When Taylor Swift’s releases her new album, “Life of a Showgirl,” in October, it can be heard on the usual places, including streaming, vinyl and…cassette tape?
The cassette tape was once one of the most common ways to listen to music, overtaking vinyl in the 1980s before being surpassed by CDs. But the physical audio format has become an artifact of a bygone era, giving way to the convenience of streaming.
Or, that’s what many thought.
In 2023, 436,400 cassettes were sold in the United States, according to the most recent data available from Luminate, an entertainment data firm. Although that’s a far cry from the 440 million cassettes sold in the 1980s, it’s a sharp increase from the 80,720 cassettes sold in 2015 and a notable revival for a format that had been all but written off.
Cassettes might not be experiencing the resurgence of vinyls or even CDs, but they are making a bit of a comeback, spurred by fans wanting an intimate experience with music and nostalgia, said Charlie Kaplan, owner of online store Tapehead City.
“People just like having something you can hold and keep, especially now when everything’s just a rented file on your phone,” Kaplan told CNN.
“Tapes provide a different type of listening experience — not perfect, but that’s part of it. Flip it over, look at the art and listen all the way through. You connect with the music with more of your senses,” he said.
There are a number of collectors and enthusiasts who enjoy alternative types of media. It was an experience listening to music on tape and hearing the hiss of the tape. It has a different sound to it, sort of like vinyl.
If there’s money to be made, they’ll find ways to get it. If that means selling tapes, they’ll sell tapes again. Records are still back in style and being mass produced again.
Record collectors mostly and obsessed fans. Vinyls and CDs may have done a comeback back, still are expensive.
me. i am buying those.
fun nostalgia. it’s physical, tactile, the sounds that come along with a physical cassette. and yes, the audio is imperfect, but that’s part of the experience and charm.
i already have lossless digital files. this is a different experience.
Wait until this guy hears about a certain genre called black metal…
I’ve seen various artists selling those on bandcamp, and they’re often sold out
There is a large subset of hipster types who are notalgic for VHS, cassette, film and early digital cameras.
It’s because of ‘vibes’. It makes them feel different, special, more important than the ‘normies’ listening to stuff on Spotify, watching stuff on Netflix, or using iphones for photography. They think it’s more ‘authentic’, ‘analog’, etc.
Yes, they are insufferable people to be around. I grew up with Cassettes and VHS. It sucked balls. I vastly prefer my 4K streaming and high bit rate audio. But I understand that for younger people or hipster types, the ‘retro’ aspect is super appealing and it makes them feel special. I have several friends like this over the years and they love to go on long rants about how superior they are for this stuff and how ignorant the Spotified masses are.
nostalgic audiophiles
You’d be surprised.
As a matter of fact, many well known and famous artists have been releasing dbrwnd new albums on old media for years and years.
For example I have a casset of 10000 days by tool.
I’m also an idiot audiophile with a stereo that’s way way too expensive for my own good. (I’m not rich but I am broke.)
I swear to God I can hear a difference and theres all kinds of warm fuzzy feelings when I put a casset in.
it’s actually super common for underground music. I have a collection of new music on cassette. it costs a lot of money to press vinyl, and a lot of bands just aren’t there.
Perhaps a reason to dust off my walkman! … if this cassette is even affordable.
properly new cassettes are usually not expensive. it’s only original classics from 30-40 yrs ago that are marked up.
I figure normally, yeah, but I feel like Taylor Swift playing around with a new medium probably comes with a heavy price tag.
oh maybe, i’m not actually a Swift fan. i’m just here for cassette talk. XD
i tend to get my new cassettes for around €7-€12.
Collectors? Idiots?
Another one of those pointless articles… Cassettes have been on the rise for a couple of years now, and for the same reasons that vinyl has been making a comeback; mainly fake nostalgia and the yearning for true ownership in form of physical media.
As a vinyl snob, listening to music on that medium isn’t better. The quality is at best a little worse than what you get from a CD, it’s inconvenient, bloody expensive and it takes up space.
