In this episode, we discuss the renewed popularity of cassette tapes. Cassettes–those plastic cartridges you sometimes rewound with a pencil eraser–were eventually overcome by the popularity of CDs in the mid '90s. But maybe you've noticed, and possibly been confused by, the recent Cassette Renaissance. It's not just indie bands driving the surge, either. Even megastars like Taylor Swift are launching their albums on cassettes. Cassettes are officially back. But why is an outmoded media format surging into the mainstream again? And furthermore, how would you even go about playing a tape these days? Senior Staff Writer Tucker Bowe answers those questions and more. Tucker recently did a deep-dive into researching the Cassette Boom for a story in the latest Gear Patrol Magazine issue, and there's a lot more to the movement that nostalgia alone.
There's a lot more to the Cassette Boom that nostalgia alone.
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Nick Caruso:
This is the Gear Patrol Podcast. In this episode, we're discussing what may seem like a strange fad, the renewed popularity of cassette tapes. It may have begun as an ironic whisper or as a pure nostalgia play, maybe as a throwback promotional tool for indie bands. But now mega stars like Taylor Swift are releasing their albums on cassettes, a format that's over 50 years old. But why? Why is an outmoded relatively clunky media format surging into the mainstream again? And if I buy a cassette in 2021, how would I even go about playing it?
Nick Caruso:
I asked Gear Patrol senior staff writer, Tucker Bowe who covers tech, those questions and more. Tucker recently did a deep dive into researching the cassette boom for a story in the latest Gear Patrol magazine issue and as usual he's got all the answers. I was sure of nostalgia would be the sole driving force behind the cassette resurgence, but I learned there's a lot more to it. And thanks for listening to the podcast. If you like what you hear, we'd appreciate a five-star review, which helps us reach more ears and keep the conversation going. I'm Nick Caruso, and I'm glad you're here. Let's get started.
Nick Caruso:
Okay. So Tucker, why are cassette tapes making a comeback in 2021?
Tucker Bowe:
It's going on this trend of what's old is new again. And I think kind of we've seen the resurgent of these old physical kind of audio formats come back most prolifically in vinyl and how those sales are kind of just booming. And in terms of the millions and millions and kind of the vinyl sales have kind of grown exponentially each year. And other kind of physical audio formats are kind of following suit but not to the same scale as vinyl, and we can go into detail why that is, but cassette tapes are kind of an old audio format that is kind of coming back into in Vogue.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah, for sure. I have this Jeep and it has a tape deck in it and I was just home in Michigan and I found an old Sketchers shoe box full of cassette tapes. And you better believe I brought them back with me, but the thing doesn't work.
Tucker Bowe:
Nice. Yeah. It's funny. I don't know, this is one of the benefits of my position and kind of working at Gear Patrol is that I get to talk to a lot of people who are really enthusiastic about a lot of different things. And over the years, it's kind of rubbed off on me in terms of buying my first entry-level turntable and getting a speaker and preamp set up and kind of diving into my dad's old record collection and it's been fun. And I think that's why people are kind of diving back into cassette tapes a little bit because they like to feel things in their hands, they like to collect things, they like to see how things work and listen to them. And it's just kind of a fun hobbyist kind of thing. And then there's the whole audio kind of quality aspect to it as well. But yeah, I think it's listening to music turning into something that's not easy, but that you can kind of be prideful of is fun.
Nick Caruso:
Sure. It's the analog thing. It's the sports car thing. It's the mechanical watch thing in a lot of ways, but something that you just mentioned that I guess I hadn't realized is that the quality of an audio tape, a cassette tape is kind of unique. Is that right?
Tucker Bowe:
Well, it depends. I think the audio quality of cassette tapes have kind of improved a lot kind of through this resurgence, through the years, as manufacturing processes have gotten better. And now that the manufacturers are actually producing cassette tapes again, the audio quality has kind of gotten better up to so that it's now kind of comparable to CD quality. I mean, if you go back to kind of the heyday of the cassette tapes, which the compact cassette tape, which was in the seventies and eighties, it was unique because it was really the first kind of portable audio format, right?
Tucker Bowe:
Before that it was vinyl and there was reel to reel players and there was nothing that you can kind of pick up and take with you. And then I think in the early seventies, that was when the boom box came into prominence and then a decade later in the eighties, that's when Sony kind of invented the Walkman and that kind of changed everything. And that's why people love cassette tapes, but it wasn't always about their sound quality. Once CDs kind of came around, that was just as cheap to buy and just as portable and less [crosstalk 00:05:10].
