You Mean They Still Were Making Them?

Not even the powerful commercial appeal of the hipster returning en masse to the cassette ("I know it gives shittier sound and less recording space, but...uh...it's totally ironic!") could stop it -- Sony has officially announced it will no longer produce the Walkman. Widely credit with being the first truly portable recorded music player, the announcement of its death probably comes about a decade late, seeing as how the iPod exists and all of that.

But still, I can't help but be a little nostalgic at the announced end of my childhood music platform. Though it's pretty similar to 8-tracks being phased out (I assume) -- there's really nothing to recommend cassettes (other than their durability, I guess) and we have a so many different and better options for listening to music today the only surprise in this is that Walkmen were still being made -- it definitely signifies I'm getting older. Although I never owned a Walkman (I was usually made to do with Mama Generico's© Occasional Tape-Playing Device), it still signifies the end of an era that will likely never be brought back. Unlike the hi-fi lovers of records or the purists pursuit of wax cylinder recordings (I have to assume those people exist), the cassette is unlikely to ever make a comeback, unless you need to convince a coma patient it's still 1985.

Possibly the bigger tragedy contained in the article above, though, is that the floppy disk has also recently been added to the long list of technology no longer produced. This is undoubtedly the bigger tragedy, because whereas I can find my Twister Sister deep cuts on mp3, I don't know that any iPod is capable of playing Odell Lake or Fraction Munchers...