BUT you get to actually hold the music you love in your hands and listen to it more intently, because you’ve made the effort of putting on a record instead of just pressing play. I like that.
Edit: just realised I just made the same points the article made… oh well. I’ll just continue archiving my CD collection. Not (only) for posterity, but as a big middle finger to the RIAA.
I mean, most vinyl snobs I know… that’s the point. It’s a way to signify how ‘hardcore’ they are about music because they spend the money/time/space on it. That their listening inexpressive is ‘more authentic and real’ than me listening to spotify in my car. It’s a form of conspicuous consumption.
Another one of those pointless articles… Cassettes have been on the rise for a couple of years now, and for the same reasons that vinyl has been making a comeback; mainly fake nostalgia and the yearning for true ownership in form of physical media.
No. Cassettes sound like shit. They are a very lossy format. Vinyl actually sounds different in ways that people like. My vinyl collection has nothing to do with nostalgia (I grew up after CDs were on the rise). On a solid system, there’s a lot more fidelity in the bass on vinyl.
Cassettes don’t sound too bad if you actually have good equipment, which most people nowadays don’t (because most can’t afford collector’s prices for decent decks). I was born in 97, vinyl records were long dead by then. Most people who get into vinyl nowadays actually grew up with iPods (hence the term “fake nostalgia”).
On a solid system, there’s a lot more fidelity in the bass on vinyl.
Eh… it’s pretty much all down to mastering, but vinyl records have a limited dynamic range compared to CDs which makes the bass more pronounced maybe? Not something I’ve noticed but I tend to prefer clear high end and mid range anyway.
Digital fidelity (sample rate) grows more granular in higher frequencies because that’s easier for us to distinguish. (See the Fletcher-Munson Curve from Bell Labs: on a bell curve, we hear best at the frequency of a baby crying.) Think of stair steps that get closer and more numerous over time. That’s a representation of the resolution of the sound across frequencies from low to high. I may be explaining it poorly because I moved away from audio engineering toward a different career a long time ago.
Analog has all the information that’s missing in between the larger, wider steps. It’s not a placebo (didn’t say you called it that). It’s how digital audio works.
My instance isn’t allowing me to upload images for some reason. It had extended downtime the other day, so maybe that’s related. Anyway, here’s a link to a page with a chart that illustrates what I’m attempting to describe.
Thanks, it’s always great to hear the details from some guy who knows his shit
Also, old records (from early in the CD era) had nowhere near the fidelity of modern records. I played a modern record for my father once and he was astounded how far they’ve come.
In my experience, it’s still pretty hit or miss. The smaller indie labels tend to get it right more than the big names.
What does fake nostalgia mean?
it makes nostalgia for something that never existed.
there is plenty of it for say medieval history. our fantasy conception of medieval times… is mostly completely false/fake.
or take the concept of the ‘noble savage’ as if cavemen are morally pure being or something. complete nonsense.
And yet people believe these things are legit and real.
I don’t think it’s actually a real term, but I kinda mean that it’s nostalgic to people who can’t really have nostalgia for it because they’re too young to have experienced it being the main music format.
I’ve heard it called “Borrowed nostalgia” before.
Ah. That makes sense.
Swift is a billionaire. She did not become a billionaire by releasing her albums in single formats. Streaming, cds, multiple collector editions in vinyl and now cassettes. Agree writes music to appeal to the most people possible and then creates as many different sources for her fans to give her money as she can.
she make her money from concerts and licensing fees. not music sales
most artists income these days comes from concerts. music sales aren’t money makers anymore the way they used to be.
Older dude here:
There is no advantage to listening to something on a cassette, except for the vintage brownie points.
I did the analog to digital transition, and miss nothing. There was an intermediate time, when mp3s came along, and people were lowering bitrates to absurd levels, but digital is simply better.
All the people talking wonders about the “warmth”, “tone”, and other supposedly desirable qualities are very mistaken. What they are fawning over is noise, feedback, muddiness, lack of range, lack of definition, and so on. Vinyl records are shit. They make sound by literally scratching something.