Nick Caruso:
But even more convention. Yeah. The tapes are essentially a compact portable reel to reel system. Right? And then-
Tucker Bowe:
Exactly. It wasn't the same audio quality, but it was also something you could take with you and that's why people-
Nick Caruso:
Just so convenient
Tucker Bowe:
Yeah. People loved it. It's funny, kind of this whole process of learning again about cassette tapes and talking to enthusiasts and I kind of remember back to my first kind of experiences with compact cassette tapes and kind of like you, it was in the car. Right? It was just listening to... We had Phantom... I distinctly remember we used to listen to the soundtrack to Phantom of the Opera in my dad's car and [crosstalk 00:05:55] were a little before my time.
Nick Caruso:
You've mentioned your dad's audio collection a few times in conversations we've had and in pieces you've written and earlier a few minutes ago, but you usually talk about classic rock and really good actual music music, mainstream and sort of out there music, not musicals.
Tucker Bowe:
Well, that's the thing. I mean, not distinctly about musical, but I was going to say that's the whole kind of, no, it's one of the beauties of physical audio formats is that you develop kind of these memories in terms of exactly what you were listening to in a way that you don't really with streaming in terms of you don't remember the place where you were when you first downloaded Taylor Swift's new album or whatever onto your iPhone.
Nick Caruso:
Phantom of the Opera.
Tucker Bowe:
Yeah. With CDs, I think it's so funny because it really kind of dates you. I remember the first CDs I bought or my parents gave to me, I was 10 years old and it was in 2000 and 2001 and the two that jump to mind were Dr. Dre's 2001 album, the one with a big marijuana plant on it. I was in a Minnesota, Minneapolis airport and my mom refused to buy it for me because she saw that there was a big marijuana plant on it.
Nick Caruso:
Paraphernalia.
Tucker Bowe:
Yeah. And then my dad just being oblivious, was lagging behind and we had a layover or something and I got him to buy it for me and I was 10 or 11 years old. And I would just remember being so... I didn't know what anything meant. And it's like, you have those memories and it's funny. I remember in 2000, 2001, I was that age when the first CD I think I ever was bought or given was, do you remember Sisqo with the Thong Song?
Nick Caruso:
Of course, I remember Sisqo.
Tucker Bowe:
Yeah. Well, I was 10 years old and I got that CD and I didn't even know what a thong was, but I was singing that song and looking back, it's so embarrassing. But it's also like, dude, these kind of audio formats that you can physically hold and touch, I don't even know what my parents were thinking with that, but you remember exactly where you were and what you felt like when you were kind of listening to these things. And I think that's why people are gravitating back to cassette tapes and vinyl records for sure.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. That's that physical, hold it in your hand thing. And you're talking about cassette tapes and cars is the last kind of thing. Actually this is a fact for you, is that the last car that had a tape deck in it was the Lexus SC 430. It was just the convertible from the early two thousands.
Tucker Bowe:
Okay.
Nick Caruso:
And it just is no longer, that's no longer available obviously. You make a cool point in this piece that we're seeing the comeback of cassettes kind of reinforced in pop culture, especially in TV and movies, as the nostalgia factor is kind of cranked up in things Guardians of the Galaxy, where what's his name? Chris Pratt has a Walkman and Stranger Things which takes place, of course, in cassette times. Artists, we're not just doing nostalgia with cassettes, artists are actually... Or rather, I should say, we're not just hunting around for vintage cassettes, wherever we find them. New artists, current artists, are making cassette tapes too.
Tucker Bowe:
Yeah. I mean, it's the pop culture thing. And then that the fact that you can actually buy new cassette tapes is both interesting. And I mean, it's interesting because obviously this kind of nostalgia factor that's popping up in these movies, you mentioned Guardians of Galaxy and then Stranger Things. And there's 13 Reasons Why, I don't know if you've seen that Netflix show when she leaves behind like 13 different tapes in each episode, you're listening to a tape and yeah. I mean, yeah. So it's appearing in pop culture and I think that's kind of driven the kind of allure and the comeback and the interest in cassette tapes. And then, yeah, and we can get into the fact that why cassettes aren't making a comeback. And the main reason is that there's very few people actually making the players for, that's one of the big reasons why it's not... We can touch on that in a second, but yeah, all these mainstream artists right now are releasing cassette tapes along with vinyl records too and along CDs as well.
