You still see cassettes around and this is the weirdest thing ever! I see some on sale at merchandize tables, I see some in stores beside vinyl. Don’t you think they would have now disappeared, totally vanished? Isn’t it an obsolete way to listen to music? I still have some at home but I never use them anymore, my walkman days are long gone.
Curiously the audiocassette is not dead, and there is still an audio cassette factory, in Springfield Mo, according to Bloomberg Business, ‘too stubborn to quit’ and which has been in business since 1969! It is the largest and one of the last cassette manufacturers remaining in the US
‘You can characterize our operating model as stubbornness and stupidity. We were too stubborn to quit,’ said National Audio Company President Steve Stepp.
And the most remarkable thing is that business is booming, they have produced more than 10 million tapes in 2014 and sales are up 20 percent this year.
‘Probably the thing that has really enlarged our business at a faster phase than anything is the retro movement,’ declared Stepp said. ‘There’s the nostalgia of holding the audio cassette in your hand.’
Cassettes are a thing of the past, just like vinyl, but they are making a comeback for the same reason. As music has almost entirely dematerialized, people want to go back to the object, at least nostalgia for the object is very strong
The company has deals with Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group or indie bands, and about 70 percent of their sales are from music cassettes while the rest are blank cassettes.
‘There was a drive from the independent bands to get that warm analog sound again, and it just continued to grow and grow,’ said NAC Production Manager Susie Brown whose company still uses machines built in the 1970s!
I remember making mixed tapes, and who as old as me doesn’t remember this? It was fun but most kids these days have never seen a real cassette! Can you believe this? Still, tapes would eventually get messed up, the sound would become horrible and do you remember spending an hour or two getting one of these out of your car player where it has been stuck for a week? The joy of the cassette is not gone I wonder whether these boxes full of old cassettes I have downstairs are worth anything.