The only advantage of tape was, at the time, it’s smaller size and portability, but sound was worse than records. I still have the last deck I owned, a marvel of technology of the time, a double auto-reverse TEAC deck with Dolby and Dbx noise reduction, auto azimuth, programmable, etc, which is objectively shit compared to a decent mp3 player, provided that the music is encoded in lossless, or large enough bitrate.
CDs were a massive improvement, and the pinnacle were DDD CDs, which were Digital recording, Digital mixing, and Digital mastering, meaning very little analog garbage was introduced in the process.
The objective for audio equipment is to be transparent, to not add or detract anything from the original performance.
You’ve completely missed the point.
You grew up in a world where the quirks of analog formats were nothing but technical limitations to be overcome. It is true that a FLAC is literally superior in every way to a Vinyl if your value function only takes in cost, quality, and convenience.
HOWEVER Gen Z grew up in a world where music was always cheap and convenient to access. We also (mostly) grew up in a world of touchscreens and always-online gadgets and doodads. My generation’s first portable music player was often the iPod touch. You know what all of that does to a person? It creates a deep craving for tactile feedback. For technology that doesn’t nag with software updates, for music that can’t be “unlicensed” and pulled from your library remotely, for a music player that you can touch and feel and interact with in a more meaningful way than tapping on the little square of glass that already runs our lives. For the little rituals that have been stripped away, like flipping a vinyl at the midway point or rewinding a tape.
The entire point of analog is that it’s “worse”. It’s un-clinical, it’s raw, it’s tactile, it’s physical. Listening to my favorite albums on vinyl is such a better experience than through the disembodied shuffle of my phone. I don’t crave maximum audio fidelity or convenience because I always could have those things literally whenever I want.
the point is feeling like it’s superior when it objective isn’t as some sort of form of teenage rebellion or something.
not any different in the 90s when everything was CDs and that the few ‘cool’ kids were still using records as a FU to ‘the man’. and wearing 70s clothing styles.
It’s all about making yourself feel special.
Well you hardly have a leg to stand on about “feeling superior” when you’re out here being smug about criticizing harmless tastes.
I don’t see how listening to vinyls in the privacy of my own home is considered performative, but if that’s the only reasoning you’re willing to entertain… Well go right ahead, I thought I made a good case for it but I guess I was wrong and I am buying vinyls for the clout.
I’m not criticizing anything. The fact you feel criticized by my comment… maybe you are doing it performatively… if only for yourself?
Your view is totally fine, but I guess you’re not understanding why people do this. I’m a millennial, around 30. Personally I buy CDs, I buy vinyl, and I even have some stuff on tape. I’ve also recently picked up film photography and among my friends it’s common nowadays to bring some 2000-2010 digicams.
So why? flac is perfect, and streaming services stream whatever high-quality music you’d ever want to play. Film is expensive, and digicams are often way more shit than whatever a modern smartphone that’s already in your pocket can do.
Personally I’ve become bored by perfection, overwhelmed by choice, and frustrated with the lack of owning anything. When I play a physical album I sit down for it, I am focused on the music. I cannot easily choose the music, I’ll just have to accept the order of the album. There are way fewer choices to overwhelm me. Likewise, with film photography, it feels simpler in a way. You shoot a few images in a go, because film isn’t cheap, and you’ll only get to see them weeks later when the roll is developed. No pressure of the perfect shot, no insane resolution to show any imperfection. And mistakes just happen, because you cannot see what you’re doing, so you just have to accept them. Digitally you can just take 20 pictures and take the best one.
