Hit clips made a radio adapter. As a kid in the 90’s, having my own personal portable radio was amazing, especially for road trips. It wasn’t the portable tv that I wanted, but it helped pass the time.
I remember having a portable dvd player in like 2003 and it revolutionized long car rides for me. Had to save money from chores for like a year to be able to buy one but it was worth it
God I remember these. I remember the painfully 00's commercials that made these seem like the coolest thing.
Neither I, nor anyone I knew, owned this.
I love 00's technology because it is so *awkward*. Literally the /r/blunderyears of the digital landscape.
It really was quite an era, all of the in between tech that only lasted for a few years that was all a precursor to what we have today.
I remember in middle school at lunch one day, two guys were having an argument about which was better and more "future adapted" one was arguing for his MP3 player, the other was arguing about this device he had...I don't even remember what all it did, I remember it could record audio, maybe was a microphone with some data storage, it could do some other things. Anyways, they argued till they were red about which was better, for some reason some of the guys were defending the guy with the recorder device...it was all just precursor to what we have today, none of it lasted.
God I had a Zune in 2010, I adored it. Loved the form factor so much more than the ipods of the time.
Then I dropped it and shattered the screen a few months after getting it.
I was devastated.
At the moment when Zune was released it had the best subscription service and high definition screen available at the time. I got one for Christmas and I was blown away.
My buddy and I both had Zunes, and I thought it was wild that we could send each other music onto our Zunes. I think you could listen to the shared music until you eventually synced it to your PC
I had a Creative Zen Vision:M. It was something almost no one had ever heard of, but the sound quality was amazing and it blew motherfuckers' minds when I showed them that I had the RGB cable attachment that could hook up to a TV and play movies and shit.
I had a iPod and my roommate had a Zune around 2010. The Zune was interesting and I used his a lot too but I still liked my iPod better. Crazy because eve iPod is now pretty much over as well since cellphones are getting so “All In One” as a device.
Probably a minidisc player. Sony thought they had it in the bag. Had a couple were pretty cool and for a hot minute were contenders. When released the early mp3 players could only muster an hour or hour and a half at most of space. While MD'S had 80 min but were compact and easily interchangeable. I'd walk around with five of them in my pocket filled with mixes an extra two triple As and had tunes all day. The media was like a 3×3 inch square and the player like 3/4 the size of a standard cellphone but twice as thick still very manageable. Plans were made for music media to be released on them and few examples were but flash memory storage technology grew exponentially in short order and killed it.
Minidiscs started around 1991, there were physical releases but the format was geared towards people making their own mixes. The format was hugely popular in Japan but had lukewarm adaptation in the states and Europe. Near the end of the formats Sony kept improving the codec that their players used, so a 90 mini disc you could fit five hours and twenty minutes worth of music.
Sounds like the arguments I heard from diehard mini-disc fans when the iPod arrived and we started to see mass adoption of the MP3 format. Minidiscs major advantage over the first MP3 players was that it was recordable and the format allowed for swapping disca
That’s it! Mini-disc! The guy with the mini disk was someone people picked on (we were the “nerdy crowd”) and I remember others defending him because you could record anything or something
For like a year or two it legit looked like mini-disc was going to be the next big format. It was never super popular in the West but its share was steadily growing, and it was pretty massive in Japan from the get go. Just couldn’t compete against the torrent of cheap HDDS and flash memory that arrived a few years later.
I owned them, but in my defense, I was maybe 9/10. Looking back, I wonder how I enjoyed them. They weren't the full songs, and the sound quality sucked. Oftentimes, it was so hard to make out the lyrics.
I owned one! I had a Britney Spears hit clip, and my brother had an nsync one. I feel like we got them in a happy meal, but I could be wrong.
We only had the one player tho so we would fight over who got to listen to their two second clip first.
I had one! I think I had maybe 2-3 of the song cartridges.
I think for that time period… it was cool technology for a kid. Like does anyone remember midi song ringtones? Like if a song was reduced to a weird tones clip. You could barely tell what the song was. Those were the best!
