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Podcast: New Books in Performing Arts
Episode: Rob Drew, "Unspooled: How the Cassette Made Music Shareable" (Duke UP, 2023)
Description: Well into the new millennium, the analog cassette tape continues to claw its way back from obsolescence. New cassette labels emerge from hipster enclaves while the cassette’s likeness pops up on T-shirts, coffee mugs, belt buckles, and cell phone cases. In Unspooled: How the Cassette Made Music Shareable (Duke University Press, 2024), Dr. Rob Drew traces how a lowly, hissy format that began life in office dictation machines and cheap portable players came to be regarded as a token of intimate expression through music and a source of cultural capital.Drawing on sources ranging from obscure music zine...