A look back at this essential piece of personal kit.
I remember getting my first 'portable' cassette player. It was Christmas 1978, and the excitement was immense. No matter that it was a size of a large handbag, and as heavy as a sack of potatoes.
Here, at last, was a way of taking my music on the road. My parents no doubt soon regretted their generous gift, as the cassette player now accompanied us on every car journey, irrespective of duration or distance. As soon as the car engine started up, and seatbelts clunked-clicked, I would press 'play', and hey presto! There would be the voice of Dave Lee Travis presenting that week's Top 20, carefully recorded from the indoor stereo system on a Sunday night. Along with the latest hits, there would be snippets of family conversations, the clatter of dinner plates, the sound of the dog barking, and urgent, irritated pleas for everyone to 'Be quiet!', all captured forever, or at least until the tape got mangled in the machine. It was a miracle, and a constant source of joy and amazement.
Although I could not fathom it at the time, my musical tastes did not seem to align with those of my family. It was therefore a relief to everyone when the Sony Walkman appeared. Here, for the first time, was a way of making music both portable and private. It was stylish, lightweight, and small enough to clip on to a belt or tuck into a pocket. It was now possible to listen to music whilst walking, jogging, or doing aerobics along to the Jane Fonda video. The world had a new soundtrack.
Like many other teenagers of the time, I spent most of the 1980s with small foam headphones glued to my ears. The Walkman became a companion on every journey, a solace in times of adolescent angst, a retreat from the noise of inner city London, and a backdrop for imaginative meanderings.
Although it was a largely solitary experience, there was also the pleasure of sharing tapes with friends, and above all creating personalised mix tapes — curating 90 minutes of music as a special gift for a 'best' friend or boyfriend. This time-consuming task could involve many hours of taking LPs on and off the turntable, painstakingly aligning the play button on the cassette recorder with the needle at the start of each track on the record, and hand-writing the miniscule track-lists that fitted neatly inside each cassette box. It was a labour of love, and a token of undying friendship.
The Walkman was developed by Japanese technology giant, Sony, in the late 1970s, and was launched in Japan in summer 1979, and the USA in 1980. It was an immediate success. The forerunner of Sony — the Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (TTK) — had already created the first mass-produced transistor radio, the Sony TR 55, in the mid-1950s, the first pocket transistor radio in 1957, and the first portable miniature television in 1959.
A year prior to the launch of the Walkman, the company also issued the Sony Pressman 100 Tape Recorder, a mono cassette recorder. The first Walkman prototype was based on this machine, and also inspired the name 'Walkman'. The Walkman was first introduced in the USA as the 'Sound-About' or the 'Stowaway', but the name 'Walkman' was soon adopted as being more ear-catching and easily transferable to different markets.
In Japan, the sales were phenomenal: the Walkman sold upwards of 50,000 in the first two months, compared to an initial prediction of monthly sales of 5,000. It soon became a cult object, a 'must-have' item for young people across the globe. Although other companies, such as Aiwa, Panasonic, and Toshiba, produced their own versions, the name 'Walkman' became synonymous with the personal cassette player, and became recognised the world over, in much the same way as Hoover for the vacuum clear and Xerox for the photocopier. Music tapes were introduced in the 1960s, but in 1983, sales of cassette tapes outsold vinyl for the first time, in large part due to the popularity of the Walkman.
one of the first items to combine functionality with fashion
Although the Walkman was initially aimed at a youth market, it soon became popular with people of all ages, and coincided with a craze for aerobics, jogging, and exercise to music. At the height of the Walkman's popularity, from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, the number of people who said they walked for exercise (according to an article in 'Time' magazine) increased by 30 per cent. Sony responded to these cultural trends by issuing models of the Walkman for different interests and age groups, for example the water-resistant Sport Walkman, the Shower Walkman, and 'My First Walkman' for children.
The first model of the Walkman — the TPS-L2 — came with two headphone jacks, as developers intended it to offer a social way of enjoying and sharing music with friends. It was thought at the time that it would be discourteous to listen to music alone in a public space. However, consumer research soon revealed that people were using the machine to create a private soundscape, and in later models, the additional headphone jack was removed. The Walkman coincided with a wider trend for personalised products in the 1970s and 1980s, and was one of the first items to combine functionality with fashion — it was a stylish accessory, as much as a way of listening to music.
The popularity of the Walkman throughout the 1980s initiated public debates about the intersection of the private and public domains, debates which are still ongoing today in regard to smartphones, tablets, and other portable devices.
For some, the Walkman signaled greater choice and personal freedom; a way of controlling and to some extent eliminating external unwanted noise — particularly in an urban environment — and an exciting new way of listening to music. For others, the popularity of personal stereos was identified with a growing emphasis on the individual and personal, as opposed to the social and communal. Would the growing trend for private pleasures and personalised leisure activities destroy public life and community values?
In 1981, Shushei Hosokawa coined the term 'The Walkman Effect' to describe the disconnection between the Walkman user and his or her immediate environment: the user inhabits a virtual space, which is available only to them, and is therefore shut off from, or oblivious to, the actual space around them. For some commentators, this immersion in a private world was akin to excessive drug-taking or other ways of withdrawing from community life: it was considered a threat to traditional ways of living and being, and at worst amoral, or even immoral. People worried that the appetite for personal devices would also exacerbate isolation and loneliness, which echoes some of the current debates about the amount of time spent alone in front of a screen.
it completely changed the way we listen to music
For the first time, the domestic world was introduced into the public sphere. Whereas the television and radio represented home-based consumption, the personal stereo introduced private pleasures and preferences into the public domain. For some, this was entirely 'out of place' and a transgression of normal boundaries. London Transport issued regulations for appropriate Walkman use and noise-levels on the London Underground, which could result in a financial penalty, and on British Rail, a 21-year-old man was forcibly evicted from the train after annoying fellow passengers by playing his Beautiful South tape at full volume on his Walkman.
Today, we are so accustomed to having a soundtrack instantly available via our smartphones, tablets, and MP3 players, that it is maybe difficult for a younger generation to comprehend why the Walkman seemed so revolutionary in 1980. But it completely changed the way we listen to music, and was the first in a long line of portable, personal audio players.
With the current nostalgia for vinyl records, typewriters, and fountain pens, it is perhaps not surprising that cassette tapes are also making a comeback: sales have been increasing year-on-year since 2013, and Cassette Store Day is an established annual event. Who knows, maybe the Sony Walkman will be the next big vintage fashion?
For me, the Sony Walkman is synonymous with the 1980s and, despite it being my constant companion throughout that decade, I do not think it had any lasting effect on my morals or anti-social tendencies. The only damage, perhaps, was to my hearing. Although I rarely listen to pre-recorded music these days, the distinctive 'click' and 'whirr' of a Walkman can still transport me back to many happy hours of listening.