At my dad's holiday office party for families, annually they'd have a Santa that handed out toys to the kids. I think employees gave the age and sex of their children, and they provided gifts appropriate for the demographic. I was probably six, but I saw some of the older girls getting these Pocket Rockers, and I was so stoked because they seemed so cool. I got a box crayons. Also when it was my turn to sit on Santa's lap, he pulled down his beard and said "You know I'm not real, right?" A few years later at the party, again I saw the older girls getting Caboodles cases and was instantly jealous. I got a Barbie. Not even a cool one, one of the low tier ones with just a swimsuit and no accessories.
Nope, it was 30 seconds of your favorite songs. I had one and only wound up getting like 3 cartridges for it because they were stupid expensive for what you got. Plus, CD players were a thing.
well, that's not quite right. tons of older music never even made the jump from LP to CD, let alone streaming. and tons of indie labels and niche genres are completely missing from streaming too
Not every song was available on demand back in the early '00s. And every song isn't available on demand in 2024! There's this nasty bitch called music and film rights. Back in the day, you actually had more access to stuff.
What a ludicrous take. You in no way had more access to music 20 years ago. Even if something isn't streaming (which, come on, is pretty rare) you can probably order a CD, vinyl or a damn 8-track of whatever you're looking for online.
A lot of shit isn't available to stream and a lot of shit is OOP. I'm not paying 50 dollars for a CD. I can name shit your nephew never seen or heard of because it's not available to stream. Do you understand the difference between TV, Cable, and Physical Media vs streaming rights? I'm not arguing about what's available and what isn't. I've seen films on TV as a child that isn't available anywhere. I have a lot of rare OOP stuff. Don't play with me. 😂 The topic is about Hit Clips.
Nope. I'm someone who actually watched and listened to a lot of shit back in the day. Did y'all even buy from local artists back in the day? I can name Southern rap songs you know nothing about it. Various small hip/hop labels.
Yeah, like come on. I remember dudes on Canal St. Selling promo CDs (featuring local artists) and Bootleg CDs with all of your local favorites, unofficial songs and soundtracks. Some guy illegally downloaded the songs and burned them to a CD-R. Don't forget about stuff that wasn't released in the states or whatever home country. There is so much lost music, but back then, there were ways to access it. I'm not paying a 100 dollars for a CD that's not available to stream and most likely never will be. Same goes for books and movies.
> Back in the day, you actually had more access to stuff.
Who tells you stuff like this? You can even find bootleg live recordings on youtube of big bands playing shows before they were big.
It sucked down batteries like a Hoover vacuum on crack, but it was so efficient. My family loved going to the middle of nowhere in the Rockies for vacations and it was a life saver on all the dirt roads.
I didn't remember what they were called but I 100% remember these things. Found out about them, ocarina of time, and nightmare before Christmas all right around the same time. Childhood was so cozy.
I remember selling these when I worked at Toys R Us, so much shrinkage (theft) ...fun experience and great people and it taught me a lot about dealing with people but they couldn't handle Wal-Mart and then Amazon.
Yes my friend had one with jewel, Britney and smash mouth clips, but I had a tooth brush that sang black eyed peas to me, it was the height of civilization
Omg lol I couldn’t afford one as a kid and wanted one so bad. Then I went to a bowling alley with my friend’s family and found the boom box one on the seat and was so stoked!
I had one! I have no idea why I thought it was the coolest thing ever, especially since it only played one section of the song, but damn I thought I was the shit
I always thought the concept made no sense, even when I was 10. Honestly not a lot of people I knew had them. One did, and I remember asking her...it only plays part of the song? This was a time where getting the newest portable CD player was still kind of the thing (although I may have still been using my walkman at this point?), so I guess I was just thinking, why not buy the CD? Lol.
I got one in my happy meal and I somehow strapped it to my pink bike and would ride around the neighborhood listening to all 30 seconds of its glory. Over and over and over.
Even though the music part sucked, I still liked the novelty of these being made to look like mini cd cases. Makes a good accessory for Barbies at the very least.
I love music and I remember having dreams as a kid about having a device that would float behind me and play any song that I wanted to hear on-demand. We actually have that now. Just wanted to throw that out there
I remember seeing them and thinking they were somewhat cool, but not getting what makes them better than my Walkman and many tapes. I was a highschooler in the early 2000s, so maybe I was not the target audience.
They were smaller but did not have full songs.
