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Music

Cassette Album Sales in the US Grew By 23% in 2018 (billboard.com) 133

Posted by msmash from the not-dead-yet dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Thanks to such acts as Britney Spears, Twenty One Pilots and Guns N' Roses, along with soundtracks from the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise -- which boasts the year's top two sellers -- and Netflix's Stranger Things series, cassette tape album sales in the U.S. grew by 23 percent in 2018. According to Nielsen Music, cassette album sales climbed from 178,000 in 2017 to 219,000 copies in 2018. While that's a small number compared to the overall album market (141 million copies sold in 2018), that's a sizable number for a once-dead format. In 2014, for example, cassette album sales numbered just 50,000. But, 20 years before that, back in 1994, when cassettes were still very much a hot-selling format, there were 246 million cassette albums sold that year, of an overall 615 million albums.
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Cassette Album Sales in the US Grew By 23% in 2018 More

Cassette Album Sales in the US Grew By 23% in 2018

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  • Why? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Sometimes its good to move on.

    • Re: Why? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Superior sound quality, duh.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by laffer1 ( 701823 )

        Compared to what?

        8 tracks even sounded better than cassettes.

        • Compared to what?

          It's probably not much worse than a 128bit MP3. However an MP3 doesn't wear out every time you play it.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward

            A cassette is MUCH worse quality than a 128kbps MP3. A brand new cassette is only on par with perhaps 22KHz, 8-bit audio. A 128kbps MP3 can sound as good as a CD depending on the source material and how it was encoded.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by dgatwood ( 11270 )

              A brand new cassette is only on par with perhaps 22KHz, 8-bit audio.

              That's not really true unless you're talking about a low-end cassette deck. With better decks, audio cassettes can reproduce frequencies up to anywhere from 16 kHz to 20 kHz, depending on the type of tape (metal vs. rust).

              And on high-end gear, cassette tapes can provide about 72 dB of usable dynamic range, which is about 12 bits, not 8, though most commercial music these days has only about 3 dB of dynamic range anyway, so I'm not sure the

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Megane ( 129182 )

                That's how it always goes... with the right player! and with the right tape formulation! Except you know that manufacturers of pre-recorded tapes aren't going to spend any more than necessary. I keep wanting to use the word "audiophool", but this is like a hipster mimicry of it.

                I remember in the mid-80s I decided to buy a pre-recorded tape. There was a glitch in it, so I took it back for exchange. The replacement had a glitch at the same point. I then realized that it was a glitch in the copying process, a

      • I hear the sound quality is improved if you colour one side of the tape with a green felt-tip marker. Oh, and use mono crystalline silver instead of oxide,

    • I think the better question to ask is: WHO is buying the tapes?

      I'd be willing to bet it's Boomers and/or Gen-X. I highly doubt it's teens or the 20-year olds given the data:

      1, Soundtrack: Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1 @24,000
      2, Soundtrack: Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2: Awesome Mix Vol. 2 @19,000
      3, Twenty One Pilots, Trench @7,000
      4, Soundtrack: Stranger Things: Music From the Netflix Original Series @5,000

      Not everyone wants to pay a streaming tax.

      Also, the 219,000 cassette copies so

      • Twenty One Pilots is *very* much a GenZ appeal band. Go to a concert and its pretty much *all* tween girls

      • I have no clue what #3 is, but the others listed are all selling on cassettes as a novelty that ties into the retro music (and character) / setting of the corresponding movie / show.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Dusanyu ( 675778 )
        judging by those Albums i Highly doubt its Baby Boom or Gen X If it was bands from the 60's, 70's 80's or 90's it would be more believable. speaking from experience as you get older you discover a "best before date" on popular music.

        • Wanna know how I know you haven't heard most, (all?) of those albums?

          Every one of them is going to have 60s, 70s, and 80s music on them, except for Twenty One Pilots, which is a recent thing.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Megane ( 129182 )
            Boomers/GenX already have all the 60s/70s/80s music and don't need to buy a movie soundtrack album for yet another copy. This is clearly GenZ, to whom cassettes are a novel thing, and who have never seen a tape with its guts spilled out, thrown off the side of the road after being yanked angrily from a car tape player where it had gotten stuck in the mechanism. That was a common sight back in the '70s if you were a kid walking around the neighborhood. 8-tracks were even worse about this, with the tape const

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        I think the better question to ask is: WHO is buying the tapes?

        People who wanted to be able to say that they taped over a recording of Britney Spears, Twenty One Pilots, or Guns N' Roses.

      • I think the better question to ask is: WHO is buying the tapes?

