“Sure, digital music is convenient, portable and pretty much free for the pilfering, but where's the fun in scrolling through lines of song titles listed alphabetically in the same font on a LCD screen?...A backlash to the ber-utilitarian ways of digital music has been underway for years with the rise of vinyl fetishism, but no one saw cassette tapes making a comeback.... Although cassettes have always been a staple in the trenches of noise and industrial music, the larger indie cannon left them behind until recent years. Cruise by the merch table the next time you go see a touring punk, garage or power-pop band, and you may notice cassettes are competing for space alongside vinyl as the proletariat alternative to CDs..."
“The resurgence in cassette tape sales exists far beyond the world of SoundScan, where barcodes and quarterly sales reports are the bottom line. While commercial sales may be dwindling, those who are buying them are tapping into the cultural experience. They are cheap to make and they're cheap to buy. Usually, for $5 or $6 you get an album's worth of material for the same cost as a 7-inch. And, after all, they are quite nostalgic. For music buyers who aren't old enough to remember them the first time, fast-forwarding and rewinding is a completely new experience. For those who were around, it's like catching up with an old friend."from Chad Radford in Creative Loafing
