Eminem Is Going to Reissue The Slim Shady LP on Cassette
The Slim Shady LP, released on February 23, 1999, went on to sell somewhere close to 20 million copies, turning Em into worldwide superstar. Now, though, he feels the need to reissue the album. On cassette.
Anyone who comes to these pages knows my hatred for the concept of idea of resurrecting the cassette. At best, new cassettes releases are tchotchkes, collectibles that are no different that t-shirts, posters or any other sort of mute swag.
It’s cash grab–which is fine. Artists need all the revenue streams they can get these days. But anyone who thinks that there’s any hope of making the cassette a viable music recording/playback format in the West (other parts of the world like Africa and India are different stories) is romanticizing–nay, fetishizing–a technology that’s a piece of crap. Those of us who were around when cassettes were our only options for portable music remember what a pain they were.
And please don’t feed me stories about how cool it is to make a modern mixtape on cassette. Been there, done that, never doing it again.
But back to Em. The news of The Slim Shady LP Cassette came via Twitter. Follow the link and you can pre-order your copy.
#SSLP Cassette re-issue coming soon https://t.co/ehTfFwLwP5 pic.twitter.com/mIpzM6pbsp
— Marshall Mathers (@Eminem) March 4, 2016