        I'd be willing to bet it's Boomers and/or Gen-X. I highly doubt it's teens or the 20-year olds given the data:

        I'd bet it's more likely teens and 20 somethings. I have a teen and she thinks albums and cassettes are pretty cool. In fact a lot of the indie bands that she likes only release their albums on vinyl and cassette.

        Most of us that are older remember how terrible cassettes were and how delicate vinyl is. I think it's a novelty to kids. There might also be some backlash to download/streaming as it's nice to actually have a physical object when purchasing music.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Megane ( 129182 )

          Cassettes used to be cheaper to manufacture, both the tapes and the players. CDs now can be pressed in quantity for pennies, and it might cost a dollar complete with case and booklet. But you do need to press at least a thousand of them to get the good price. Cassettes can be made in low quantity, but the process is still pretty bad for quality.

          They were also more portable. The smallest CD players are like 50% bigger than the smallest tape players, and at first CDs were prone to skipping from being bumped

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by es330td ( 964170 )
        More that *who* is buying the tapes, I want to know what they are playing them on. What car today has a cassette player?

    • It's probably just for collection purposes. Look at the retro video game scene: pretty much the entirety of these games can be played via an emulator (or many of the better ones using one of the new "mini" consoles), yet people still want to have one of the physical cartridges.

      • pretty much the entirety of these games can be played via an emulator (or many of the better ones using one of the new "mini" consoles), yet people still want to have one of the physical cartridges.

        Almost all mini consoles are actually emulators, and some of the best-loved games on some consoles don't work well in emulators.

    • Because Some People Like To Buy Physical Things (Score:4, Interesting)

      by dryriver ( 1010635 ) on Friday January 18, 2019 @06:10PM (#57984130)
      The nice things about vinyl, cassettes, floppy discs, game modules, minidiscs, CDs, DVDs was that you were sold something TANGIBLE that you can touch, look at, stack or store, find in a random box in your attic and generally feel like you actually OWN. My collection of older PC games - the ones that came in plastic cases with something in them - makes me feel BETTER about spending money than a fucking digital download from Steam/Origin/Uplay. My preferred digital medium would be physical ROM chip with data permanently stored on it. I'd love to go to a media store and pick up some fingernail sized ROM chips with music, films, games on them. That gives me both some PRIVACY and the option to sell 2nd hand or gift to others. I'm sure that if someone really tried, you could probably make 2 Dollar ROMs with 20 to 40 GB capacity. Nobody will do that - the industry doesn't think that broadly - but it sure would be nice.

      • We call these "flash drives."

      • Cassettes had two things in their favor: they were small, and they were simple. Sound quality was awful, but you could carry a lot of them, and the players were pretty cheap (relatively speaking). Optical media were far superior in sound, and minidisc was absolutely amazing (though always horribly expensive). After I got my first MD recorder around 2001, I never bothered with making mix CD’s, even though it took longer to make the MD’s. Still have a few lying around, and there’s a minidisc

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Megane ( 129182 )
          They were also the recordable format back in the day. There was also 8-track, but it sucked more, in many ways. But that still doesn't explain pre-recorded cassette album sales. How many pre-recorded MDs did you ever buy?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by elrous0 ( 869638 )

      Because I still need sweet tunes for my Camaro.

  • What's up with that? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by divide overflow ( 599608 ) on Friday January 18, 2019 @05:35PM (#57983950)
    Are they buying them to play in dad's 1993 Toyota Camry or the Nakamichi tape deck they inherited? Or do they just enjoy tape hiss, dropouts and/or wow and flutter? Sure, I get tube amps, and I sorta get vinyl records. But cassette tapes? Really?

    • You can't make your own record, but you can record your own tape with the music you like.

      Also, some music was only released on cassette, so if you want that, you have to buy the cassette or find someone who has it, then borrow and copy it.

      I also like that I do not get tempted to skip/choose songs when playing a cassette and can concentrate on doing whatever I am doing instead of choosing songs. It's like listening to radio, but there are no commercials or news.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Megane ( 129182 )

        You can't make your own record, but you can record your own tape with the music you like.

        That's nice, and sure, mix tapes still have a reason to exist, but this is about pre-recorded cassette sales. If you're going to make a mix tape from that, you need two tape players, one of which has to be able to record. (many portable cassette players are play-only) It's easier to record the mix tape from your phone... if you still have a headphone jack that is!

        This is so dumb that it can only be kids.

        • I can see myself buying a new pre-recorded tape, even if the same music is available on CD. Then I would not need to record from CD to tape, I could just play the tape I bought in my car or on my portable player.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by grumbel ( 592662 )

      They aren't bought to be listened to, they are novelty items that just happen to be a dead music format. Buying the Guardians of the Galaxy or Strangers Things soundtrack on cassette is not much different than a Star Wars action figure. Many of them will end up on a shelf as decoration and never get listened too.

