By Monica Cole, News Correspondent
It’s time to break out your parents’ old tape decks and Walkmans, the cassette tape is making a
comeback.
Indie record labels all over Boston have recently begun releasing music in this seemingly outdated and low-quality format, yet people have been buying it.
“Boston has a huge youth population,” Andrew Mall, visiting assistant academic specialist in Northeastern’s music department, said.
There are more college students in the city than any other age group, and with college-age kids dominating the music scene, any new music trends gaining popularity among young people thrive in the city.
“Boston has this super epic DIY community,” Ben Katzman, junior entrepreneurial music business major at Berklee College of Music and co-founder of BUFU Records, said.
The aesthetic and the sound of the cassette tape appeals to the DIY culture in the city and the music genres that stem from that.
“People have realized it’s the cheap and easy way to distribute music,” Ryan Lucht, sophomore music industry major at Northeastern and co-founder of HEY WTF Records, said.
Besides high-quality recordings, none of these methods are going to break the bank for an indie label, sophomore music industry major Rae Fagin, co-founder of HEY WTF, said.
The cassette tape was first introduced in the late 70s, and was intended to function as a more portable version of music.
“[Cassettes] were never meant to replace vinyl,” Mall said.
People just needed something portable to listen to in their cars and on their Walkmans. Then, when the digital revolution turned to the music industry in the late 90s and suddenly any song was available to download from the Internet, tapes began to lose popularity and became almost obsolete.
It wasn’t until the recent tape revolution that tapes were cool again. It began in 2007 with more grindcore and noise rock bands putting out cassettes.
Music consumers are beginning to reject the idea that they can only access music if they are connected to a computer.
“People are dissatisfied with the digitization of media in general,” Mall said.
For some, this recent interest in the cassette tape is based in memories.
“We’re all in a generation built on nostalgia,” Katzman said.
Even though current college students grew up after the height of the cassette tape, they still embrace the retro feel of sharing music through this vintage medium.
“It’s a novel thing to do,” Brad Hatfield, associate academic specialist in the music department at Northeastern, said. “Because it’s a physical thing, it’s not being shared on the internet.
New music gets uploaded to the Internet at an overwhelming rate, and the quality of everything being shared is not what it used to be.
“Everyone and their mom can put something on the internet,” Fagin said.
Digital downloads also lack the exciting physical aspect that has made cassettes so popular.
“People like having the physical medium in their hands,” Katzman said.
With cassettes, you get more than just a band’s music.
“Bands get to make their own artwork,” Dylan Ewen, BUFU Records’ co-founder and junior entrepreneurial music business major at Berklee, said. “Some bands are more art-centric than others.”
Many labels will put out limited edition tapes and cassette-only issues of music that feed into the thrill of the search that fuels cassette collectors.
Anonymous Dog Tapes and Records, based in Allston, releases music on cassette or vinyl only. Their online shop currently has the recent cassette-only release of “The Dreebs the Dream” from New York-based The Dreebs.
The staying power of this trend has yet to be seen, but it indicates the music consumer’s growing disillusionment with the digitization of the industry.
“You can pay $4 and download an album, but how significant does that feel?” Lucht said.
