- Sales of cassette tapes quintupled between 2015 and 2022.
- The music technology is cheap to publish, and allows fans to have an inexpensive token of their love for a band.
- With the rise of modern classics, are enthusiasts among the groups fueling this comeback?
My previous daily driver was a 2000 VW Beetle that I inherited from my mom, and the only way to listen to pre-recorded music was by inserting a tape into the stereo. That prompted me to buy a few albums to keep in my car (I can still recite most of Madvillainy by heart) but I had no idea I was a flipping tastemaker!
Okay, maybe I was just broke, and had an affinity for old technology, but the point remains that cassette tapes are making a comeback thanks to, of all people, Gen Z. That’s right, the young, hip kids are all out there buying little plastic rectangles.
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Sales of cassette tapes have quintupled in recent years, going from just 81,000 units in 2015, to a whopping 436,400 in 2022, reports Bloomberg. The increase is being driven by a couple of factors.
Firstly, there’s pop culture. The popularity of films like Guardians of the Galaxy and shows like Stranger Things have brought tapes back into the popular imagination. It doesn’t hurt that ’90s styles are also hot right now.
That has led artists like Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, and more to release small runs of their albums on tape. Although the sales tend to be low, cassettes are also extremely cheap to make, and tend to cost fans just $10 to buy, as compared to $35-$40 for a vinyl record.
That allows fans to have a physical copy of a record they love without breaking the bank, and enables smaller acts to release tapes, too. And, although the sound quality of a cassette is lower than a vinyl record’s, the little plastic albums are portable, and can be played anywhere, including in a car.
With the increasing interest in modern classics on auction sites like Bring a Trailer, it seems only rational to presume that in addition to a Bluetooth tape, some of you out there might also have a couple of albums, or maybe even a mixtape in your rad classic, and we want to hear from you.
Do you listen to cassette tapes in your car? If so, let us know what albums you’re listening to, and what car you’re listening to them in?
