Cassettes

What's up with cassettes becoming so popular again?

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complex.com/music/2018/01/us-album-cassette-sales-increased-2017
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THEY AREN'T. stop trying to make them popular

cheap, easily done DIY, kitschy, unique way of owning music on a physical medium
they are though, as much as you are angry about it

I don't want them to be popular because prices will rocket up for more things

complex.com/music/2018/01/us-album-cassette-sales-increased-2017

not gonna lie though I just looked this up i didn't read it

ok i just read it it's p gay

Consumerism

Owning physical music is not your usual brand of consumerism though. Or do you hate on vinyl, too?

these fucking mindless aesthetic / nostalgia / soft-grunge / clairo | mac demarco wannabe type of kids

They are cool because CDs are boring and vinyl is for hipsters. I just copped some Blank Banshee tapes earlier today.

What you're gonna act like cassettes aren't for hipsters?

says who

Nah, I still buy vinyl and redbook cds. I also record demos etc. to tape on my 4-track. Aside from marketing cassettes as “hip” is just consumerism

hipsters

remember when typewriters became popular with hipsters a few years ago?

they look cool, and peopple like to own things, like pokemon cards for young adults

theres a few reasons ppl like to buy cassettes.
people like to collect. some people collect stamps(for some reason) some baseball cards(whatever.)some collect vinyl. its nice to own music, esp. in the digital age. if im ordering an album off bandcamp and get get the cassette and a digital download for $8-$10 why wouldnt i? esp. if the digital download costs the same as the cassette+mp3

I had and really loved a polaroid camera when I was younger. the film was expensive and you couldn't edit it, and the camera was bulky and loud (I shit you not I got dirty looks for using it from the band at a show during a quiet part of the song) but it was what made me cool and unique, at least that is what I desperately hoped it would make me look like, because buying and owning stuff is easier to do then collecting experiences and memories that actually develop you (get it) as a person

Neckbeards

They are cheaper and easier to make, and a bit more classy looking than a CD-R (Though this is admittedly subjective)

You can buy one of these fuckers before a show, toss it in your pocket, and be smashed by the biggest, baddest, boy and have it play clear as a whistle when you get home.
I don't want to hold shit during a show, so sometimes waiting until after to buy the LP means having the merch booth all packed and gone by the time I get over there

That and they just please the dumb monkey-brain part of you that likes to make mixtapes and shit by actually having to sit there and do it in real time.
I love that.

basically any guy can make them in the basement not the case for vinyl

They cheap and they still have that analog appeal

>Cheap
>More durable than vinyl
>Warm analog sound
>Cheap
>They look cool

It was only a matter of time

That trend was stale 10 years ago. Now it's normie tier tumblr shit

noise tapes, lad

>>More durable than vinyl
Handling-wise? Maybe. But they still wear out faster (except for type IV tapes, which outlive people but it's rare and expensive).
Other than that, and the cool factor which is debatable, I can agree on those.

Too late

People who are breaking out now where kids when cassettes were on the way out so it's a nostalgia thing. The people buying stuff are the same age. Plus the aesthetics that are popular right now are the ones from the cassette era.
They also take up less space than other physical media and have analogue sound so they have an appeal that digital audio doesn't. It's mainly a visual thing.

I'm glad I'm this demographic

I meant handling you don't have to baby them

Also I have tapes from the 80s that sound amazing

Damn! What kind of quality of music is selling a mp3 or whatever to physical? That's hardcore

Has the whole world gone mad?

If you fuck up a tape, you're actually retarded

Clean the capstan and the pinch roller ya dingus

I don't really see the point in new music being released on cassette tapes.
I have a small collection, but it's all demos and stuff that was only released on tapes, mostly 90s stuff (there's some bands that were still releasing tapes in early 00s though)

Because it's cheap and easy to make at home.
Your choices are CDRs and tapes and which is more kitchy and fun to hold and more durable? it's tapes

Too late indeed. It's not unreasonable for people to ask $10 for a small release on discogs, but a bunch of people are asking $30 for a tape before shipping.

>and more durable

well

I don't know but I like it
>tfw made a mixtape last night and accumulating more cassette tapes with every trip to Goodwill

I mean, they are. If you're not drooling and retard, worst you're gonna do is crack the case, in which case, you can just transfer it to another tape.

But I really mean just CD+R v tape. A tape, uncased, fairs much better than an un-jewlcased CDR.
I was ordering CDRs for a short time before I switched to buying records, and so many times, they would arrive with the 'mirrored' side burnt and stuck to the paper casing, and unplayable

it fucking sucks and is already happening, i saw cassettes selling for $20 at my record store the other day

>buying pre-recorded cassettes

Anyone who does this is completely missing the point.

