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LONG PLAY / FEATURED ESSAY
Cassette is for Keepers.
By The Editorial Collective
Cassettes didn't give the instant gratification of an audio streaming service, but they gave us the ability to carry the sounds that stayed with us. In a Walkman. In the cassette player in our cars. Cheap and sturdy cassettes democratized access to recorded sound across the world.
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IN THIS ISSUE
"More, more more!"
An exploration of Billy Idol’s 1983 album, Rebel Yell, which made him the face of an MTV generation.
Discovering Janet Jackson through MTV
Before the machine there was the VJ. These public servants now relegated to millennial memory saved millions from the terror of conveyor belt playlists.
MANIFESTO
Long Play is a publication devoted to sound as lived experience. There are eight billion ways to relate to music, to remember through it, to revel in it, to be saved by it. Podcasts and audiobooks now belong to this same reckoning, shaping how we understand our societies and our collective memory.
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Musical Musings
Old habits die hard
On music discovery and the weight of modern lives.
Liner notes as Literature
Rip out the J-card. Put a love letter in its place.