So back to music. Why would one prefer vinyl or tape over CD? As a life-long CD collector, I wondered the same thing a few years ago. But when artists that I enjoy started skipping CD releases in favor of vinyl I hopped in, invested in a shit vinyl player, and didn’t really get it. Sure it had a character, but it wasn’t great in any way. After some more research I found out that it was probably just the vinyl player (please don’t get some cheap shit for a 100 bucks with a red unbranded needle). I invested in an Audiotechnica LP70XBT, and oh boy did stuff improve. I finally get it. The sound is gorgeous, though not necessarily better or worse than CD imo. It’s a bit warmer, with detailed bass but less clinical high end. And I love the whole tactile experience of it. Older vinyl definitely sounds worse than modern CD quality though.
I think it’s the whole experience that people enjoy. Putting the vinyl or cassette in the player, having something move and, as if it were magic, suddenly there’s music. With a slightly different character that differentiates it from the clean and clinical sound of high quality digital audio. Modern digital audio is great and definitely has its place, but at times it can feel sterile, too perfect. The crackles and warmth of vinyl, the grain and slightly off colours of photographic film, they feel like they have more personality. They stem from a time where the imperfections of the medium still kinda hid the imperfections of the artist.
(Okay this turned into quite a ramble but I hope there’s something useful in there :3 )
The only advantage of tape was, at the time, it’s smaller size and portability
And not being read-only.
Also, you could spool them with a pencil.
Shit! I forgot about the life -changing Need to spool with a Pencil
With CDs they were negatively impacted by the loudness war as it became much more widespread. Having to hunt around for the right recording, often the earlier ones, can be expensive. Normalisation of the recordings by streaming companies is just an awful idea as it doesn’t fix the bad parts of the mix just turns everything down.
I prefer SACDs to CDs, mostly because they tended to be mastered and mixed better than the CDs of the past two decades. The surround audio mixes are mostly just gimmicky, although they are a good fit for some records, but they almost always had a two channel mix that you could pick instead. The higher frequency range is mostly pointless.
I agree. The loudness is not what I dislike the least. Most 1st gen CDs were the work of love of sound engineers and producers, given near miraculous equipment, to produce records with unheard of quality. I own several. Dire straits Brothers in arms is one of these, a truly brilliant recording (The album itself is brilliant) The sound quality is truly astounding.
The whole thing took a downturn when they started compressing the recordings to fit FM frequencies. Why they didn’t do the compression at the FM station, and leave the uncompressed stream for us, is always been a mystery to me.
As for the range, it is generally pointless. Most people, even when young, can’t hear above 20 Khz.
All the people talking wonders about the “warmth”, “tone”, and other supposedly desirable qualities are very mistaken. What they are fawning over is noise, feedback, muddiness, lack of range, lack of definition, and so on. Vinyl records are shit. They make sound by literally scratching something.
I moved to all-digital music-making and -listening in the 90s, and agree that a lot of the “analog” benefits are imagined or the result of misunderstandings how technology works.
But I think you’re missing the point. Don’t forget that noise, feedback, muddiness, lack of range, lack of definition are all legitimate effects often intentionally applied to make music sound a certain way.
A cassette is objectively lower quality by sampling rate, reproducibility, etc, but you agree that it affects the sound. At that point, I think you have to admit that a contrary personal preference for cassette or vinyl is valid. It’s not objectively “worse” because many people actually and validly find those “bugs” to be “features.”
It’s fine to like the digital revolution, but I’m just identifying you’re making a value judgement, and others can rightly value differently.
CDs were a massive improvement, and the pinnacle were DDD CDs, which were Digital recording, Digital mixing, and Digital mastering, meaning very little analog garbage was introduced in the process.
Very little analog garbage… Except for literally every instrument tracked in, including distortion pedals. :)
That is by design. Unwanted noise is shit. A large part of the electronic pathways were noise and other unwanted signals removers
I know, I was being cheeky :) Cheers!
I don’t like touch screens, or screens in general. I miss Minidisc so much. It was and is the absolute best for me.
The iPod with the click wheel would be my next choice but they’re too expensive now. CD cases were cumbersome, and when lined up it’s hard to read the spines. They skip too when I’m walking.
I’d go back to cassettes again if they were released to the same standard as back in the day (Dolby NR, etc). I like handling the cases and they look better lined up on a shelf.
