I’m of a certain age where the Walkman defined my life. I used to actually wear them out – going through batteries like you’d never believe.
Went everywhere with me; car journey, bus, train, plane, walking, sleeping.
Sure many of you the same.
Stumbled across this website that is brilliant – so many memories.
The Walkman era
My first was a Matsui (aka Currys “own label”). Music while I paper rounded
I had a very early Sony FM/AM Walkman which gave many years of service, followed by a neat little Aiwa which sounded great. I still have one of the last Sony models and an old Sony Discman which I occasionally play the old silver bird-scarers on.
Good as Walkmans were, the portable minidisc players were the absolute bees knees. I used to carry around different discs to get into the mindset required ahead of work meetings. I still have them; loud aggressive music (e.g. Sabotage or Blues for Ceaucescu) or calming (the Sheltering Sky).
I bought and still have one i used it to record gigs.
It sits in a box unused and the bootleg recordings sit there unplayed.
I found it too fiddley and the uploading editing business a hassle for my low tech head.
Bloody hell there were a lot! Can’t remember what I had but I was always using one and went through more than several. Given how little spare cash my parents had at the time and how little they themselves were interested in music, I’m very appreciative of the extent to which they were willing to indulge my teenage obsession.
I guess they were very quickly aware of the advantage of a walkman in keeeping that infernal racket away from their ears and they could get down undisturbed to the joys of Radio 4 and the World Service.
Like many of you, I had several over the years but the first feeling of walking down the street with a soundtrack in your head was very exciting. I don’t think my ones were particularly special – certainly at least one Sony. I do remember a nifty little AIWA that you didn’t have to open and flip over.
Can’t remember what mine was – not a Sony – but it had “Super bass” and little slider EQ controls on the front and an unusable FM radio. Let’s not forget the little tape rewinder thingy from Maplins which saved a fortune in batteries. God it was brilliant!
Alexei Sayle had a routine back in the day that featured the line “If Walkmans are such a great idea, how come everyone has a drawer full of broken ones at home?”
He wasn’t wrong!
It was the headphone socket that always wore out first.
Mine was a Sony WM2 but the first I saw and heard was a Sony Stowaway. Alvin Stardust played at our college well after his heyday and his tour manager had bought one in Japan. It seemed amazing at the time but pretty soon they were everywhere. I had CD Walkmans/Walkmen later but nothing matched it until my first iPod.
It wasn’t just about the device, it was which headphones you favoured.
The full overhead with the orange foam?
Big 1970s stylee studio type cans?
or the dinky in ear jobs?
(which never actually stayed in my ears properly, and just made a sound like a swarm of bees to anyone else on the bus)
Sennheiser over ears. Can’t remember the model number but they were quite light and hopeless in a noisy environment.
I had a Sanyo (actually….it’s probably still here somewhere) and was a really solid bit of kit – it was the headphones that I got through.
The downside was carting cassettes around.
First time I heard one was c.1980, courtesy of my then boss, who brought one back from NYC. It blew my mind, even though he was listening to a Beethoven string quartet at the time. Can’t remember when I got my first one, but given the state of the household finances probably not for 2-3 years.
Slight tangent: I remember seeing a very early portable mp3 player which only held a very small number of tracks, let alone albums and being told that yes, it was limited but it would get better. How right they were.
First mp3 player I was aware of was owned by a friend. It was about the size of a CD Walkman and held 250 tracks. That’s like 20 albums. Incredible!
My first was a Sony thing with terrible PC software which I had to listen to the same 20 songs for ever as changing them was almost impossible. I used it at the gym a fair bit and eventually sold the piece of sh*t on eBay at a huge loss.
I think when the first mp3 players were introduced, I was still in peak MiniDisc mode – as ever, a few units of time behind the curve…
The first MP3 player I was aware of was the Rio (can’t remember the model) back in 1998. I was working for NEC and they had one of the chips inside, so we had one to play with in the office.
Back in the seventies I has one of those ‘portable’ cassette players and used somthing like a pair of old telephone operators headphones possibly made of bakelite.
My jacket pocket would just fit the player in, but I’d wear the headphones with a hood so I didn’t look odd when I was out walking.