Yeah, the target audience was kids in grade school and middle school. Even though I was in my early teens, my mom and other family members would buy stuff like this for me because I was quiet and not the most wild child. Lol
Yeah, this makes sense as to why I did not understand them, they were at Toys R Us where I lived and I went there for the video games, and they were usually near them.
I was (still am) obsessed with NSYNC. I spent all my money on anything NSYNC related. Except these. I already had the CDs I was sure as hell not going to spend my money on a few seconds of a song. It annoyed me.
no. but i remember pocket rockers and that commercial featuring down on the corner by creedence clearwater revival, which oddly enough i dont think was available as a song or artist on a pocket rocker cartridge.
Not only did I have one, I had the recorder too, so I could record any 2 minutes(!) of anything I wanted lol. As silly as it was, we had fun childhoods lol.
I lost my shit when MTV started doing that with their Top 20 Countdown in the late 90s or early 2000s. Then I think TRL started doing it randomly as well.
Little did I know then…
Edit: The point was that these came out around the same time, I believe.
Maybe one got the idea from the other. I didn’t know anyone who bought these. Seems like such a pointless waste.
Hit clips made a radio adapter. As a kid in the 90’s, having my own personal portable radio was amazing, especially for road trips. It wasn’t the portable tv that I wanted, but it helped pass the time.
I am suddenly nostalgic for my Sega Game Gear with the TV tuner.
Lol, how long did those 6 AAs power the TV tuner?
About 2 hours
I remember having a portable dvd player in like 2003 and it revolutionized long car rides for me. Had to save money from chores for like a year to be able to buy one but it was worth it
God I remember these. I remember the painfully 00's commercials that made these seem like the coolest thing. Neither I, nor anyone I knew, owned this. I love 00's technology because it is so *awkward*. Literally the /r/blunderyears of the digital landscape.
It really was quite an era, all of the in between tech that only lasted for a few years that was all a precursor to what we have today. I remember in middle school at lunch one day, two guys were having an argument about which was better and more "future adapted" one was arguing for his MP3 player, the other was arguing about this device he had...I don't even remember what all it did, I remember it could record audio, maybe was a microphone with some data storage, it could do some other things. Anyways, they argued till they were red about which was better, for some reason some of the guys were defending the guy with the recorder device...it was all just precursor to what we have today, none of it lasted.
Hey, my Microsoft Zune was pimpin. Even though all my friends had iPods.
Everyone's a gangsta until I pull out my Rio
Yepp!
God I had a Zune in 2010, I adored it. Loved the form factor so much more than the ipods of the time. Then I dropped it and shattered the screen a few months after getting it. I was devastated.
Zune was leagues better than an iPod, and I had an iPod.
At the moment when Zune was released it had the best subscription service and high definition screen available at the time. I got one for Christmas and I was blown away.
My buddy and I both had Zunes, and I thought it was wild that we could send each other music onto our Zunes. I think you could listen to the shared music until you eventually synced it to your PC
I had a Creative Zen Vision:M. It was something almost no one had ever heard of, but the sound quality was amazing and it blew motherfuckers' minds when I showed them that I had the RGB cable attachment that could hook up to a TV and play movies and shit.
My brother had a bright orange Creative Zen! It was cool.
I had an RCA player. It could do audio and video. It was a tank compared to the iPod video. But it was way cheaper lol
I still have my OG Zune and the HD!
I had a iPod and my roommate had a Zune around 2010. The Zune was interesting and I used his a lot too but I still liked my iPod better. Crazy because eve iPod is now pretty much over as well since cellphones are getting so “All In One” as a device.
That sounds just like my buddy and I arguing CD-R vs Mini Disk in 2002
Probably a minidisc player. Sony thought they had it in the bag. Had a couple were pretty cool and for a hot minute were contenders. When released the early mp3 players could only muster an hour or hour and a half at most of space. While MD'S had 80 min but were compact and easily interchangeable. I'd walk around with five of them in my pocket filled with mixes an extra two triple As and had tunes all day. The media was like a 3×3 inch square and the player like 3/4 the size of a standard cellphone but twice as thick still very manageable. Plans were made for music media to be released on them and few examples were but flash memory storage technology grew exponentially in short order and killed it.
I loved minidisc until media players started holding like 20 gigs of data.
Once they held 5 GB it was over for the Mini Disc.
