mentioned, I listen/use vinyl now, much more extensively even than my youth. I used cassettes much more...

I still have deeply ingrained some of the "medley" that resulted from dubbing, redubbing, etc that would create some inadvertent mixes. I have The Wall where "Vera" would cut into "Rock and Roll Part 2" for about 5 seconds then go back. Whenever I hear The Wall, its burned into my memory.

I taped "Comfortably Numb" off the radio and still remember the DJ's intro/bumper Verbatim.

Suziemay

Cassette Tapes

Cassette tapes. I always had a blank tape in my boom box (which was right by my head on my bed) ready to record anything interesting that came on the radio. I also made mix tapes, lots of mix tapes. If I gave you a mix tape, it meant that I liked you and wanted to be your friend

Oh, and the moment when you realize your favourite tape just got all tangled up (gasp).

Kinda bummed that in one of my decluttering phases, I donated my prized Sony Walkman that I was so proud of at the time :(

Leezestarr313

Vinyl

It is funny seeing so many people mentioning cassettes here. I grew up with them too. Even in East Germany, cassette tapes were available, even if not as plenty as elsewhere. Lots of people got themselves a walkman from their welcome money after the wall came down, I think my parents got one too. I got first in touch with PJ through a friend in 1992 or so. She was a huge Guns 'n' Roses fan and somehow stumbled over PJ. She made me a cassette with Ten on it and gave it to me. I didn't like it at first, but gave it another try after a couple of weeks and bam - was hooked. I even made a coloured copy of the cover to make it look as much as the original as possible (coloured copies were way more expensive than black and white ones).
Cassettes, however, do not give me that warm, fuzzy feeling of nostalgia like vinyl does. It's defo some kind of nostalgia tho.

october22

Compact Discs

This one was sort of tough. The first media that I had were records. Alvin and the Chipmunks and stuff like that but those are long gone. Then I had Zeppelin and Metallica and GnR and Bon Jovi and Green Jello and other stuff on tape and of course mix tapes from radio and stuff.

I also had Ten on tape at first but when my parents bought me my first cd player in 92 I bought Ten again on cd. I never went back to tapes after that so since I was 12 it was cd's and only started listening to vinyl again about ten years later.

Music had its greatest impact on me during my teenage years and so when I go back and look at those cd's and open them up I'm transported back to the floor of my room where I'd lay for hours listening and reading all the lyrics and liner notes. CD's are definitely most connected to my strongest memories even though I'd lived through all formats.

ldent42

Suziemay said:

Cassette tapes. I always had a blank tape in my boom box (which was right by my head on my bed) ready to record anything interesting that came on the radio. I also made mix tapes, lots of mix tapes. If I gave you a mix tape, it meant that I liked you and wanted to be your friend

Oh, and the moment when you realize your favourite tape just got all tangled up (gasp).

Kinda bummed that in one of my decluttering phases, I donated my prized Sony Walkman that I was so proud of at the time :(

I can't pick just one of the options but Suziemay summed up EVERYTHING I would say about Cassettes, right down to the donated Sony Walkman!!! I do still have a couple Christmas cassettes that somehow survived.

One day when I'm rich, I'm going to take all the stuff I did save and put it on display like a museum. I do miss that walkman.

I don't have my first disman either - but I do have it's two successors - one that was the first one to play MP3s written as data on a cd! and one with a radio! I've got a bunch of Atari and Sega Genesis games too. I only kept a handful of CDs, all of them are friends' bands except two - a Sublime cd that must have belonged to someone else that I meant to return it to or else I wouldn't still have it, and the Avocado cd that I was forced to buy to get concert tickets. I sold my cd collection many years ago, and I will admit, I don't miss it.

Eight track and Vinyl all belonged to my parents. And I'm pretty sure they are all still around. Fun Fact: I thought eight track tapes were called a track tapes until like a year ago. :-bd

Leezestarr313

Vinyl

As for other, I would like to mention the MD-Player. I still have mine plus all my old mini discs. Took it out a couple of months ago because I bought the Singles soundtrack on MD and it still worked perfectly fine (If anybody has PJ MDs that they don't need, let me know ;;) ) That period of time when I made my own mini discs was quite an adventurous and exciting time as well, so MDs get me nostalgic too. Especially since I listened to completely different music back in my MD time.
I guess each medium had their share of time that will be memorable for one thing or another. To me, vinyl is the one that stayed. And the one I have most players for )

F Me In The Brain

Cassette Tapes

Cassettes.
Holy shit I hated the song search and it really made you listed to the whole album....which was a good thing. Then I got a "fancy" tape player that was smart enough to stop the REW or FF when it got to the next song. Money!
And, as others mentioned....the mixed tape.

While I am old enough to remember 8 tracks (my dad throwing a doobie bros 8 track out the window of his truck because 'The Fucking Dashboard Eats 8 Tracks in This Bitch' was too damn amusing to a 4 year old boy) and Vinyl (grew up on 45s and sneaking my older brother's records only to scratch them up accidentally and get into trouble) it was the Years of The Tape that truly catch me and make me nostalgic.

Best part of tapes for those who lived in shitty climates? When I was in high school and warming up my car every winter morning in zero degree bullshit weather I could use the tape cases (tapes actually worked better using the tops of them) strewn all over my car to scrape my windshield with and clear some of the frost/light ice in the AM.

