The tape had a resurgence on its 60th birthday

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He is cumbersome. Fast forward takes forever. You can’t skip songs at all. The tedious procedure is always accompanied by a fear of tape mess: that is, having to pull out the pen and laboriously wrap thin magnetic tape. We are talking about the music cassette, which was invented in 1963 by the Philips company. He will turn 60 this year.

For the round birthday, the old voice carrier is currently experiencing a revival.

At Ricardo, the leading online retailer for second-hand offers in Switzerland, cassette sales have more than doubled since 2019. Up to 1,000 tapes have changed hands each month this year.

Retro has arrived. Records and neon tracksuits have taken pop culture by storm for the second time. Cassettes and walkmans – the small, portable device that plays them – appear again and again in movies and TV shows like the blockbuster “Guardians of the Galaxy” or the hit Netflix series “Stranger Things.”

expensive devices

Prices for still working models have risen to dizzying heights of up to 2000 francs, depending on condition and accessories. At Ricardo, about 25 parts changing hands per month in 2019 are now 50. Average price: 100 francs. If the player is fresh from the service, the price is usually significantly higher. Less iconic players without a guarantee cost around 50 francs.

It’s no coincidence that historic equipment is in such high demand. If you want good sound from a tape, you need a good player. Then the tapes even surpass the playback quality of simple streaming services like Spotify.

Sony’s Walkman, once the gold standard for portable cassette players, has been discontinued since 2010. High-quality game mechanics of the past are no longer available.

Today’s bands on yesterday’s recordings

Anyone interested in cassettes is not dependent on old albums. The Rammstein band, for example, will release the recently announced anniversary edition of their bestseller “Sehnsucht” on audio cassette. Swiss dancehall artist Stereo Luchs has released the last two albums on cassette. At a hardcore concert in Zurich in April, three of the four bands presented their albums only on cassette.

“We sell audio cassettes in the mid-double-digit range every week,” says Philippe Stuker, Managing Director of CeDe.ch, Switzerland’s leading mail-order company for sound carriers. The trend is rising: “Cassettes are being released again and again, especially in the hard ‘n’ heavy and hip-hop fields. Stuker says the Mixtape has a long tradition in hip-hop. The German music industry recently reported a 17.4 percent increase in cassette sales.

That said, streaming services needn’t worry: Cassettes still make up less than one percent of the entire music market. But if things keep going like this, the former voice carrier will definitely live to see the next milestone – his birthday – with lots of new fans.

Source : Blick