Buying physical formats at all misses every point
Why are people so anti-fun

What do you mean?

people used to buy fresh cassetes and do a mix with stuff recorded from the radio or from other cassettes. it was top shit.

Can you get those shipped to the U.S.?

in my 20s and i buy more cassettes than vinyls these days. CDs are ass. One scratch and its downhill from there.

As someone who loves physically owning music, this is why cassettes are my favorite:
- Inexpensive: Currently, old tapes are super cheap. At my record store they average about $4. However, the vinyl counterparts of these tapes can often cost $15-20+ dollars.

- Space consumption: I started collecting vinyl about 2 or 3 years before I started collecting tape, which was pretty recently. Between buying records at my local record store and inheriting record collections from older relatives, I amassed enough records to take up a considerable amount of space in my room. Tape is simply much more space effective. I can easily make cases that hold and display them well while saving much more space than I do with vinyl.

- Mobile: Tape is pretty much the most portable form of physical music out there. I bought a nice old Walkman on eBay for about 20 bucks and can just throw it in my backpack with a tape and take it anywhere. CDs would be next on the list for portability, but CD walkmans are huge and frankly look fucking stupid. Vinyl is out of the question.

Other things:
- I love how tactile tape is. Everything involved in listening to a tape is very satisfyingly clicky and fun to do. Similar to why people like listening to records, I love having a part in listening to music (flipping the tape over halfway through, rewinding the tape, etc.).
- I love that I can run a line from my computer to my tape deck and literally put anything onto a blank tape and give it to my friends to listen to. The ability to easily make playlists and send the link to your friends kinda ruined the experience of sitting down, making sure all the songs were the right volume, dubbing the whole thing to tape, making the j - card, etc.
- Compared to vinyl and even cd, cassettes don't require much upkeep.

Cassettes definitely have their flaws, but overall I think they're a lot of fun as far as physical music goes.

Cassettes get eaten by tape players so easily and they wear out pretty quickly anyway.

Never had this happen. And I have some old tapes that sound great. Idk how people say they deteriorate any faster than vinyl

short explanation from a dude who knows people in the industry

yes cassettes have become more popular
its because cds have died. People will always want to own physical copies of stuff they love. and now cds dont scratch that itch since everyones streaming and downloading music. So now when people buy physical copies of albums, they're getting it to own as a collectors peice, not to listen to. and vinyl is just better for owning for the sake of collection.

but pressing/cutting vinyl is expensive as fuck. so weird bandcamp dudes and smaller labels choose the route of cassettes, because its has more physical appeal than cds at least, and is way cheaper to make. not only just that, but you can make the releases as they sell, instead of with vinyl where you make a huge batch of em and hope you sell enough, which obviously doesnt work for smaller dudes

Yeah only if you use shit players and unmaintained car stereo

literally doesn't happen unless you are a nigger

Hipsters who never grew up with them have been trying to make them a thing for a good 10 years now. They were awful back then just like they're awful now.

ayy those look cool. might cop

In terms of physical media they're sort of objectively cooler than a disk in the way that they have more of a physical presence. They are often more colorful and decorated than a disk.

Tapes are just an awful fucking medium. Digital will always be best. But for some reason I am nostalgic about tapes. I was born in 1990 and when I was young people still had tapes and many cars did not have CD players. My first musical experience was at 4 years old, listening to The Beatles greatest hits on my tape player. Part of my wants a tape player and that same cassette but it's just stupid nostalgia and I would probably regret it.

I was wondering the same thing after seeing this on discogs for like $800 recently

my car has a cassette player so I actually listen to them on a regular basis

yeah

havent added any recently

>Warm analog sound
what

This hardly happens if at all. why are you intentionally shredding your tapes?

the cassettes comeback started in ambient/drone and bleep communities tho

>more durable
no they aint

tapes were never really gone, same with vinyl.
tons of metal, punk, noise and other bands released on tape and still do, all the time, and always did.

A U T I S M

>being a peasant normie who will die out as we further merge with machines

>warm analog sound

What's so rediculous about that?
You sound like a retard.
Can people not have a preference?

Vinyl has gone up and with it the demand of physical forms of music. CDs are too recent to become trendy, so cassettes are it. I see a lot of labels who bring out new artists' work on cassette as a trial to see if they could also sell vinyl.

>not your usual brand of consumerism

And what's "unusual" about it exactly? That it has sentimental value to the person who buys it? So do sport cars and video games.

Collecting things in general is pure consumerism.