As much as this writer has had a lifelong love affair with vinyl, one cannot deny the charm of the cassette. After all, it was the first affordable and fully portable format (that didn't also change tracks in the middle of the best song like those clunky 8-tracks), thereby enabling us to drown out the ramblings of the crazy man arguing with himself on the el train and forego the increasingly limited radio playlists that made our car commutes increasingly unbearable.
Unlike the less portable turntable, cassettes players gave us the freedom to explore the world without having to do so in silence. By the mid-1970's, consumers could install affordable cassette players in their automobiles. With the popularity of Sony's portable Walkman, introduced to U.S. consumers in the summer of 1980, the sky was now, quite literally, the limit.
When you consider just how prevalent cassette players were already, having become all-but-standard in new automobiles by 1989, the fact that over 3 million new units were still being sold annually is, indeed, remarkable.
As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end, but, in the case of the cassette, that end always felt a little suspicious.
While we didn't know it at the time, its demise had been prematurely orchestrated by a music industry that had seen one of its worst sales periods ever in 1980-81 and was eager to prop up music sales by any means necessary. Their solution: introduce a new format, the Compact Disc, and, in doing so, force consumers to re-buy titles they already own on LP and cassette while charging almost twice the price of an LP or cassette in the process, the rat bastards!
In the time it took Sony (which now owned CBS Records) and Philips to bring this new format to market, MTV unexpectedly revitalized the industry and sales were once again soaring, but these companies, many of whom now owned major American record labels, continued to push the CD format while working to phase out the cassette.
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| Synthwave artist Noizz Factor's 100-copy limited edition cassette release. |
Of course, that success came with a heavy price as the bad taste left in the mouths - and wallets - of consumers led a Northeastern University student by the name of Shawn Fanning to invent the first stable internet-based peer-to-peer file sharing system.
It was called Napster and, in the span of a single year, it would be embraced by tens of millions, but, because it did so in a way that the music industry saw as a threat to its bottom line, record labels and bands like Metallica pummeled Fanning with a series of lawsuits.
Seen as a sort of Robin Hood who shifted the balance back in favor of the consumer, Fanning went from spending countless hours programming in his dorm room to appearing at the MTV Music Awards and gracing the cover of Time magazine, but despite numerous attempts to entice major labels to embrace the technology, Napster was shut down in 2002.
Since then, we consumers have attempted to embrace the industry-approved model of purchasing mp3's and lossless file formats, but anyone who has seen hundreds, if not thousands, of purchased mp3s disappear from their iTunes library or become the victim of a crashed hard drive or iPod, there is something to be said for the dependability and charm, not to mention monetary value, of a physical, tangible product.
After all, have you ever tried selling mp3's at a garage sale?
Our need to have a more immersive experience with the music we love has led to the recent resurgence of vinyl, but, again, consumers with active lifestyles find themselves running into the same portability issues that have always plagued the format.
Plus, despite the recent plunge in oil prices, the cost of pressing new vinyl remains ridiculously high, forcing labels to charge $20 and up for a new slab of jammage, thus hindering impulse purchases.
As if that weren't bad enough the music industry has seemingly done everything it can to convince us that vinyl is just a passing fad, but new pressing machines are being manufactured for the first time in decades and even Jack White has opened a new plant in Detroit.
Even so, turnaround time at most pressing plants remains deadlocked 3-4 months, forcing artists and labels to plan ahead an inordinately long amount of time once a new album or single is finished.
Cassette replication, however, remains insanely affordable (i.e., $1.66 per unit for 1000 retail-ready cassettes with 2-sided, 3-panel J-cards - SOURCE) and, also worth noting, turnaround times are a matter of weeks instead of months.
Adding further fuel to a cassette comeback, more labels than ever took part in the fifth annual Cassette Store Day last month, whereas interest in Record Store Day has cooled considerably.
As if we needed further proof that cassettes remain primed for a resurgence of their own, Forbes Magazine reported this past May that cassette sales increased a whopping 74% in 2016. (SOURCE)
In the same article, writer Hugh McIntyre went on to state that only 25 titles sold over 1,000 copies. While one gets the idea that this was meant to be dismissive of a full-scale cassette resurgence, it highlights one of the key advantages of the format: the opportunity to cater to a small, but dedicated fan base with micro-releases, thereby requiring a minimal investment by the artist or label, a lower purchase price to consumers, but a higher profit margin than is possible with vinyl.
What better way for new artists to create a relationship with fans that transcends the digital world? One thinks that, as such artists build their audience, their sales numbers will far surpass the 1,000 units barrier, thereby encouraging more and more artists to embrace the format.
Why, it could even lead to a comeback for that most charming of musical experiences: the mixtape.
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tapes n tapes