Tucker Bowe:
So if you go on Taylor Swift's website, you can buy a new cassette tape, a compact cassette tape of her folklore or her, I think it's Evermore, I think it's two albums, whatever. Or you can go on Dua Lipa's website or Ariana Grande or Justin Bieber. And then you're all selling these cassette tapes, even though the hilarious thing is that very few of their young fans are actually going to be able to play them because they most likely don't have-
Nick Caruso:
Weren't alive then.
Tucker Bowe:
Yeah. Weren't alive. And it's funny because it's become more of a collectible, right? In terms of people want to show it off and they want to just have it. And also, I think if you buy a lot of these new cassette tapes from these artists, they also give you a digital download code to supplement that. And then, so you can kind of have the thing that you can hold-
Nick Caruso:
Which is common to vinyls and such too. So let's move on to this notion of tape decks, but first, just to give everyone a really solid grasp of the popularity, this boom, I'm going to read two quotes that have some stats in them. First of all, you said vinyl sales for context increased every year, since 2006 to a peak of 27.5 million LPs sold in the United States in 2020, which is a huge number. Cassette tapes aren't booming quite to that extent.
Tucker Bowe:
No.
Nick Caruso:
Not even close, but sales have increased it says by double digit percentages in recent years. And that's actually according to Nielsen Reports, which is something I don't even think about anymore. Nielsen households. And the number is now in the six figures annually, which is a lot compared to none.
Tucker Bowe:
Yeah, it's a lot. So cassette tapes have grown year over year for the last, I think it's almost six or seven years now, but it's not to the level of vinyl sales and we're still kind of talking... I think the latest reports are that 85% of all media or all kind of music is still kind of streamed these days. So we're talking about 15% of all music, that's the feeding frenzy for these vinyl and CDs and compact cassettes. And so they're all kind of in the vast, vast, vast minority, but-
Nick Caruso:
Which also by the way puts into context how much music is out there if 27.5 million LPs sold in a year is 15% of music, that's nuts that you can stream so much. I mean, it's no wonder these things.
Tucker Bowe:
This is [inaudible 00:13:23].
Nick Caruso:
We went digital.
Tucker Bowe:
[crosstalk 00:13:25].
Nick Caruso:
I'm sorry. I'm scribbling on a cocktail napkin over here. So how does that translate? Basically, you say it hits a roadblock, right? Because there's nowhere to play these because no one buys Lexus's from the early two thousands anymore.
Tucker Bowe:
Yeah. No cars have tape decks anymore. Yeah. It's the kind of the interesting dilemma in that vinyl sales have kind of been helped out a ton by a lot of these new manufacturers actually making turntables for kind of the first time in seemingly forever. Yet you can get like a high-end Moranz or high-end kind of Macintosh turntable, but you can also get a very good turntable for 300 bucks, give or take a little bit from Fluance or Project or kind of U-turn or there's a zillion others, or Audio-Technica. I mean, all these companies are making turntables again, because they've seen an area for growth because they've seen how much vinyl sales have grown in recent times. And they've kind of jumped on that where if you look at compact cassette tapes, yeah.
Tucker Bowe:
There's not much of that at all. And in fact, if you're looking to kind of listen to these, you got to kind of hope that you have a vintage Walkman, or you have kind of a vintage stereo player that has a tape deck in it. And it's kind of spurred this rich kind of third-party seller eBay kind of market for kind of people buying vintage Walkmans and vintage kind of compact cassette players. And so if you want to listen to these things and you want to get into it as a hobbyist, you got to really, really get into it. Because a lot of these vintage players, they're either buying them-
Nick Caruso:
They're hard to come by.
Tucker Bowe:
Yeah. They're hard to come by. You're buying them refurbished or you're buying them broken and trying to get them fixed. And it's going to cost a bit.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. You have to either find it in, like you said, vintage stores, or go on eBay to find a tape deck or buy as I did an entire car so I could feed my cassette habit. I'm going to keep trying to make that joke and see when it lands best is my goal. But before I get to that, this is a perfect opportunity to take a quick ad break. So we'll be right back.
Nick Caruso:
Then my question for you is someone who knows the ins and outs and trends of the industry. Do you predict that we're going to see new tape decks come along like we did turntables?
