You have to admit that there’s very little that’s more romantic than putting together a mixtape for your boyfriend/girlfriend. Burning a CD or putting together a playlist with the streaming service of your choice is simply not the same. Whereas the tape has never been completely erased from niche genres like punk or noise, the cassette has disappeared from the context of bigger bands and bigger label. Companies simply stopped making cassettes and the erstwhile revolution Sony’s Walkman kicked off (sound! To carry around!) is something today’s younger generation vaguely associates with something their parents cherished.
Luckily for us analogue-lovers, things are a-changing. Tape labels pop up all over the world and even Germany looks at a fair share of tapes – and a host of German record stores took part in “Cassette Store Day” (obviously the tape equivalent of Record Store Day) in October 2015. Cassette Store Day started in out in the UK two years ago.
It’s high time to jump in the car and crank up the tape deck to worship at the altar of tape-ism. Or to put it in Sub Pop’s words: Sleater-Kinney on the exciting cassette-tape format. “Each cassette features two full sides of music, wrapped in a four-panel sleeve and a sturdy, plastic case, giving you the key features of the popular vinyl, compact disc, and digital albums, but in a unique format that users are calling "physical," "nifty," and "compatible with the sound system of a 1987 Toyota Corolla."