| Record labels, of course, liked promotional cassette mailings a lot, since they were cheap, and nearly impossible to sell, making for a decreased look-how-fast-this-landed-in-the-cut-out-bin factor. If you got an advance cassette and tried to sell it to your local used-records merchant, you were either stupid or unfathomably optimistic: nobody wants these things. No cover art, no bonus tracks, none of the big-blank-canvas thrill of a promotional LP or a test pressing. But as soon as one of the big labels determined that, cost-wise, it was just as cheap to send a CD, then the cassette mailing’s days were numbered. Only the truly hopeless -- sentimentalists who can actually muster up some pity for the losing contestants on Wheel of Fortune or for the small-time dope dealer who gets caught lying on Cops -- feel any nostalgia for the promotional cassette. |