I remember getting my first Walkman quite clearly. I was about 10 or 11, and I remember walking around the electronics store with my parents and seeing the one I wanted in a locked glass cabinet. By this stage, the Walkman had already been around for about a decade, having been released in 1978. The model I had was black, plastic, and still really bloody massive. Regardless, I loved that little beast.
Technology seemed so simple back then. Play, stop, rewind, fast-forward. That was it. Mine didn’t have recording functionality, so I had to keep playing “radio stations” on Mum’s portable radio player. But it did give me the functionality to listen to one hissy album or cassingle (cassingles!) at a time while sitting in the back seat of my parents’ car while driving to awesome places like Waikanae, Masterton, or perhaps if I was really lucky, Napier.
I became obsessed with music. I remember going to the mall and buying tapes – my first album being Please Hammer Don’t Hurt Em, by the legend that is MC Hammer. This led to a live music obsession in my teens, and a continuing adoration for portable music instruments (despite the tinnitus). But to me, my 5th-gen iPod isn’t really that dissimilar to my first Walkman. It plays, stops, rewinds and fast-forwards. I can change albums. I can listen to singles, but they are no longer prefixed by “cas”. It’s just smaller, lighter, and prettier. But what is a Walkman like to a 13-year-old? Apparently really quite strange.
I can see why though:
- Cassettes? WTF?
- They’re large. Huge, in fact.
- One colour?!
- It’s so heavy my pants are falling down.
I will always have fond memories of my first Walkman. And especially of listening to MC Hammer on the go. Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, here comes the Hammer: on my massively clunky battery-draining tape-chewing portable monster.
