The Qualifications of "Originality" // Diptych #17
bootlegs and counterfeits and stories from years gone by
The Find
This week I was digging through the piles of old media at the AmVets Thrift Store in Alcoa, Tennessee, and I came across a couple interesting tapes. The first thing that stood out to me were the cases. When there’s a basket full of tapes, any sort of deviation in size sticks out immediately, and these cases are certainly heftier than most cassette protectors I’ve come across. There’s honestly a sense of luxury about them, even though the plastic feels most similar to a McDonalds Happy Meal toy, that level of durability is missing from a typical Norelco style cassette case.
The covers look incredible. There’s some gold lettering on both that managed to stay shiny all these years, and while the cassette itself turned out to be just an off the shelf Maxwell branded type 1 tape with a few labels, the presentation in the unique box and great artwork is wonderful.
There was no question that I’d pick them up, but after lots of research about what I’ve purchased, I’ve not got a ton of answers. More on that in the last section of this article.
The Music
Both tapes definitely give off a vibe that lives up to their titles. Thanks to Youtube’s auto copyright system, I was able to find many of these songs preserved in full digital quality along with translated lyrics, just by looking into the description of these videos. Many of these songs, to my ears, are really incredible and have tonalities and instruments I don’t often hear in a lot of the music I listen to.
Some songs have a slow jazzy feel that really gave me some of those same melancholic feelings I get when I hear city pop songs, and others were just really beautiful and interesting. I often listen to non-english music while I’m researching or working instead of purely instrumental music as a way to help me focus, and both of these have been great for that.
In particular, these second half of Tagalog Sentimental Love Songs is the exact kind of music i like to put when I can’t directly interact with the music. I can listen diligently, and when I do, it’s interesting and moving, but when I need to focus, it’s delightful background music for my day to day tasks. I think these tapes being compilations / mixtapes helps with that. Modern playlists could never.
The Word
“Original”
orig·i·nal | \ ə-ˈri-jə-nᵊl
present or existing from the beginning; first or earliest.The part of these tapes that stood out to me the most was the brand / presenter name: “Thomsun Original”. Certainly these tapes are anything but what I would consider "original”, but the more I dug around on the internet for answers the more I thought that the name just might be fitting.
This blog post by Nima Nabavi Originally published in Emirates Now, Spring 2005 was a great look back on a different time and place where Thomsun may just have been the original. The perspective of the author is from pre-1995 living in Dubai. Before 2001 when Virgin Megastores opened up, bringing all the mainstream music (and everything else imaginable) to his city. There were no stores in the UAE selling studio releases of music produced outside the country. No major labels had a foot in any of the stores there.
So where did everyone get their music? Bootlegs.
And most important and prolific of them all was Thomsun Original.
As far as I can tell, Thomsun Original was a sub brand of an unknown company based in Indonesia that sold tapes in many different countries under different names: Thames, Kings, 747, Leaf to name a few. Many believe these to have all been the same parent company operating multiple brands to appeal more in the different markets they were intended for. 747 for instance was a brand mostly found in Saudi Arabia.
Until the CD market came to the UAE, it’s hard to argue that these tapes couldn’t be considered “originals”. There was no other way to purchase the music at the time, and as many others have said before, the recordings were of very high quality in most cases. Often ripped from the records and recorded professionally, these are as close to the original recordings as anyone could get there, and likely the quality of the tapes outperformed the cassette decks and portable players they were being listened to on.
Thomsun may have had a smaller interest in video production or sales as well, as someone was able to digitize an intro from a vhs tape containing their logo and mailing address. Information about any of these brands / companies is scarce, but for someone enamored with lost media, the breadcrumb trail is just as interesting as the music itself.
Do you have any information about bootlegs or counterfeits you’d like to share? I’d love to hear from you! As always, if you have any questions or comments you can get at me here or here or leave a comment below this post. If you haven’t subscribed to this newsletter yet (it’s free) please think about doing so.
See you soon.
—Forrest