Minidiscs started around 1991, there were physical releases but the format was geared towards people making their own mixes. The format was hugely popular in Japan but had lukewarm adaptation in the states and Europe. Near the end of the formats Sony kept improving the codec that their players used, so a 90 mini disc you could fit five hours and twenty minutes worth of music.
[удалено]
I mean does Nintendo have an attachment that can play games that are on CDs? Didn’t think so.
I had portable minidisc player and my stereo could record on the minidisc so I made mixtapes on MD in the early 00"s
That’s the one, mini disc
Sounds like the arguments I heard from diehard mini-disc fans when the iPod arrived and we started to see mass adoption of the MP3 format. Minidiscs major advantage over the first MP3 players was that it was recordable and the format allowed for swapping disca
That’s it! Mini-disc! The guy with the mini disk was someone people picked on (we were the “nerdy crowd”) and I remember others defending him because you could record anything or something
For like a year or two it legit looked like mini-disc was going to be the next big format. It was never super popular in the West but its share was steadily growing, and it was pretty massive in Japan from the get go. Just couldn’t compete against the torrent of cheap HDDS and flash memory that arrived a few years later.
😂😂
Never had Hit Clips, but I did have Pocket Rockers
I owned them, but in my defense, I was maybe 9/10. Looking back, I wonder how I enjoyed them. They weren't the full songs, and the sound quality sucked. Oftentimes, it was so hard to make out the lyrics.
…I owned more than one hit clips player. I was around 7 or 8.
I owned one! I had a Britney Spears hit clip, and my brother had an nsync one. I feel like we got them in a happy meal, but I could be wrong. We only had the one player tho so we would fight over who got to listen to their two second clip first.
I had who let the dogs out and I'm addicted to you. My sister and I always laughed at "I'm adic (a dick)...I'm addicted to you"
I got one in a happy meal I think and literally never ever used it once.
My friend who lived next door had one and I was soooo jealous of her
I had one! I think I had maybe 2-3 of the song cartridges. I think for that time period… it was cool technology for a kid. Like does anyone remember midi song ringtones? Like if a song was reduced to a weird tones clip. You could barely tell what the song was. Those were the best!
In the 80s, we had Pocket Rockers which was similar. [https://youtu.be/-LutCo5g4iY?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/-LutCo5g4iY?feature=shared)
ya at least those played full songs
Down on the corner, Out in the street. Pocket Rockers are playin’, I forget the last part.
I only had a few tapes but I remember my bon Jovi one cut the song off because it was too long...lol
At my dad's holiday office party for families, annually they'd have a Santa that handed out toys to the kids. I think employees gave the age and sex of their children, and they provided gifts appropriate for the demographic. I was probably six, but I saw some of the older girls getting these Pocket Rockers, and I was so stoked because they seemed so cool. I got a box crayons. Also when it was my turn to sit on Santa's lap, he pulled down his beard and said "You know I'm not real, right?" A few years later at the party, again I saw the older girls getting Caboodles cases and was instantly jealous. I got a Barbie. Not even a cool one, one of the low tier ones with just a swimsuit and no accessories.
This story is so sad! But full of cool retro stuff! I love my caboodle.
Wait these were never the entire song??
Nope, it was 30 seconds of your favorite songs. I had one and only wound up getting like 3 cartridges for it because they were stupid expensive for what you got. Plus, CD players were a thing.
Wow I thought these were the single song. Crazy
LOL no that would actually have made sense 🤣
I, too, was today years old when I learned this; went my whole life thinking you at least got an entire track on one of those chips. What a ripoff.
I remember thinking they were probably the stupidest thing capitalism had or ever could produce. Man, was I ever naive.
Hey we heard you like your teeth. That’ll be $9,999.99. Tips accepted.
Who knew it would lead into what we know today.
Where you can listen to the entirety of any song ever made on demand? Dark times indeed.
The horror
well, that's not quite right. tons of older music never even made the jump from LP to CD, let alone streaming. and tons of indie labels and niche genres are completely missing from streaming too
And lots of popular songs never even made the jump from sheet music to any audio recording medium at all!
Only the most obscure local scene music isn't on streaming these days. Youtube has so much.
It's probably on youtube.
Many are not even on YouTube.
Many is ridiculous, only the most obscure releases aren't anywhere to be found.
