This album came out 3 years ago. I bought the cassette on Bandcamp, and now that my Sony deck has been dragged back from the dead, I’ve been feeding it tapes again.
And I’m starting to think cassette might be my favourite format for new releases.
Vinyl has good mastering, but the prices have gone nuts. Half the time it feels less like buying music and more like buying a little black investment platter you’re supposed to keep spotless until death.
CD should be king. It’s cheap, lossless, and durable. Technically excellent. But too many engineers master the sound waves into a brick.
Cassette sits in the gutter between them. Cheap plastic shell and magnetic tape. It’s perfect.
Indie bands can make tiny runs without bleeding money, so cassette never really stopped being the format of weird little labels, Bandcamp discoveries, and people making 50 copies because 50 people might actually want them.
Mainstream artists are putting tapes out again too. They cost more than the indie stuff, but they’re still nowhere near the bloodbath of modern vinyl pricing. Cassette has somehow become physical media for the cheapo hipster.
Do I want a full cassette comeback? No, I’ve seen what a comeback did to vinyl.
Keep those filthy speculating hands off it.
Besides, there’s one big problem: nobody makes genuinely great new cassette decks anymore. Until somebody starts building serious machines again, tape will stay a curiosity with a pulse rather than a mass-market format.
And maybe that’s fine. Let vinyl have the collectors. Let CD have the brickwall.
I’ll take the little plastic box that still sounds good, costs less, and hasn’t been completely eaten alive yet.
