Cassette?

[Martin]

I've been ordering new music recently and noticed an odd trend. Every site I've visited recently is offering cassette tapes alongside LPs, CDs and downloads.

Some examples:

• https://shop.aurora-music.com/
• https://shop.adele.com/
• https://usstore.edsheeran.com/music-1.html
• https://store.billieeilish.com/collections/music

Who is buying cassette tapes and why?

Martin

 

[Chrispy]

Well, some actually like the format. Why did vinyl make a comeback? Some people like the stuff enough to bring it back. Think a few artists helped cassettes along with releases of material on cassette. I blame it on Guardians of the Galaxy mixtapes

 

[thefsb]

I noticed that too. I don't know who. I would guess that the why has something to do with reaction to the digital rentier economy. It's like buying an Instax camera because you have a smart phone. You own the Instax print in a way that you can't own a digital file in the cloud. You can gift it or destroy it.

 

[Zensō]

I've been ordering new music recently and noticed an odd trend. Every site I've visited recently is offering cassette tapes alongside LPs, CDs and downloads.

Some examples:

• https://shop.aurora-music.com/
• https://shop.adele.com/
• https://usstore.edsheeran.com/music-1.html
• https://store.billieeilish.com/collections/music

Who is buying cassette tapes and why?

Martin

This has been a growing trend for the past few years with indie artists. I believe it started as a way to offer physical media that one can create at home for very little investment. There are actually a few small indie labels that primarily offer cassette compilations:

Seil Records

seil records is a community of electronic musicians, who took on the seemingly impossible task of...

seil-records.com

As for who's buying, I get the impression there's a definite hispster element, but also a certain type of music enthusiast who is into extremely obscure artists. I see quite a few cassette releases in certain obscure genres such as Eurorack modular ambient and related electronic offshoots. Artists are also using cassette loops to create various types of experimental music:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeovElJP0n0i8ADaPsRSd8g

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

If there was a scene in a hit movie where a hipster is playing an Edison cylinder, you can bet your ass cylinders and the phonographs to play them would be making a comeback. Only now they would have a USB jack.

 

[Blumlein 88]

You think in about 20 years CD will make a comeback?

 

[KaLam1ty]

More-or-less what's been mentioned, I suppose. There's an allure to the the physical format, not all to different from vinyl.

Personally, I find vinyl to be much more "substantial" of a format, but I'm sure some people find the cassette profile and ritual to be a thing of interest too. It's also much more affordable and easier to move around.

At least in the indie, metal, punk, underground etc... scenes, vinyl and cassette never really died. For cassette specifically, it's always continued to be an extremely "cheap" and tradeable format -- harken the "tape trading black metal days" and all. At least when it comes to all of the lasting and new metal labels I'm familiar with, they've almost always offered cassette.

With older mediums taking the limelight these days, it doesn't surprise me that cassette is becoming a highlight, as well.

 

[MrC]

There are actually a few cassette based forums that are quite busy and there are quite a few audiophiles on YouTube promoting casettes as the alternative and simpler option to reel to reel.

Add that to things like some Nakamichi decks that are selling for 2 or 3k, it is a movement that is not mainstream but certainly has a following.

 

[MrC]

And blank cassettes are actually pretty expensive now, for some of the more popular blanks (NOS) you are looking at around 15 to 20 dollars each.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

Cassette is certainly an easily transportable and maintenance free medium which doesn't require a tweaky turntable setup to play. I can see the allure. They just don't sound all that great, and the transports are cheaply made. I'm waiting for somebody to come out with a car cassette player.

 

[MrC]

Cassette is certainly an easily transportable and maintenance free medium which doesn't require a tweaky turntable setup to play. I can see the allure. They just don't sound all that great, and the transports are cheaply made. I'm waiting for somebody to come out with a car cassette player.

Maybe even a portable one!

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

And blank cassettes are actually pretty expensive now, for some of the more popular blanks (NOS) you are looking at around 15 to 20 dollars each.

As far as I know, nobody is making the older chromium type tapes which are the only ones which had any measure of performance (such as it was).

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

Maybe even a portable one!

Yeah, I can see it now. A big thingy with two speakers, a cassette transport and a handle to carry it. What a concept!

 

[mhardy6647]

Cassettes...

 

[Zensō]

As far as I know, nobody is making the older chromium type tapes which are the only ones which had any measure of performance (such as it was).

Though in some cases, people don't want that high performance. This is a popular VST:

Cassette | Vintage tape simulator | Audio plugin

Cassette is an audio plugin (VST, VST3, AAX, AU) that imparts the unique sound of a real cassette tape, with a high quality tape simulation algorithm.

www.wavesfactory.com

 

[Berwhale]

You think in about 20 years CD will make a comeback?

No, that's next year. Mini-disc is the year after. MP3's are due back by 2030 and MQA's will become hugely collectable in 2035

 

[JeffS7444]

Cassettes have been kind of a low-level thing for some time now, and Urban Outfitters has offered a modest selection for awhile.

My hunch has been that some stuff associated with youth culture has it's origins in scavenging the cast-off items of older generations.

 

[Sombreuil]

I noticed that too. I don't know who. I would guess that the why has something to do with reaction to the digital rentier economy. It's like buying an Instax camera because you have a smart phone. You own the Instax print in a way that you can't own a digital file in the cloud. You can gift it or destroy it.

As someone who listens to ambient & drone music a lot, cassettes make a lot of sense for certain albums. You add randomness (hiss and breaks for example) that you couldn't have with plugins (even with some automation), and that's the only way to achieve it as far as I know.

 

[BloatedToad]

I always understood vinyl: The cover size is fantastic, you can leaf through it and not need a magnifying glass. Cassettes will always hold a special place for me when the Walkman first came out and I could ride my bike, deliver papers and listen to music I think the first song on the cassette mix tape was Dance Hall Days by Wang Chung, just such a feeling of freedom! Then MP3 players and then FLAC and I never looked back. I do collect some vinyl, but not any cassettes but to each their own in whatever format they wish

 

[Killingbeans]

Who is buying cassette tapes and why?

Hipsters. Because... hipsters.