The Cassette Revival

The past decade has seen a noticeable shift in musical platform trends. Turntables are leaving musty basements and pawnshops to become the centerpieces of living rooms. Owners are blowing the years of dust off of their vinyl sleeves and finding new life in the large black disks thought obsolete not so long ago.

It’s an interesting physical revival of music, especially in our digital age. In the early 2000s, services such as Napster were expected to be the future of delivering music to listeners. And illegal platforms such as LimeWire separated artists from their fans. But a renaissance of physical music releases is underway—first vinyl, and in its wake, cassette tapes.

New Interest In An Old Platform

“I think the comeback of cassette tapes is a great thing,” says Ryan Czekala, an avid collector of both cassettes and vinyl.

Cassettes, first released in the 1960s, saw an exponential loss in popularity in the 1980s and throughout the ‘90s once the compact disc hit the market. By the time the 2000s came, a future with cassette tapes seemed out of the picture—until a new group became interested: the millennial generation.

“It’s totally a throwback thing, and kids our age really dig things that are vintage,” says Nicholas Abel, vocalist and guitarist of Chicago-based band Dingus, whose EP was released on cassette tape.

Millennials are nostalgic. Vintage items are making a popular comeback with today’s youth and young adults. And music is just one component; the nostalgia for entertainment systems such as the Nintendo 64, released 20 years ago, is as strong as ever. Modern fashion reclaims looks like grunge that were popular in the ‘90s. The Millennials find a sense of comfort in these things.

Music In Your Hands

Nostalgia is not all that is fueling the comeback of cassette tapes; music fans, across all genres, are realizing the value of physical releases, from the album art to simply being able to touch them.

“I like to have the physical culmination of someone’s art in my hands,” says Abel.

The revival of cassette tapes also opens up a whole other platform for collectors. Record labels often release multiple variants of cassettes, making some more exclusive than others and generating excitement among collectors.

“I like cassettes mainly for the collecting side of things,” says Czekala. “They just add to the addiction of finding out what is more limited, rare, or what variants are the coolest.”

Constantly in his stereo, a Kingmaker cassette is Czekala’s prized collection: Its first pressing only released ten tapes.

The Marketplace

Tape decks, turntables and rows upon rows of vinyl are all packed into an intimate shop on Milwaukee’s East Side: Bullseye Records. The shop is home to a variety of musical genres and platforms—including cassette tapes.

“We are dipping our toes in the cassette business,” says Bullseye employee Terry Hackbarth, whose long hair, bushy sideburns, and a tan blazer come straight from the ’70s.

Hackbarth is fond of cassettes; he recalls his younger days of driving his first car and listening to one of his prized tapes—XTC’s “Skylarking.”

“Undoubtedly, my favorite part of cassettes are making mix tapes,” he says. “You can put a lot of thought into them and they are easily portable.”

Although Bullseye Records notices an increase in cassette tape popularity, the buying trends are still “niche-y” at the store. The collection at the back is filled with older artists such at Black Sabbath and Prince and the Revolution, running for about $5 per tape. Still, the store’s frequent visitors include a college-aged crowd; anticipating increased demand on their part, the store plans to increase its stock of both cassette tapes and tape decks

“This rise in popularity of cassette tapes is sort of an ‘80s revival, just like down the road there will be a CD revival,” says Hackbarth.

Other record stores see less interest in the cassette revival, though.

“Cassettes are my least favorite format for music,” says Brian Kirk, manager of The Exclusive Company in Milwaukee. But despite his personal lack of interest, Kirk sees the value cassettes are bringing to people, especially local bands.

“Cassettes are cheap for bands to produce and cheap for fans to buy,” he says. “They make it financially viable for these bands to release something physical.”

Costing less than records and CDs, cassettes are a nice option for fans that don’t want a strictly digital music collection. And although records have become increasingly popular, CDs have seen a decrease in popularity.

“People have turned away from the CD,” says Kirk.

CDs make up a fair amount of the store’s inventory, but recently a few shelves on the pop/rock CD racks have disappeared. Even vehicle manufacturers have stopped putting CD drives in some of their cars.

It seems that the older formats have stolen the physical release spotlight from CDs. And although only a small batch of cassettes has hit the shelves at The Exclusive Company – and the store isn’t ramping up plans to sell more tapes – it is a format on the rise, he acknowledges

“Cassettes are unique,” says Kirk. “Local gigs and shops are a good place to pick them up.”

Not only do local musicians have turned to cassette tapes to release their music at lower costs. Well-known artists such as Blink-182 and Green Day have begun to re-release their albums on cassette to cater to buyer demands. International retailers such as Urban Outfitters embrace the revival as well, carrying dozens of punk and indie tapes. The consensus is: cassettes are coming back.

Production

Cassettes have a sound that sets them apart from other music formats. Some prefer it, some don’t.

“They have a distinguishable analog sound that listeners find appealing,” says Hackbarth.

“Cassettes bring out the imperfections that make music sound a way no other format can,” says Chase Brown, a 16-year-old collector.

Although some may consider the cassette sound lower in quality, labels are producing new releases with clear sound quality that some listeners prefer. Rats Among Us Records, an up-and-coming label, is embracing the cassette revival.

Rats Among Us Records started in August 2015 as a hobby for founders Kyle Edwards and Brendon Hansen. “It was just something to do,” says Edwards.

The two started by creating tapes for their friends and other bands with which they were familiar.

“This is a DIY promotion for hardcore bands,” says Edwards. “There are so many bands out there that deserve attention.”

Edwards collected cassettes well before the label came to be—his prized collectibles are his Slipknot tapes, many of them signed or rare. His history of cassette tape collection influenced the label to use the format for its releases.

“Anybody can call up a CD company and have a hundred CDs made for them,” says Edwards. “But cassettes are different—they’re rarer.”

Edwards and Hansen are pleased with the reaction their cassette releases have received thus far.

“We have received praise on the quality of our tapes,” says Edwards. “We want to show people that cassettes can sound good. I believe the work we’ve done sounds just as good as a CD.”

And the future seems prosperous for Rats Among Us Records: The label recently signed Backbone, a band from Madison, Wis., and plan to sign three more this year, promising an increase in cassette production.

The Future Of Cassettes

“I never experienced the glory days of the cassette tape,” says Brown, the teen-aged collector. “But people are realizing why cassettes were loved in the first place.”

Magnetic tape is not the only thing rolled around the cassette tape spools. To press play on a tape deck is to unwind a nostalgic and distinct sound only found on this format. The cassette encourages the listener to sit back and enjoy the full album with only one intermission—the flip over to side B—a phenomenon rare in the heyday of smartphones in which the listener can pick and choose song after song. Less convenient? Perhaps. But artists lay out full albums to be listened as such, creating a narrative for the listener—an experience many digital listeners may be missing.

Fortunately, with the youthful passion for keeping physical formats around, this way of the album will stay alive.

“They’ll stick, just like vinyl,” says Abel, the Dingus musician. “There will always be people who prefer listening to the cassette.”