It seems impossible to believe that the Rolling Stones would ever turn to the lowly cassette to help record one of their biggest hits - but it happened. According a story in the New Yorker honoring the tape format, it was a real gas in "Jumpin' Jack Flash."

"Keith Richards loved the effect he could achieve by recording his guitar on a cheap cassette player. “Playing an acoustic, you’d overload the Phillips cassette player to the point of distortion so that when it played back, it was effectively an electric guitar,” he wrote in his memoir, “Life.” His guitar parts on the Rolling Stones’ hits “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Street Fighting Man” were recorded in this way. “That grinding, dirty sound,” Richards reflected, “It’s unexplainable.”

The Cassette Tape Revolution