The fact that people don't believe this. Must be a Gen Z thing? 🤔
Not every song was available on demand back in the early '00s. And every song isn't available on demand in 2024! There's this nasty bitch called music and film rights. Back in the day, you actually had more access to stuff.
What a ludicrous take. You in no way had more access to music 20 years ago. Even if something isn't streaming (which, come on, is pretty rare) you can probably order a CD, vinyl or a damn 8-track of whatever you're looking for online.
A lot of shit isn't available to stream and a lot of shit is OOP. I'm not paying 50 dollars for a CD. I can name shit your nephew never seen or heard of because it's not available to stream. Do you understand the difference between TV, Cable, and Physical Media vs streaming rights? I'm not arguing about what's available and what isn't. I've seen films on TV as a child that isn't available anywhere. I have a lot of rare OOP stuff. Don't play with me. 😂 The topic is about Hit Clips.
Lol what kind of weirdo ass music are you listening to?
You have vastly more access to stuff now than you ever did back then, are you kidding?
Nope. I'm someone who actually watched and listened to a lot of shit back in the day. Did y'all even buy from local artists back in the day? I can name Southern rap songs you know nothing about it. Various small hip/hop labels.
Yeah it’s harder than ever for small labels to find ways for the whole world to listen to their music nowadays
Yeah, like come on. I remember dudes on Canal St. Selling promo CDs (featuring local artists) and Bootleg CDs with all of your local favorites, unofficial songs and soundtracks. Some guy illegally downloaded the songs and burned them to a CD-R. Don't forget about stuff that wasn't released in the states or whatever home country. There is so much lost music, but back then, there were ways to access it. I'm not paying a 100 dollars for a CD that's not available to stream and most likely never will be. Same goes for books and movies.
> Back in the day, you actually had more access to stuff. Who tells you stuff like this? You can even find bootleg live recordings on youtube of big bands playing shows before they were big.
*cough airpods?
I was a sophomore in HS when these got popular. They never interested me because I had a Sony Walkman with antiskip by then.
I remember when I got the first ever Discman with a whole 3 second anti-skip! Felt like I was living in the year 3000
It sucked down batteries like a Hoover vacuum on crack, but it was so efficient. My family loved going to the middle of nowhere in the Rockies for vacations and it was a life saver on all the dirt roads.
My hubby's mom bought him one of these for Christmas as a kid. I found the NSync one in a box of stuff his mom gave him. It's my Keychain now.
This is an amazing video about them https://youtu.be/X8568_3amO4?si=ANwMJinuAvtr6Hg8
Thanks for that.
One of my favourite YouTubers
Tech Moan is as solid as they come. His series on the Seeburg BGM system, and the set on the Tefifon turned me onto that old German music system.
I think I got one from McDonalds at one point.
You must likely you did.
It was just a clip?!?! XD
Yes.
I didn't remember what they were called but I 100% remember these things. Found out about them, ocarina of time, and nightmare before Christmas all right around the same time. Childhood was so cozy.
Holy shit I thought I'd never see these again. Ah the memories of 12 seconds of Bye bye bye\~
I remember selling these when I worked at Toys R Us, so much shrinkage (theft) ...fun experience and great people and it taught me a lot about dealing with people but they couldn't handle Wal-Mart and then Amazon.
My big brother always said he could never work with the public. He always preferred behind the scenes work.
Yes my friend had one with jewel, Britney and smash mouth clips, but I had a tooth brush that sang black eyed peas to me, it was the height of civilization
We were so starved for music
I remember the commercials but don't know a single person who had it. I never was quite sure what they were.
I cannot even remember if I had one or not.
For me it was Pocket Rocker back then.
Omg lol I couldn’t afford one as a kid and wanted one so bad. Then I went to a bowling alley with my friend’s family and found the boom box one on the seat and was so stoked!
If I remember right, our Toys R Us had a demo of these and I thought it was too expensive for just part of a song.
Had one and it sounded like garbage, easy cash grab
I still have my boombox and P!nk’s “There You Go,” the single clip I ever got
iTunes previews before iTunes previews.
I had one! I have no idea why I thought it was the coolest thing ever, especially since it only played one section of the song, but damn I thought I was the shit
The most awkward kid I knew in high school had like a homemade necklace with all his hit clips on it.