    • Did You Never Want To Experience Something Older?? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dryriver ( 1010635 ) on Friday January 18, 2019 @06:39PM (#57984294)
      When I was growing up in the 1980s, I had some interest in books, music, films and other stuff that was "from before my generation" - created in the 1960s or 1970s, or even earlier. I liked being aware of "what came before young me". Things like rotary phones, record players, non-electrical sewing machines, older equipment were interesting to me. I'm guessing that some Millenials are similarly interested in the 20 years that came before them - 1980s pop music, emulated 8-bit or 16-bit era games, audio cassettes, older books and novels, classic 20th Century cinema. Another interesting thing to consider: How do you understand trends properly - extrapolated future trends for example - if you don't look at them through a window of experience that is longer than - say - just 10 to 20 years? Those of us who started computing in the 1980s are actually quite aware of what computing looked like in the 1970s or earlier. Today - 30 to 40 years later - we have enough historical experience to judge what tech trends may come in 2025 or 2028. The fact that I owned a Psion minicomputer with flip-out keyboard, for example, informs my view that at some point in the next 5 to 8 years, a trend in smartphones may be Psion-like smartphones with a QWERTY keyboard you can write a doctoral thesis on. Whereas a Millenial who has only seen touchscreen-touchscreen-touchscreen may have no idea that smartphones with full physical QWERTY keyboards are even useful for anything - junk from "the bad old 1990s". Its a bit like knowing some world history - some stuff that happened 500 years ago can repeat, in slightly altered form, in the 21st Century. With computers or electronics, knowing the last 50 or 60 years is of great benefit in predicting what tech may come along in 10 years. Otherwise you become dependant on what Hollywood shows you in Scifi movies - real world tech won't necessarily evolve like in Minority Report or The Matrix. Even reading decades old patents can be a big eye-opener - some very smart people proposed some pretty amazing inventions in decades past that were never manufactured or sold. Variations on those patent-expired inventions may actually hit the market in the next 10 years. The past can be an indicator of the future.
    • I know it’s a joke and all, but IIRC Lexus included cassette players until the 2010 model year.
      • Don't tell the hipsters...the resale value of 2009 Lexus models might suddenly increase 20%. ;-)
        • Guess who owns a 2009 Lexus? I’ve been tempted to dig through boxes of old crap to see if .i have any tapes left. I’ve never actually used it. The six-CD changer has Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories in it, only CD I’ve ever played in there. It’s from the bastard era in which Bluetooth for phones was well-established, but for audio, not so much. Thankfully the center console has a power outlet and aux port inside, so I just plugged in a cheapo BT receiver to catch the music.
    • with a good tape. There were a ton of advanced tape technologies at the end of it's life cycle, see here [youtube.com] for a Youtube Channel that covers a lot of them.

      Poorly mastered CDs sound flat and dull, especially for Rock music & Metal. That's less and less a problem, but I could see why some audiophiles would want tape. It's a different sound. Kinda like bands that play on shit instruments (especially guitars) because better stuff doesn't sound right.

      Reminds me of one of my favorite music jokes (forgiv

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      To make video clips online to tell people all about the history of metal coatings and what brands to tape deck buy.
      To then take the tape deck apart and repair it again.
      To get a band to send in their music to play on tape in the next video clip.
      Listen to that quality tape hiss and music via a compressed video clip online.
      Another 1980's repair video next week.
      Click for the bag of parts needed to replace all the capacitors.
      Click for the needed rubber belts.
      Click to get a notification about the next re

  • What about 8 track??? (Score:4, Funny)

    by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Friday January 18, 2019 @05:35PM (#57983956)

    I still have an 8 track player in my very old car... why can't I find any new music for it?

  • but cassettes sound absolutely terrible! If you're going to spend hard-earned money for nostalgia, at least spend it on the superior option.

  • RIAA secretly behind this? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    1. a new format shift and reason to sell music with unending copyright - again!

    2. no DRM that can be defeated! ALL copies on cassette will eventually self destruct!

  • Cassette players (Score:4, Funny)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Friday January 18, 2019 @05:55PM (#57984060) Journal

    This is great news. Now if I could only get back my '82 Jetta so I could have something to play the cassettes on. I spent two weeks' pay on the sound system in that car and it fuckin' rocked. The car didn't really run all that great, and the heater didn't work, and one of the windows only went halfway down, but man I could bomb the bass in that little fucker. I loved that car. I'll bet if you could vacuum the upholstery you'd find a half-oz of some pretty decent weed I dropped there. It was green and had a 1.7 liter engine that supposedly could put out 74 horsepower, but I'm pretty sure most of those horses were pretty sick, because I really had to stand on that accelerator to merge onto the Kennedy Expressway. Good times.

