New old tapes! Vol. 2 Part 2

13/02/2022

It's about time to check out the second magazine of tapes. Wouldn't you have read it yet here in part 1 I started looking at the tapes from the top magazine which you don't see in the photo here.

I walk through most of the tapes and tell what I find and what I think about it together with the photos. Let's not wait any longer and get started on part 2!

A new collection of pre-recorded tapes, most from the same publisher. An individual or two from another.
As in the previous blog, you will see many tapes from the same publisher here. I looked up some information about this publisher in the background. More about this at the end of this blog.

Joan Armatrading and Kenny Rogers. Not my favourites, maybe I'll give them a spin in the tape deck to give them a chance to prove themselves. After all, I only know the artists by name and can't name songs by heart. Maybe I absolutely love the songs on these tapes, but maybe I don't...

Almost everyone knows Elvis Presley (although I don't like to speak on behalf of everyone). I myself know some of his songs but have never really delved into his musical arts. As far as I can tell from the tape, it seems to contain music from one of the films he recorded in his career, I'll look it up on the world wide web for confirmation.

These are the soundtracks of the 1960 musical comedy film GI Blues. I've never seen the film myself, but the film has been nominated three times for: Best Written Text, Best Vocal Performance, and Best Soundtrack. The latter of which can be found on this tape.

The Rolling Stones "Made in the Shade" a band I haven't really delved into yet. Although I do know a number of songs from this album and I also have a small collection from their library.

Striking about the tape is the type of tape. The black coating betrays that it is CrO2 or Type II, Chrome tape. Closer inspection reveals that it is also marked on the side of the case. Yet something is not right...

When I put the tape in the deck with automatic detection, it says that there is a Type I 'normal' tape in it, which is not correct...

This has to do with the lugs on top of the tape, the only holes in it are for recording protection. I miss the detection holes next to it that indicate that it is a Type II cassette. In the other photo an example of two tapes that do have these holes. I see this more often with pre-recorded tapes, probably they didn't have the right cassette housing available...

This does mean that my cassette deck always plays the tape on the wrong settings. Luckily I have another deck I can set it up myself. The tape itself is worth keeping, so it goes separately. I will look for a nicer box though. The old one is full of scratches, making the album cover almost impossible to see.

Sentimental Favorites Vol. 4... Where have I seen these before?

I came across the same tape last time in the other warehouse. One is a bit more yellowed compared to the other but otherwise they are identical. On the previous blog it also emerged that there are tapes that have been released in a series.

So I now have 4 and... 4. I haven't seen the previous 3 parts yet...

Let's go a little further in the area of part-released series. Here 'Platinum 4'.

Platinum 2 and 3 I already described in part 1 of this blog series. Although Platinum 2 has a completely different tape in its box, I hope to find the right tape and of course the collection would be nice and complete when I come across 'Platinum 1'.

two cassettes of the Bee Gees. With the album 'Living Eyes' and a compilation album with well-known songs.

I've vaguely heard of it, REO with in this case the album 'You Get What You Play For'. After some searching on the internet it strikes me that this band takes its name from a brand of pickup cars of the same name, the band name is REO Speedwagon in full. A rock band from the 60s that are still active today. I'll put it aside for a while because I'd like to hear what this band has to offer me.

Dire Straits with the album 'Dire Straits'... It is the first album they released (in 1978). There are a number of well-known songs on it, the tape is worth keeping.

I close the first drawer with The Doobie Brothers 'One Step Closer'. Another band that I only know by name but no music.

The second drawer has arrived. two empty boxes and a collection of different tapes, two of which were pre-recorded.

Smokie 'Greatest Hits' I've heard of the band but only know a single song by name. 'Living Next Door to Alice' can therefore be called a fairly well-known song. The rest I have yet to discover. The tape is set aside because it might be worth keeping.

As I write this, the singer Meat Loaf himself passed away less than a month ago at the age of 74. I have had his well-known album
'Bat Out of Hell' on Vinyl for a long time, it's nice to be able to add the cassette to the collection. Even if it's just to see how good it still sounds.

I may not know the songs by name, but I do recognize the songs when I hear them. By the way, the box needs to be replaced. This one has been through a lot. The tape itself still looks good. I'm going to set him aside for now. Let's see how it sounds soon.

Three BASF tapes with recordings, all different from each other.

"Allerlei" '"Jim Reeves" and 'UB40' The "Allerlei" cassette has some well-known songs but nothing specific that I would listen to. Jim Reeves is totally unknown to me, I do know UB40 including the recorded songs on this tape.

"Allerlei" is Dutch for "all kinds of"

Is it actually UB40 on this tape?

Interesting Artist...

There is nothing else written on it so it remains a mystery whether there is any music on the tape at all... Let's see what the actual condition of the tape is because I don't see any defects.

Another "Allerlei" cassette, some famous artists and songs but again not a collection I would listen to. The card is by the way a recycled one from BASF.

Hit parade of October 5, 1987 with a number of interesting quotations.

This one goes on the separate pile, let's listen to how it sounds later!

