Hit Clips Music Player – In the old days, people listened to music on ultra-low-fi devices. The Tiger Electronics Hit Clips was one of those devices.
It allowed you to listen to single minutes of music that were recorded in mono. You could listen to music by your favourite artists such as Justin Timberlake, Janet Jackson, and Celine Dion.
Some may remember Hit Clips as the first digital music player for kids. The tiny headphones were released in 2000, but never became popular.
But that doesn’t mean they’re not significant. They can be considered the missing link between single CDs and MP3 players.
Hit Clips Music Player
In the early 2000s , if you wanted to listen to music on the go, there were only a handful of options. All of them had drawbacks: CDs skipped constantly, cassette tapes were old-fashioned, and minidiscs could be expensive.
Even though paying $3.99 for a single minute of music was an absolute and complete fraud, Hit Clips were about status.
Why would anyone care about the cost when they were so cool hanging from your backpack or keychain alongside your Tamagotchi? They were a signpost of your status as a schoolboy.
If you were a ‘N Sync fan, you had to own all 8 Hit Clips. If you were a Baha Men fan, you had to carry around the lyrics to “Who Let The Dogs Out?” in your pocket everywhere you went. You were a poser wherever you went.
The sound that came from the bottom of the well was a pleasant, yet mysterious noise. The noise did not sound like it came from the bottom of a well which contained an insulating thin layer of tin foil around the top… which was in flames.
In the most modern commercial, Tiger Electronics marketed Hit Clips as a slick micro-audio system that sampled songs so only the grooves stick.
This portable audio player is more than just a music player. It’s a mic-boom device. If you and your buddies are ready, you can listen to Shaggy’s chorus “Angel” by Shaggy in a loop for hours. But be careful because it’s so heartbreaking. Don’t forget: no internet until the age of .
Parents from the Y2K era might be thinking that Hit Clips are a scam. Tiger Electronics made an incredible $80 million in 1999, with these devices costing $20 each and each Hit Clip costing $3.99 apiece.
To make sure that Hit Clips continue to be in circulation, the company created the Hit Clips-Dance robot.
This robot is clumsily dancing to music and an FM tuner as well as CDs of Hit Clips, which contain two hours of entertainment.
Apple has been rolling in dough since it came out with the iPod. But this was only the beginning. The iPod was an important milestone in the field of music.
It was a compact device that carried music and didn’t skip, even when you shook it or bumped into things.
See how the Hit Clips were innovative? They were, with their lack of features like the ability to listen to the whole song and then stop it.
But they got out of style because of the popularity of MP3 players, Napster, and the launch of the iPod in 2001.
Remember when things were made well? When products were durable and real, and not just a quick novelty that could be tossed aside like an old toy? One of those things is Hit Clips.
These simple were the culmination of years of research and refinement. They’re a gorgeous, brilliant piece of technology that is now only used ironically by people in their thirties who want to feel young again.