They were destined for destruction — but then an unlikely hero named Mark Davis saved 56 cassette tapes that used to play in the background at Kmart stores from near-certain demise.
The tapes, which provided a sonic backdrop at the discount stores from 1989-1992, not only feature a hilarious melange of easy musical styles; they also include the in-store announcements.
"OK, I have to admit this this is a strange collection," writes Davis, who worked at Kmart for over a decade, on Archive.org. "In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I worked for Kmart behind the service desk and the store played specific pre-recorded cassettes issued by corporate. This was background music, or perhaps you could call it elevator music. Anyways, I saved these tapes from the trash during this period and this video shows you my extensive, odd collection."
From October 1989:
From February 1990:
From January 1991:
"Until around 1992, the cassettes were rotated monthly," continues Davis. "Then, they were replaced weekly. Finally sometime around 1993, satellite programming was introduced which eliminated the need for these tapes altogether.
"The older tapes contain canned elevator music with instrumental renditions of songs. Then, the songs became completely mainstream around 1991. All of them have advertisements every few songs."
"The monthly tapes are very, very, worn and rippled. That's because they ran for 14 hours a day, 7 days a week on auto-reverse. If you do the math assuming that each tape is 30 minutes per side, that's over 800 passes over a tape head each month."
The store even made a very special 30th anniversary tape, which played for one day only in 1992:
Want to hear more? (Really?) If so, you can find the whole collection here.