Two Philips tapes, the 60 minute copy contains Rock and Roll, probably by various artists. The other cassette is more unique with 120 minutes of playing time. There is nothing written on the case...

When I look at it up close, I see that the tape is not quite in place. I decide to rewind it. The deck takes a long time to notice. When I take it out I see why. The tape has come loose...

This tape may be broken, but this makes it a good candidate to be described on the repair page of the Cassette tape. It goes on the 'save' pile.

At first glance, the last drawer seems to be well filled, but afterwards it appears that there are three empty boxes in between. The collection is now somewhat smaller, but very colorful.

We start at BZN with the album 'Making A Name' quite appropriate when you realize that BZN stands for 'Band Without name'.

I am not a fan of BZN, so I don't keep the tape and can put it in the pile for tapes to be disposed of.

A cassette of 'Shaking Stevens' it means absolutely nothing to me when I read the name like that. The songs are also not familiar to me. Striking again is the missing lugs, the tape is after all chrome tape. Also nice to find a 'MU 2000' sticker. the MU 2000 was (for those who don't know) a retail chain where sound carriers were sold. Afterwards continued as 'Free Record Shop' which has now also disappeared from the streets.

Someone has clearly taken the trouble to display the content with a graceful font.
Otherwise the numbers are not there.

Simple Minds certainly look familiar to me, otherwise I only know Thompson Twins from hearsay. I'm curious about the contents of the tape so set it aside for now.

It is also the first time that I have a Denon tape in my hands. I suspect that these are not that bad in terms of quality. Too bad the sticker on the tape is damaged...

Status Quo with 'Rockin' All Over The World' is the band's tenth album. I know the band quite well but secretly only one song on this cassette.

Besides this cassette I already have two other copies, with the 'Greatest Hits' and another compilation album on a DCC cassette 'Rocking All Over The Years' which I play regularly. Nice to be able to add an official album to it now.

Another Denon tape but this time no notation about the content. Next to it a TDK tape with everything written on it. Lots of BZN and some other artists. Not worth keeping as far as the content is concerned.

Of course a cassette with Truckers hits can't miss in this blog. Now with "Quality Guarantee". The fact that this is on it can of course not mean much good...

The titles of various songs do have some humor, it makes it noticeable that these are real truckers hits.

Trnaslations of the titles mentioned on the card:

Fast gone Johnny - "Snel weg" has two meanings in Dutch, "Snelweg" translates to "Highway". "Snel Weg" translates to "Fast Gone" or "Fast Road".
Silent Willie
I was born a truckdriver
A masterpiece of a cargo
With flashing lights and siren

There is also a loose tape without box or case in the drawer. There is nothing written on it, when I turn the tape I see that even the sticker has disappeared. No idea of the content...

I close the third drawer with a tape from the Dolly Dots. You just gotta love it...

I would come back to the logo that I see on many of the tapes:

I hereby ask you, which three of the labels shown do not belong in the list? Or better yet, which five other labels don't belong here?

An answer will follow...

Finding information about the label in question has turned out to be quite difficult. search results for "IMD Cassette Tape" yield some hits with mostly advertisements. But also a single link on Discogs ( see link). Here it is succinctly stated that the label is a so-called 'Bootleg' with its origin in Saudi Arabia. A Bootleg is a synonym for illegal copy. A term that used to be widely used in the music industry. This means that the artist, band and the official publisher do not receive a cent for the sale of such a copy. Bootlegs usually consist of small editions with illegal copies on Vinyl, but also on Cassette. And since the logo comes up so often, this can no longer be a small edition.

What I already knew is that the previous owner bought the tapes himself in Lebanon, not too far from Saudi Arabia (although it is a 1000+ kilometer difference). So I searched a little further with search terms aimed at Bootlegs and Saudi Arabia. I came across this link .

The article (from the BBC). Describes the childhood of a lady who emigrated from London (the heart of England) to Al-Khobar (Saudi Arabia) in 1988. I recommend that you read the story yourself if your English is good.

She describes that there were many small shops at the time, where these types of tapes (probably with the relevant label) were sold for dirt cheap prices. Albums with sometimes unique content or completely edited covers.

As it turns out, the western music we are used to was 'Haram' or unclean there and was essentially forbidden to be listened to there, let alone the production and distribution of this music on sound carriers. Yet it was an everyday phenomenon. Or out of everyday sight. In short, it was not so much the illegal copying and selling that was prohibited, but rather the content itself with the lyrics and 'violent' Western music styles that were not tolerated.

The label IMD that I showed earlier was nothing more than a disguised label copied from the Polish publisher MG Records.
So you could now (if you scroll back a bit) see which labels belong and which labels do not belong in the list.

This means that I have piles of illegal cassette copies here. Which is also a valid reason why it concerns cassettes. Not so much because of the era, but because of the fact that vinyl records in Saudi Arabia quickly deform physically due to heat and CDs were just on the market at the time, so hard to come by let alone unaffordable...

So here's a statement behind the label IMD of which I still don't know what the letters stand for...
Illegal Media Distributions perhaps?...

Also read this Wikipedia article about Bootlegs, it is an interesting addition to the information I have just described.

Click here for part 3 (the last part of this blog).