Alison Healy on the irrepressible cassette tape

I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but we have just allowed a very important anniversary to slide by without even a cursory nod.

You’re probably assuming it’s the 119th anniversary of the invention of the banana split, but you’re wrong.

And I’m not thinking of the 63rd anniversary of the day Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini hit number one in the US. Both anniversaries passed in recent weeks and are of course incredibly significant, but August 30th marked a more important anniversary. Rewind to that day, 60 years ago, and press pause, for this was the moment when the first compact was introduced to the world.

Lou Ottens of the electronics giant Philips caused a sensation when he introduced the EL-3300 Pocket-Recorder and the cassette tape to delegates at the Berlin Radio Show.

‘Worst morning of my life’ – Alison Healy on tricky tourists

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Custer’s Last Tune – Frank McNally on the dubious history of the ballad Garryowen

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Drama and spirituality – Desmond O’Neill on Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle

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Dutch gold – Frank McNally on a weekend in idyllic Amsterdam

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On the 50th anniversary of the invention, columnists were gleefully writing obituaries for the humble tape but how wrong they were. It’s time to make that journey to the attic, cut a swathe through the Christmas decorations and locate your collection of cassette tapes because tapes are back.

We know this because the most talked-about film of the year – Barbie – released its soundtrack with three cassette options– hot pink, transparent pink, or blue. Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Dolly Parton are all flogging cassettes like it’s 1979.

And who knows, your attic might contain some treasures? No, not that Mini Pops compilation. A cursory glance at eBay reveals one seller seeking more than €3,600 for Madonna tapes. Another is looking for more than €1,460 for a rare Indian version of an Enya tape. Sail away, sail away on a luxury cruise when you make that sale.

Of course, we always knew that cassette tapes would be restored to their rightful place in the hierarchy of music listening formats. I doubt many people remember the first song they streamed but everyone remembers the first tape they bought.

Since you ask, mine was a double tape of Elvis’s All Time Greatest Hits, courtesy of my first summer job pay packet.

But the mixtape was where cassettes really came into their own. I miss that frisson that came with recording some of Larry Gogan’s Top 30 hits on a lazy Sunday afternoon. We knew we weren’t supposed to do it, yet how else could we listen to that one good song from a band we didn’t like enough to buy their tape?

Berliner Stella Wedell was a fan of the mixtape. When she was 12 years old, she made a mixtape of some of her favourites – Shaggy, Pet Shop Boys, UB40 and Bob Marley. She popped it into her trusty Walkman and took it on holidays to Spain.

Somewhere along the way she mislaid it.

A quarter of a century later, she visited the Sea of Artifacts exhibition by British artist Mandy Barker, in Stockholm, and was astonished to see the tape on display, and in working order.

According to the artist’s website, Mandy Barker found the tape on the beach in Lanzarote in 2017 and had it restored so she could use it in her exhibition of art made from plastic marine debris.

The restoration job produced near perfect recordings of the early 1990s hits, confirming that young Stella had not curated a rubbish mixtape.

She didn’t have romance on her mind when she made that mixtape, but these playlists have also acted as a useful tool to tell a prospective love interest how you feel. You had to be subtle and avoid songs such as Endless Love, and You are My Destiny, but careful curation meant you were not exposing yourself to rejection if they didn’t find the hidden message in Thunder Road.

There have also been occasions when a cassette tape almost sounded the death knell on a burgeoning relationship. I’m thinking of my traumatic encounter with an Abba tape during an early date with a prospective beau. In my defence, it was his fault. Everything was going well until I got into his car. The road was long and winding and his style of driving could most kindly be described as outrageously erratic, peppered with spells of sudden sharp braking.

After another sudden lurch to the left, my stomach lurched to the right and I projectile vomited into his cassette machine, which had been serenading us with the greatest hits of Abba up until that point. Yes, Super Trouper was ruined by this super puker.

The bad news is that the Abba tape did not survive the encounter. The good news is that the relationship did.

Reader, I married him.