(Unit 4) High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape
02/11/23
(Unit 4) Further Research and Summarising.
Throughout this blog post I will be summarising and exploring one video and one article on the resurgence of cassette tapes in the modern day. I'm doing a whole post on this as I feel so far, it's the topic I know least information about. I hope that by the end of my research I shall have a better understanding of it all as a whole.
I also recently decided to purchase a book called 'High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape' by the author Marc Masters. It came out recently in 2023 and is all about the history of cassettes. I'll be reading through it to see if there's any valuable information I can reference in my essay alongside my other research.
Youtube - Are Music Lovers Bored Of Vinyl And Moving On To Cassette Tapes?
Cassette tapes nearly doubled in 2021 due to the cassette ‘comeback’.
Of all mediums to record msuic, cassette tape has always been considered the poorest quality to many due to it’s own unique sound.
In modern day, the cassette tape was featuring in guardians of the galaxies which is considered a possible reason for the comeback.
In an age where most music is online and streamed, cassettes are still managing to make a comeback, why?
As of late, cassette sales have been at their highest since 2003 similar to vinyls and their nostalgic resurgence.
In this article, the guardian interviews five different people and discuss why their prefer cassette tapes.
It’s a fun way to consume music, due to it’s often limited runs, it feels all that more personal.
In the current times, with how little big streaming platforms such as spotify pay their artists, it feels kind to support smaller artists who perhaps can’t make a living with spotify alone.
One interviewee states he likes that there’s no ‘skip’ on cassettes, you get to listen to the music fully in the order it is intended.
There seems to be a big 90s comeback recently, especially with Gen-Z.
Another interviewee’s daughter is 12 and has created a special way of bonding with her parent by listening to all their old music on cassettes as they originally did.
Some think cassettes sound as if they have more depth even though this is wrong techniqually speaking. The sound from cassettes is truly unique and almost warm sounding.
A musician adds that recording his music on tape made him and his band take their jam sessions more seriously. Once he started his recording on cassettes, he found it difficult to go back to his original laptop recording. It really helped him focused as with cassettes you only have a limited amount of physical tape that was being consumed.