Tucker Bowe:
I think we would have by now to be perfectly honest.
Nick Caruso:
Oh, interesting.
Tucker Bowe:
It's also one of those things and kind of comparing the compact cassette tapes to vinyl, is that more and more companies are producing vinyl, whereas compact cassette tapes, it's less so. There are companies that are making compact cassette tapes again. Compact cassette tapes, they kind of use the same technology as the magnetic tape that's in credit cards.
Nick Caruso:
Oh, interesting.
Tucker Bowe:
So that technology, there's always been a need for it, but kind of since the compact cassette tape kind of was killed off in the nineties, and I don't know, there's been much less demand for it, but that technology is still there. And there are companies that are making new compact cassette tapes.
Tucker Bowe:
One of them, the best known one that I can think of is a French company called Recording the Masters. And they make the really fancy reel-to-reel tapes that are super high end that recording artists and I think Lady Gaga records her albums on reel-to-reel tape or she has in the past. And these big artists want really high audio quality, but also they just want to record on the kind of an old form factor.
Tucker Bowe:
So this company has in the past three years, three or four years come out with like a fox cassette tape, which is kind of a blank cassette tape that like anyone can buy and record over. I think a lot of these artists, like you say, Taylor swift, or Justin Bieber, or whoever is selling these cassette tapes are kind of buying these little blank cassette tapes and recording their albums over them. But it's also a high demand for artists and just enthusiasts who want to kind of get blank tapes and record over them. And that's also, I think one of the big draws of, or the unique factors of these compact cassette tapes is that you can actually record over them.
Nick Caruso:
Speaking of things to play tapes on. So we've got the Walkman, the iPod is kind of in a way, a return to... Its shape is inspired by a cassette player in a way.
Tucker Bowe:
Yeah. Yeah.
Nick Caruso:
Correct?
Tucker Bowe:
I mean, I think it's inspired, there's definitely kind of the similarities in that, but yeah.
Nick Caruso:
Thought I took a risk there.
Tucker Bowe:
No, no. But it's funny because we have this kind of morph of vinyl to compact cassettes, to CDs, to the iPad, and I think iPod was invented in 2001 and then 2007 was the first iPhone and then slowly but surely since kind of the iPhones kind of came to be in 2007, we've had this kind of slower resurgence of vinyl for the last 13 odd years that so now where we are is that vinyls has kind of inspired this whole kind of return to a physical-
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. The cycle. Yeah. I mean, where is there to go from MP3s? I mean digital files. There really isn't-
Tucker Bowe:
Well, I mean right now, if we're talking about music and where we go from in terms of physical kind of audio formats and how that progresses into digital is we're entering a realm where people are caring more and more about audio quality, I guess that's for lack of a better transition. The quality of the audio listened to, and also how they're listening to these things. And that's kind of where the surging interest in vinyl and compact cassette tapes. Because again, with this physical format, you're not listening to necessarily better quality audio, right? You're listening to good quality audio that is better than the compressed music files that were so popular in the two thousands, early two thousands. But-
Nick Caruso:
It sounds like you're in a haunted house, what is it going on over there?
Tucker Bowe:
Yes, no problem. That was just the door.
Nick Caruso:
But yeah, your point is that where we've come from is physical. We were into digital now and the really, the only place you can go is like better quality, might be.
Tucker Bowe:
Better quality. And just, I guess caring more about how you listen to music in terms of these vinyl and compact cassette tapes. People want to hold the thing in their hand, they want to place the record or place the compact cassette tape. And they want to kind of hear the mechanisms work and see how the audio is created. And they want to kind of have that kind of intimate relationship with their music. So while you can stream a song that sounds just as good or even better than a vinyl track or a cassette track, it's not going to have that personal connection. So you're not going to be able to kind of have that special relationship. And you're not going to remember 10 years from now, where you were when you bought that record for the first time or you listened to it the first time. You're not going to remember that you were in Minneapolis airport kind of begging your-
Nick Caruso:
Begging your dad to traffic a marijuana leaf over state lines. Well, so I have a prediction and then I'm going to ask you for one, my prediction, the next big thing is going to be people listening to music as it's being played by musicians. It's a new concept. Yeah. On stages. Joke set up. But it does set you up for a prediction. Is this trend going to continue with cassettes? Is this ending soon? What do you think?
