Archiveless – Turkish Music Cassettes

Contribution by Cornelia Lund and Holger Lund to "The Archival Turn In Music Sociology", conference at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.

Even though they constituted a mass media market from the 1970s to around 2000, Turkish music cassettes now occupy a niche position in music history and the music market. This is evident from the fact that a significant portion of the cassette output is still not available online, and important archival databases, like Discogs, provide little information on it.

Why is that? Turkish music on cassettes has ended up in a kind of media shadow zone due to various mechanisms of exclusion and marginalization: Downgraded as “Arabesque minibus music” for poorer classes and migrants – both within Turkey and abroad – it has been subject to what can be considered a classist treatment. This seems to have so far prevented serious (academic) engagement with the medium and the music, even though numerous stars of various musical styles have released cassettes, and often cassettes only.
In addition, gatekeepers in Western media, markets, and discourse have for a long time generally blocked Turkish music, including that on cassette, no matter how successful it was.
As a result, entire strands of musical development are difficult to grasp from a musicological perspective because they are poorly archived and therefore difficult to access. Independent Turkish diaspora music developments that mainly took place on cassette, such as disco folk, Anadolu synth, Gurbet Şarkıları, or especially Kurdish music, are difficult to research and rarely heard.

Our contribution will focus on these musical styles that are in danger of sinking into the abyss of media oblivion, on non-archival traditions and Western blockades. Taking into account our own practice situated between collecting and making accessible, private archive and institutional affiliation, we would like to discuss how this archival distress and disappointment can be transformed into archival agency for these musical styles in dire need of an archival turn.

More information: https://www.mdw.ac.at/ims/events/the-archival-turn-in-music-sociology/

Listen to the two Golden Doodle Mixtape shows on the subject:

Turkish Cassette Special 1:

https://www.fluctuating-images.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Summer-Cassette-Special-Feat.-Late-80s-Anadolu-Synth-Summer-Song-3.mp3

Here's a pdf-document with all the covers used for the original cassettes. It works also as a Tacklist.

Turkish Cassette Special 2:

https://www.fluctuating-images.de/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Turkish-Cassette-Special-2.mp3

For tracklist see left below and the pdf-document with all the covers used for the original cassettes. It works also as a Tacklist.