    Now, if you wanna bring back my '75 Honda Civic wagon (also green) with the 8-track player, you'd really have something. I went away to grad school in New York in that bitch and I remember there was a track break smack in the middle of Heroin off Lou Reed Live. It used to drive me crazy. He'd sing "when the blood begins to..." and there'd be like this thunk and 10 second pause while switching tracks before he'd sing, "...flow". It was one of like 4 tapes I had when I left Chicago.

    • I'll bet if you could vacuum the upholstery you'd find a half-oz of some pretty decent weed I dropped there. It was green and had a 1.7 liter engine that supposedly could put out 74 horsepower...

      You're right, that is some pretty decent weed.

  • National Audio Company (Score:3)

    by puddingebola ( 2036796 ) on Friday January 18, 2019 @05:56PM (#57984066) Journal
    I believe the last company still manufacturing these is National Audio Company. How they are continuing to do this is quite an effort, audio equipment manufacturers no longer make the equipment necessary to manufacture cassettes. A story I watched said they purchase second hand machines and equipment wherever they can to use and cannibalize for parts. All dead forms of media will find a nostalgia movement. 8-tracks are next.

  • What I've heard (Score:5, Funny)

    by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Friday January 18, 2019 @05:56PM (#57984070)
    I've heard the distortion from a tube amp and cancel the distortion of the cassette. I've also heard the Earth is flat and vaccines cause autism.

    • I've heard the distortion from a tube amp and cancel the distortion of the cassette. I've also heard the Earth is flat and vaccines cause autism.

      That reminds me to look for my DEVO cassette...must listen to "Mongoloid".

  • Nope, it's not April yet... WTF???
  • I've got a whole case of Denon blank 60 minute tapes that have never been opened from 30 years ago! (Or did I throw those out?)

  • Will road spaghetti return? (Score:3)

    by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 ) on Friday January 18, 2019 @06:28PM (#57984238)

    Ask your grandpa about those windblown piles of tangled cassette tape angrily thrown out of cars when the tape eventually broke or the player mechanism jammed.

  • There were 4 users and now there are 5.

  • Good tapes sound fantastic (Score:5, Informative)

    by Drunkulus ( 920976 ) on Friday January 18, 2019 @06:40PM (#57984296)
    There is a big difference in the sound of a pre-recorded mass produced tape and a higher end chrome or metal tape recorded on a decent deck. Pre-recorded were almost always made with cheap normal bias ferric oxide tape which was designed for low-fi purposes like dictation. But, like the Porsche 911, engineers took a bad idea and developed it far beyond what it was ever supposed to do. The audiophile company Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, best known for half speed mastered high end vinyl, produced a line of cassettes recorded on Nakamichi studio decks from original master recordings. Several of these cassette releases were reported to sound better than their vinyl LP counterparts.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This raises a good point, If you want poor audio quality we already have vinyl.

  • Guardians of the Galaxy, duh (Score:4, Funny)

    by Spy Handler ( 822350 ) on Friday January 18, 2019 @06:58PM (#57984368) Homepage Journal

    Didn't you guys watch the movie? It was basically just a 2 hour advertisement for the cassette tape format.

    The sequel was also plugging the Microsoft Zune. I think the used Zune prices on ebay will be going up.

  • No DRM so easy to make copies.
    You don't have to pay for '''streaming''', or buy a DRM-laden '''digital only''' copy that someone can yank back with no notice.
    Will last decades if taken care of properly.
    Cassette decks are mature technology, inexpensive, and reliable if properly maintained.
    Easy to make your own '''mix tape''' just like in the old days, without any technical knowledge or software to learn.
    Be happy they're not just pirating it, they're actually paying for legal copies.

    I see no real down

  • So they sold roughly 15 cassettes versus last year's sales numbers of 12 tapes sold??

    I wonder how reel to reel is doing these days.

  • I know a lot of people are decrying hipsters, which is entirely fair, but one place that's never given up on the cassette is the punk/metal scene. It's a great medium for demo tapes and small batch releases from smaller bands. There are a lot of bands that will form, release an album on tape, go on tour, and break up within 6 months. It can take longer (and cost much, MUCH more) than that just to press a single on vinyl now that hipsters have thoroughly tied up the process. And it still feels really nice to

  • This article was completely fucking pointless and of significance to pretty much nobody on the entire damn site. "Slightly more hipsters buying cassette tapes than last year."

    Fuck this. I'm done with Slashdot.

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