Time to rewind as cassette tapes make comeback

FIRST LPs and record players made a comeback – now the cassette tape is rolling back into our lives.

Music fans on both sides of the Atlantic are returning to the cassette two decades after they were replaced by the CD, and more recently digital downloads.

This nostalgia for the retro format comes despite the frustrations that led to their decline, including the tendency to become tangled and jammed in players.

Sales of music tapes are rising so quickly in the US that the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade body for music labels, is investigating ways to track sales for the first time since the early 1990s.

It is thought the revival was started by underground music acts. But now, more mainstream musicians have started producing albums on cassette again, including British singer Marina and the Diamonds, who released her last album, Froot, on cassette late last year, and top stars including Justin Bieber and Kanye West.

They are being sold at fashion chains such as Urban Outfitters as well as online. Sales of tapes in the UK could follow the path of vinyl sales – which fell to a low of just over 205,000 in 2007, but have grown every year since and hit a 20-year high of 2.1million in 2015.

Sony stopped producing its Walkman portable cassette player in 2010, although other brands, such as Philips, still make them. Lee Rickard, 2, co-founder of US independent record label Burger Records, said: ‘Music just sounds different on tape, sometimes as it was originally intended to sound. Cassettes are compact, tangible, instant collectables, often with original and numbered artwork.’ ÷ The fax machine could make a return – because it is seen as more secure than the internet for sending sensitive messages. Michael Lynton, the boss of Sony Pictures, which had millions of company emails leaked in a cyber attack, has already reverted to fax.