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Procol Harum Machine 
Forum Newbie
Joined: January 19 2010
Status: Offline
Points: 36
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 Topic: King Crimson cassette-worth anything?
Posted: January 23 2010 at 21:37 |
Today, at the local flea market, they had a huge tape section, and I happened to see "In The Court of the Crimson King", so, it being only 1.50$, I bought it. Now the question is, the tape has a copyright date of 1969, the year the album was released. But, did they release a cassette of the album that year also?
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jammun
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 14 2007
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 3449
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Posted: January 23 2010 at 21:41 |
It's probably legit, if the case is non-clear plastic. I had cassettes of Led Zep II and an early Moody Blues, I think On The Threshold....
Sound quality was terrible.
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Can you tell me where we're headin'?
Lincoln County Road or Armageddon.
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progmatic
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 22 2009
Location: Ohio
Status: Offline
Points: 1785
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Posted: January 23 2010 at 22:18 |
In 1969, most albums were released simultaneously on vinyl, cassette and 8-track tape. And jammun is correct. The sound quality of commercially produced cassettes was terrible. The only thing worse? The 8-track. For those too young to remember, 8-tracks not only sounded miserable but would stop in the MIDDLE of a song, any song, then click to the next "track", of which there were 8. So you'd get 7 clicks per album, and very, very seldom did any of the changeovers occur at the end of a song. Just imagine:
"Confusion ... will be my epitaph. As I crawl ... a cracked and" -- CLICK, THUNK, PAUSE -- "broken path."
Sometimes it changed literally in the middle of a word.
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PROGMATIC
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jammun
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 14 2007
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 3449
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Posted: January 23 2010 at 22:24 |
Yeah those early cassettes were pre-Dolby, pre-metal-oxide tape, pretty much pre-anything with regard to cassette tape technology. Can you say "hiss?"
To clarify, couldn't be sonically any worse than Earthbound 
Edited by jammun - January 23 2010 at 22:59
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Can you tell me where we're headin'?
Lincoln County Road or Armageddon.
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Slartibartfast
Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / In Memoriam
Joined: April 29 2006
Location: Atlantais
Status: Offline
Points: 29630
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Posted: January 24 2010 at 01:58 |
Well, audiophile quality tapes in those days had to be reel to reel. We're talking really big reels. Correct me if I'm wrong. And yessssss hisssssss. 
Edited by Slartibartfast - January 24 2010 at 01:59
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Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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Conor Fynes
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 11 2009
Location: Vancouver, CA
Status: Offline
Points: 3196
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Posted: January 24 2010 at 02:07 |
 jammun wrote:
Yeah those early cassettes were pre-Dolby, pre-metal-oxide tape, pretty much pre-anything with regard to cassette tape technology. Can you say "hiss?"
To clarify, couldn't be sonically any worse than Earthbound |
'Earthbound?'
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Easy Livin
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin
Joined: February 21 2004
Location: Scotland
Status: Offline
Points: 15585
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Posted: January 24 2010 at 10:12 |
progmatic wrote:
In 1969, most albums were released simultaneously on vinyl, cassette and 8-track tape. And jammun is correct. |
Isn't '69 a bit early for an automatic cassette release though. I thought it was the early 70's they really took off. When were pre-recorded cassettes first released en-Masse?
"Earthbound" was an interim live album released in the budget "Help" label, the same label used for ELP's "Pictures at an exhibition" and a number of other stop-gap releases. I think "Earthbound2 was taken from a bootleg, hence the poor quality.
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King Crimson cassette-worth anything?