My first was a burgundy coloured brick of thing, I think made by Sanyo. I was down visiting my brother when my mum and dad bought it for me. I didn’t have any tapes of my own to play so my brother gave me a copy of Man’s Rhinos, Winos and Lunatics. Nothing like a bit of Welsh psyh-prog rock to make an impression on a prepubescent teenager.
I still have the last one I bought, a Sony WM-DD33. Great little player, which I recently discovered when trying to convert some tapes, has developed an annoying ticking sound. I can’t part with it though.
I had (still have) a WM-DC2, the playback-only version (with a Line Out socket) of the WM-D6C ‘Pro’ recorder.
Those direct-drive mechanisms were built like tanks, mine was bought in 1989 and is still going (despite being in a box of the loft for decades).
That was the same as my Sanyo mentioned above!
I bought a Sony Recording Pro etc etc one and barely used it and sold it years later to discover it had held its value really well and pretty much got my money back.
I bought a Sony Walkman (but here in Sweden we always called them “Freestyles”) when I got my first job in 1983? 84? One of the tasks I was put in charge of at this “youth program” type trainee job (which made you work for hardly any pay at all) had to do with being in a small room with very loud machines for a very long time. The noise of the machines made you very sleepy and confused after a while, and made it easy to lose track of how many times you had done certain procedures that had to be very exact, so listening to music on headphones was the solution to a very real problem.
But listening to music while walking around town was the reward. Having an actual soundtrack to your life, with the ability to change your mood or enhance situations through the right track at the right time! Brilliant. Mixtapes never sounded better.
My Sony Walkman was the only one I owned, and it worked for many, many years. At the end I had to use a drawing-pin to hold down the play button, but that worked well and nothing else ever broke. I still have it, but last time I checked it had given up for good.
I later got CD Walkmans, of many brands – they tended to break more easily, but the one I have currently have been doing well for many years now (touch wood…)
I had a WM-F12 which went everywhere with me in a little leather shoulder-bag just big enough to hold it, into which I cut a small aperture to allow me to plug the over-ear headphones in. The phones had foam rubber which eventually disintegrated, at which point I invested in the recently arrived in-ear Sennies – to remarkable effect it has to be said. Getting an FM signal involved wildly waving the headphones cable around until something listenable emerged – the cable served as the aerial. A few years ago I searched the depths of my cupboards for the little thing, fearing that rotting batteries may have done for it in the meantime, but failed to find it at all. I suspect it went to a chazza some time long ago, and just hope that someone, somewhere, may still be still enjoying it.There might even have been a dodgy recording of a King Crimson album inside it when it was consigned to new ownership.
Rotting batteries – apply white wine vinegar with a cutip. Apparently lemon juice works too. Magic!
God had four or five of the things over the years. One I remember most vividly is a hefty yellow Sony waterproof version – the last one I had before moving on to a discern
I had a fairly basic model when I first went off to Uni in 1985 but after working over the summer had enough funds to upgrade to a top of the line Sony one (can’t remember the model, just that it was plain silver and had no radio). It was used extensively – I often walked into Uni which was an approx 45 min walk and so perfect for one side of a C90.
I still have a Sony DAT Walkman (D7) in a drawer somewhere, I never really used it that much (apart from bootlegging a couple of concerts) as technology had moved on by the time I bought it.
Best little bit of kit for covert recordings that I’ve found is a Zoom H2n. Superb little thing. Great for any field recording too – birdsong a speciality.
Top tip ta!
I used to love walking around the Lake District in the 80’s with my tape Walkman listening to Stevie Wonder (Hotter Than July), Robert Palmer (Clues) and Roxy Music (Country Life) which were particular faves. But in the early 90’s I was on a crap TV show on BBC 1 (I got to do my Trimphone impression party piece) and the first prize was a CD Walkman. However my mate and I came second and our prize was a tape Walkman, and tbh it was pretty rubbish even then.
Witness the horror…
Flashback – I remember watching that when it went out.
I remember It’s Just An Illusion and Body Talk too. Top tunes all.
I had several including a Discman later.
I’m sure I had a cassette one, smaller than a C90 to which the device clamped and the cassette kind of stuck out round the three non-playing sides. Someone will know, but it feels like a hallucination now.
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