Tucker Bowe:
Is it ending soon? As long as people are keen to kind of go back to physical audio formats, I don't think it's going to stop anytime soon. Especially, we've seen with vinyl, vinyl sales have increased every year I think since 2006. And it's only getting more and more popular and cassette tapes, while they're nowhere near to the same level, they are growing, their interest is growing. But ultimately it's going to depend on manufacturers making these Walkmans again and making these boom boxes again. Things that have built in tape decks that people can actually kind of take advantage of this new audio format or this new again, audio format. So I don't know where it's going to be, to be quite frank. I don't see it stopping any time or people's interest in kind of compact cassette tapes kind of waning anytime soon. But ultimately it's going to depend on these manufacturers and outside sources I think. At least that's what my gut says.
Nick Caruso:
Or maybe you and I can go into business together refurbishing Walkmans, that'd be a fun thing for us to do.
Tucker Bowe:
Unfortunately, I do not think I am qualified for that.
Nick Caruso:
Okay. Fair enough. Last question then, any advice for cassette tape fans or people who want to get into it or back into it, or if I want to start a collection or start using cassette tapes again, what do I do?
Tucker Bowe:
Well, the beauty of compact cassette tapes is that you can still buy them. And then they're pretty affordable. I mean, it obviously depends on what album you're buying, but you can go to most kind of music shops and they're selling compact cassette tapes. Like I said before, you can go online and buy Dua Lipa new album for 13 bucks on her website and it's a compact cassette tape. And my one thing when I was talking to [Can 00:23:58] about this, the founder of Just Cassettes, the Instagram page. He was saying that if you have compact cassette tapes that you don't use, feel free to donate them or are kind of, if you want to go through the effort of actually selling them online, you can as well, but yeah, the interest is out there.
Tucker Bowe:
I'm sure you can kind of get them off your hands if you're not listening to them or you want to make a small profit, but yeah. It's one of those things, yes, you can go out and buy... I don't know, for this magazine shoot that we used in the magazine, Henry and I went out and bought 25 cassette tapes for, it was less than 30 bucks on eBay. So I mean, it depends. There are albums that are very rare. For instance, I think Nirvana's Nevermind album, if you want to buy that, a compact cassette tape of that, yeah. You're going to have to spend a lot more than five bucks.
Nick Caruso:
Than what you bought here which is Phil Collins, No Jacket Required.
Tucker Bowe:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, it's one of those things that you can get into and you can find working cassette tape players, if you know the right places to look and certainly compact cassettes are available in more places than you would kind of think for a format that seemingly got killed off in the early nineties. But yeah, it's out there and if you want to get into it, you can. And it's fun. I mean, collecting these kind of physical audio tapes is... You get them, you get to show them off and you get to look at the artwork in them and you kind of get to-
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. That's a big part of it.
Tucker Bowe:
Yeah, you get to stick a pencil when you want to rewind it, you can kind of feel like you're back in the day. So it's just a fun kind of hobbyist thing, I think more than anything and yeah, you can absolutely get into it if you wanted too.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah, for sure. And if for anybody listening, doesn't know what Tucker was talking about, to rewind a cassette tape, if you didn't have a player on hand or you just needed to back it up a little bit, you could stick a rubber pencil eraser into one of the little holes and rewind it manually. Tucker, we have to wrap it up there. I've taken a lot of your time. So thank you very much for all your insights and stories and knowledge.
Tucker Bowe:
Cool. Get the latest issue of a Gear Patrol magazines on stands now. You can read thee story.
Nick Caruso:
Okay. Yeah. That's a good idea. No, I encourage anyone to do that. And listeners, thanks for tuning in. If you want any more information about anything we've talked about today, check out the show notes below for links. Links, links, links, and visit Gearpatrol.com as well. And like Tucker said, the magazine issue 16, the summer preview is out right now. I'll put a link to that below. Since you're here on a podcast, listening to a podcast, make sure to subscribe to it on your service of choice and when you do, or if you already have subscribed, please give us a nice little rating. Five stars help us get into more people's ears and get people involved in the conversation. Hit us up on social media. Our handle is Gearpatrol, @gearpatrol, one word. Or you can email me at podcast@gearpatrol.com. Tucker, thank you again, and everyone, thanks for listening today. And don't even worry about rewinding this time. I'm Nick Caruso, and until next time, take care.
Tucker Bowe:
Party on.