Labels and artists have various media and physical formats in which to present their work. I have my preferences as a listener. The artists / labels have theirs; that's well and good—no requirement for me to dictate. Choosing to release a physical format with tangible art is understood as well. So...
Why do so many tape releases go out of their way to obscure, for example, labeling? I have been accumulating a surprising number of releases with no identification on the tape itself whatsoever. Some with nothing at all. It obscures identifying one side from another. This, though the j-cards will list side A and side B with multiple song titles for each. Why bother? I can't distinguish one side from the other. Each has three songs.
Another example. A cassette that only has "ASX" hand lettered in silver sharpie. Credit to a member here who could correctly identify that one from only that information.
Or the one I received today: a three artist compilation on three cassettes. Each of the three cassettes have ripped, printed copies of (?) pasted to them. My best guess is that because one cassette has two scraps, another three scraps and the last four scraps—the one with two scraps is side A? ...on the side with the scraps instead of the other? I assume so.
I really am primarily interested in the music itself. Intermittently, but rare, the cassette-as-object-consumerist-angle has any import. So... meh. Okay.
Do these artists who (presumably) have an interest in their music really want a label causing the listener to misconstrue what you created with some other artist? Or misidentify your titles? Or, for whatever reason, find a tape separated from its case / bag and be unable to identify it in the future? Seems weird to me to be released by any label at all if you don't care about any of those things. Is it unwarranted for me to deem the practice as disingenuous?
Please school me on the above. I'm open to criticism and / or another perspective to further inform mine.