Ahhh. How many damn Back in Black & Best of The Doors must I have owned in tape format? So many!

lolobugg

Vinyl

also a kid in the 80s. used to get the read along books that came with the little 45s. I have always had a record player of some sort. I remember watching my aunt clean her house on the weekends as she was blasting Led Zeppelin. later on I raided her substantial record collection for copies of Beatles, Dylan, the Band, Zeppelin and ELO. those were the only ones that I recognized. she lived in San Francisco in the 70s so she had some weird shit in her record collection. I wish I could look back over it and see how many I recognize now.

bluegrace

Cassette Tapes

I was going to vote "vinyl" but then I remembered the mix tapes. Oh the mix tapes! I still have them stacked away in my home, I never listen to them nowadays but I know they are there. Can't remember how many I wore out back then. But vinyl makes me nostalgic too, esp now when my recordplayer is broken, since I can't play the records I want.

Indifference71

Compact Discs

Dead Man Walking said:

CD's all the way. I remember bringing my CD book and Discman on the bus everyday.

LOL. Me too...I loved that Discman!

Nami

Compact Discs

No code in my truck on repeat...nuff said for me.

the vinyl craze that i now have i blame on PJ/10C. Although, every time i throw one on im drawn back to my dads old player and the music he would play.

lolobugg

Vinyl

I remember getting on the school bus in the early 80s when ghetto blasters/boomboxes were getting popular. kids in the back row would be blasting "Axl Foley's Theme". guess it took a while for the schools to ban them.

Zod

Compact Discs

I have a vinyl collection and always thought they were cool, but it was cd's that were popular when I started to have money to blow on them. It's definitely CDs for me. Cassettes were my first format but I hate those things with a passion.

PJ_Soul

Vinyl

I could have just as easily said cassettes since that's what I went with through high school and at least half of university. But then I thought back to my younger childhood, and the hours and hours I spent spinning records in the living room - Michael Jackson, fucking Paula Abdul, Rick Springfield, Bruce Springsteen, WHAM!, Boney M, Madonna, random shit like Rock '83, the Footloose soundtrack, lol, etc etc (a lot of other crap that a 4 - 12 year old liked in the 80s) - singing every word into a skipping rope handle and putting on a lot of "concerts" using my puppets as the band members, and with no audience at all, hahaha. :P

hedonist

Compact Discs

PJ_Soul said:

I could have just as easily said cassettes since that's what I went with through high school and at least half of university. But then I thought back to my younger childhood, and the hours and hours I spent spinning records in the living room - Michael Jackson, fucking Paula Abdul, Rick Springfield, Bruce Springsteen, WHAM!, Boney M, random shit like Rock '83, the Footloose soundtrack, lol, etc etc - and putting on a lot of "concerts" using my puppets as the band members, and with no audience at all, hahaha.

I used to do that with vinyls of Cher, Simon & Garfunkel, the Partridge Family and a German singer named Manuela that my dad loved.

Good times!

october22

Compact Discs

Cool, an even 33% split

Nami

Compact Discs

PJ_Soul said:

I could have just as easily said cassettes since that's what I went with through high school and at least half of university. But then I thought back to my younger childhood, and the hours and hours I spent spinning records in the living room - Michael Jackson, fucking Paula Abdul, Rick Springfield, Bruce Springsteen, WHAM!, Boney M, Madonna, random shit like Rock '83, the Footloose soundtrack, lol, etc etc (a lot of other crap that a 4 - 12 year old liked in the 80s) - singing every word into a skipping rope handle and putting on a lot of "concerts" using my puppets as the band members, and with no audience at all, hahaha. :P

Never speak ill of katy perry again....hahahahaha

PJ_Soul

Vinyl

I have never spoken ill of Katy Perry anyway! She seems like a nice enough person to me.

Nami

Compact Discs

PJ_Soul said:

I have never spoken ill of Katy Perry anyway! She seems like a nice enough person to me.

i guess ive been told Straight up hehehe

Suziemay

Cassette Tapes

ldent42 said:

Suziemay said:

Cassette tapes. I always had a blank tape in my boom box (which was right by my head on my bed) ready to record anything interesting that came on the radio. I also made mix tapes, lots of mix tapes. If I gave you a mix tape, it meant that I liked you and wanted to be your friend

Oh, and the moment when you realize your favourite tape just got all tangled up (gasp).

Kinda bummed that in one of my decluttering phases, I donated my prized Sony Walkman that I was so proud of at the time :(

I can't pick just one of the options but Suziemay summed up EVERYTHING I would say about Cassettes, right down to the donated Sony Walkman!!! I do still have a couple Christmas cassettes that somehow survived.

One day when I'm rich, I'm going to take all the stuff I did save and put it on display like a museum. I do miss that walkman.

I don't have my first disman either - but I do have it's two successors - one that was the first one to play MP3s written as data on a cd! and one with a radio! I've got a bunch of Atari and Sega Genesis games too. I only kept a handful of CDs, all of them are friends' bands except two - a Sublime cd that must have belonged to someone else that I meant to return it to or else I wouldn't still have it, and the Avocado cd that I was forced to buy to get concert tickets. I sold my cd collection many years ago, and I will admit, I don't miss it.

Eight track and Vinyl all belonged to my parents. And I'm pretty sure they are all still around. Fun Fact: I thought eight track tapes were called a track tapes until like a year ago. :-bd

I still do have some of my favourite cassettes (had the presence of mind not to throw those out), but nothing to play it with. I think I figured I would just buy another but at this point, I think they are in danger of being obsolete!

Very surprised that CDs are ahead right now. I was so sure it would be tight race between cassettes and vinyl.

lolobugg

Vinyl

cassettes are the new vinyl.....
I am getting ready to make a killing on Ebay.
anyone looking for a MC Hammer album???

Nami

Compact Discs

lolobugg said:

cassettes are the new vinyl.....
I am getting ready to make a killing on Ebay.
anyone looking for a MC Hammer album???

Hammer dont hurt em?