THE news that, in the wake of the resurgence of vinyl, the audio cassette is also making a comeback is a further sign that even in this age of streaming and downloads the desire to own music in a physical form still remains strong.
For all that it is clearly a niche market, sales are now rising in a musical delivery system that was assumed to have become obsolete as long ago as the early 1990s when portable CD Players with anti-skip technology were introduced to the market.
The truth is, though, that the audio cassette revival is, like vinyl, a matter of novelty (for younger fans) and nostalgia (for the rest of us). The latter may explain why acts such as Texas and The Jesus & Mary Chain, who were at their peak in the 1980s and 1990s, are doing so well in the revived audio cassette charts.
Unlike vinyl, however, cassettes can’t boast that they offer better sound quality than digital. But then that was never their appeal.
In its heyday the cassette offered two advantages over records. Cassette players were portable and they also helped democratise the spread of music by allowing listeners to create their own mixtapes. How many romances began with the sharing of music on tape, one wonders?
The question now is which vintage format will be revived next? Perhaps this might be the time to buy up shares in gramophone manufacturers.
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