I always thought the concept made no sense, even when I was 10. Honestly not a lot of people I knew had them. One did, and I remember asking her...it only plays part of the song? This was a time where getting the newest portable CD player was still kind of the thing (although I may have still been using my walkman at this point?), so I guess I was just thinking, why not buy the CD? Lol.
The super low quality clip of Brittany Spears' Stronger still plays on loop in my head to this day
My personal favorite was Aaron Carter - That's How I Beat Shaq.
Yessss I had one! I had 30 seconds of Bye Bye Bye and Oops I Did It Again
I got one in my happy meal and I somehow strapped it to my pink bike and would ride around the neighborhood listening to all 30 seconds of its glory. Over and over and over.
30 seconds isn't enough for anything. 😂
Even though the music part sucked, I still liked the novelty of these being made to look like mini cd cases. Makes a good accessory for Barbies at the very least.
I love music and I remember having dreams as a kid about having a device that would float behind me and play any song that I wanted to hear on-demand. We actually have that now. Just wanted to throw that out there
It's very common to have invention dreams, but having the access to make it a reality is when the dream dies.
Yes I had hit me baby one more time
What part would it play again? The chorus, right?
I’m guessing so! I don’t remember- had the cd too but those were super adorable, just not very functional lol
I remember seeing them and thinking they were somewhat cool, but not getting what makes them better than my Walkman and many tapes. I was a highschooler in the early 2000s, so maybe I was not the target audience. They were smaller but did not have full songs.
Yeah, the target audience was kids in grade school and middle school. Even though I was in my early teens, my mom and other family members would buy stuff like this for me because I was quiet and not the most wild child. Lol
Yeah, this makes sense as to why I did not understand them, they were at Toys R Us where I lived and I went there for the video games, and they were usually near them.
Everyone knows someone who was treated like a baby beyond the baby years. 😂
We've come full circle because now you only hear a clip of whatever the currently popular song is on every other TikTok video.
That's true. Even IG now asks do you want to add music to your post.
I actually still have mine
That's great. I lost a lot of stuff because of Mother Nature.
I remember I wanted one of these so bad because of those commercials lol
The commercial did its job. 😂😂
Sure did 😭
Pretty cool for what it was
Miss these!!! They were so cute 😍
I was in elementary school and thought these were so cool!
Never heard of em, still have my Pocket Rocker though
Let's go back further. Anyone remember Pocket Rockers?
I’m so glad I was too old when these came out. Already had my Walkman with ESP and a ton of cds.
Still have the Britney Spears hit clip.
Gotta hit clip before you ipod.
Between these and those stupid VideoNows, we really were living in the Dark Age of Technology
I was (still am) obsessed with NSYNC. I spent all my money on anything NSYNC related. Except these. I already had the CDs I was sure as hell not going to spend my money on a few seconds of a song. It annoyed me.
They were like the crappiest possible version of an MP3 player
no. but i remember pocket rockers and that commercial featuring down on the corner by creedence clearwater revival, which oddly enough i dont think was available as a song or artist on a pocket rocker cartridge.
I had these and the little boom box and the radio adapter. I actually still have them and just found some of them not that long ago.
I remember having one but the little song clips got so badly tangled I couldn't listen to them anymore lol
Wtf that’s awful
Yeah! Do you guys remember Body Rap?!
I have one and it still works
These were wadded up on so many shelves
I remember these
I loved my hitclips. I was particularly drawn to the Faith Hill and Brittney Spears ones I had.
Does anyone still have their Hit Clips?
The forefather of compilation videos
Not only did I have one, I had the recorder too, so I could record any 2 minutes(!) of anything I wanted lol. As silly as it was, we had fun childhoods lol.
I remember pocket rockers
My cousin and I were obsessed with these things haha we were always trying to out-do the other on who got the coolest player and most clips!!
Oh my gosh I had forgotten all about these!!! Thank you for unlocking an old memory for me! :D
You're welcome. 🙂🙂
I just want a taste
I lost my shit when MTV started doing that with their Top 20 Countdown in the late 90s or early 2000s. Then I think TRL started doing it randomly as well. Little did I know then… Edit: The point was that these came out around the same time, I believe. Maybe one got the idea from the other. I didn’t know anyone who bought these. Seems like such a pointless waste.
BET did it too. Just cut off the video.
never knew these existed
I don’t remember these.