Swire/Intermagnetics "Rainbow Tape"

Some folks on our own Facebook page brought up perhaps everyone's favourite cheapo recording cassette tape of the '80s. The infamous, but lovable Swire/Intermagnetics "rainbow tape".

You may be surprised to know the quality of the first Swire/Intermagnetics cassettes were once surprisingly good for a cheap recording tape in 1978. They were once properly packaged in individual cases with J-cards. And best yet, Fuji made the actual tape (it was an early formulation.) 

Early Intermagnetics J-card. "Micra 6".....Sounds like one of Prince's '80s protege bands...

The first (and best) Intermagnetics tapes looked like this. No rainbow on the tape label.

Early Intermagnetics cassettes were also sold in special interlocking modular cassette display cases you could hang on the wall.

By 1980 however, something went wrong. Fuji started mass marketing their cassettes on their own label in America and right about this time, Intermagnetics tapes went from great value to utter crap. Gone were the cases, J-cards and good quality tape and here was a cassette tape of barely even dictation quality. It's been said they bought spools of rejected tape stock from other manufacturers for their line of cheap 3 packs.

In 1982, Intermagnetics went to a plain black rainbow-less tape label before vanishing from the market when Swire decided to change the brand name of their blank cassettes to Laser.

When the first Laser cassettes came out, I was really excited because I thought it might be a return to form for Swire with decent packaging. But sadly, these first generation Laser cassettes were NOTHING like the first generation Intermagnetics. VERY lousy tape stock was used on the Laser cassettes.

And then it was back to this....

Swire eventually disappeared in the mid '80s. However their old stocks of Intermagnetic and Laser cassettes continued to be sold into the mid '90s in many drug stores across America. 

(Mike Healy from our Facebook page reminds us that Recoton made their own "rainbow tape". I completely forgot about this - L.)

   

Reader's Digest......Electronics?

You probably don't instantly think of your grandma's favourite magazine when it comes to audio equipment. But it is true. Reader's Digest really did sell stereos, radios and tape machines under their own brand name in the '60s, '70s and '80s.

MTV Hot Hits From Cherry 7-Up Cassette (MCA Special Products, 1988)

These cassettes were loss leaders, yours free with two 2 liter bottles of Cherry 7-Up in 1988.

8-Track Tapes From The '80s

Contrary to popular legend, the 8-Track wasn't quite dead in the 1980s. It was dying and on life support. They were phased out by the major labels for retail sale by 1983. But not truly dead until 1988 when the very last licensed manufacturer of new commercial 8-Track music tapes, the RCA Music Club quietly discontinued them.

Before They Were Stars: Alice In Chains

Before Alice In Chains became one of the four cornerstone bands (along with Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Nirvana) of Seattle grunge rock of the '90s, they were another up and coming local hair metal band.

Called Alice 'N Chains and released in 1987, this demo has everything. Samples, a horn section (you heard me), and the dopiest lyrics this side of Winger. No deep grungy depressiveness here and Layne Staley hadn't quite developed the voice he would be famous for. Enjoy.   

Microcassettes

Remember Microcassettes? They were a dictation medium (but so was the original compact cassette) Invented in 1969 by Olympus as the standard cassette started gaining traction as a popular music medium.

For a spell in the early '80s, Sony actually tried to make them as close to a serious audio medium as they could (as they did with the standard cassette.) Including stereo sound and Metal tape formulation microcassettes.

The Microcassette Walkman even included a very rare microcassette version of the FM Tuner cassettes made for standard cassette personal stereos.

They failed. Obviously. Because no matter what they did, an analog tape rolling at 15/16th inches per second will never sound very good no matter what kind of tape you use (cassettes used 1 7/8 IPS, 8-Tracks 3 3/4 IPS)

In modern digital, It's like the sound of a 32 kbps MP3 to a 320 kbps MP3.

And secondly, people kept LOSING the handful of prerecorded albums on these tapes that were made for the Japanese market.

The Microcassette never went further into general use beyond dictation and in telephone answering machines. They have since been replaced by digital recorders.

Competing with the Microcassette (yes, it did have competing formats), was the Minicassette (developed in 1967 by Phillips) and the even tinier Picocassette (1985 by Dictaphone.)

Minicassette

Picocassette