Check out these two quirky new retro-cool products..........
They both come from ultra cool UK design companies, who have picked up on the fact that although digital music files are great and everything, people are a bit misty-eyed for the days of painstakingly making compilation tapes for their mates, designing the tracklist/artwork by hand and - most importantly - being able to actually give them something physical to be treasured. It's just not the same with a CD-R!
Suck UK have the kitch MixTape USB Stick, which sees a 64MB USB drive slotted into a classic old cassette shell. It stores 1 hour of music, just like a good old C60 tape, which they hope will inspire you to compile a vintage mix, plus an authentic retro inlay card for tracklist. They have proved so popular the've already sold out, but expect more stock on the way soon.
Manchester's MagneticNorth are behind the MIXA, a 1GB USB stick that is actually inside an old cassette, meaning the old meets the new head on for an analogue/digital bastard offspring.
The card design is a bit more hi-tech here, allowing you to import files and Flickr photos to create a sleeve and providing stickers so you can 'pimp your cassette'. They're pushing a valentines design right now for those hoping to use the magic of music to get themselves a shag next week.
For two ultimately fairly ridiculous products, we reckon these are going to do very well. Do you think someone will come up with the same sort of thing for vinyl........