What was the first album released on cassette tape?
Of all the retro musical formats that have made a sudden resurgence as an antidote to the streaming age, the cassette tape is, unfortunately, probably the runt of the pack. Although nostalgia has seen sales peak again, it’s got none of the romanticism of the vinyl record or the durability of a CD and, sorry to say, are just a bit of an all-around pain in the arse to manage.
That’s not to say, however, that they didn’t have their heyday and cultural weight for the time. Cassette tapes were a massive technological revolution when they were invented in the 1960s, marking one of the first occasions when the art of music playing could be made somewhat portable. Just ask any ‘80s baby about their striking moments of growing up and their unbreakable bond with their Walkman will inevitably be a cherished memory – you can guarantee those dusty tapes will still be taking up some prized spot in the attic, even if the means to play them is now far less convenient than it used to seem.
But the rise and fall of the cassette era obviously had to begin somewhere; the issue is that nobody is quite sure what. It turns out there’s no solid documented proof of what album was the first to ever be released on cassette tape—a bit of an oversight if you ask us—yet there are some potential close contenders.
The cassette tape was invented in Belgium in 1962 by Lou Ottens for Phillips, but it did not start to circulate as a product release until 1963 in Europe and 1964 in America. Because it was initially meant as an audio recording device—think of police tapes back in the day—it took a few years for people to realise it could also be used as the ideal solution for music output. From there, it was a race to get the first cassette album on the shelves.
But which album came first?
Of this time, there were three records which all lay claim to being the first album released via the tape medium, but no one can be sure which is correct. The first was Eartha Kitt’s Love for Sale, competing with both Nina Simone’s Wild is the Wind and Johnny Mathis’ The Shadow of Your Smile for the golden spot. There’s a bit of a red herring in the respect that Kitt’s album was initially released a year before the other two, in 1965, but this didn’t necessarily mean it was pressed into tape first as the use of the cassette hadn’t been fully popularised at that point.
So, the true answer is that there is no real answer, but we can at least take a bit of an educated guess. You’d have thought that someone would have marked the history of the occasion a bit better than they did, but it just goes to show that no one knew how much of a revolutionising winner they were on to at the time.
It goes without saying that these record relics hold their own special place in documenting the evolution of music over centuries. As much as they may have become too much of an increasing hassle as time wore on, cassette tapes really were the catalyst for modern music listening habits as we know them: the idea that we could have songs available to us anywhere, anytime, no matter where we go. The over-excited among you will already be scrambling back into your attics to see if you can find a copy of any of those albums by Kitt, Simone, or Mathis – because you could be holding on to your very own piece of history.
