Are music cassettes making a comeback?

Music cassettes offer nostalgia to many, but are the 'new and cute' thing for the younger generation. Are they worth investing in?

Music cassettes colourful on a plain background
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Anyone old enough to remember using a pencil to wind the magnetic film back into a chewed-up cassette tape may well wonder why anyone would want to dabble with such antiquated technology. You had to fast forward to get to the song you wanted, usually overshooting the start, and the sound quality had nothing on today’s digital offerings. But it’s precisely the sound, often described as “warm”, that appeals to older collectors, as well as a new generation for whom pencils and recorded music hold no connection. “Old guys are buying for their memories. Young people are buying to try. They think it’s trendy,” Stephen Ho, a collector from Hong Kong, tells Larry Ryan in The Guardian

East Asia has experienced much of the boom in sales. Record shops in Tokyo have been expanding their cassette sections, “signalling a resurgence of compact analogue recording media”, says Megumi Kito on Nikkei Asia. Last September, Tower Records in the Shibuya district multiplied its stock of old and new tapes by a factor of six as sales have continued to grow in recent years.

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Chris Carter
Wealth Editor, MoneyWeek

Chris Carter spent three glorious years reading English literature on the beautiful Welsh coast at Aberystwyth University. Graduating in 2005, he left for the University of York to specialise in Renaissance literature for his MA, before returning to his native Twickenham, in southwest London. He joined a Richmond-based recruitment company, where he worked with several clients, including the Queen’s bank, Coutts, as well as the super luxury, Dorchester-owned Coworth Park country house hotel, near Ascot in Berkshire.

Then, in 2011, Chris joined MoneyWeek. Initially working as part of the website production team, Chris soon rose to the lofty heights of wealth editor, overseeing MoneyWeek’s Spending It lifestyle section. Chris travels the globe in pursuit of his work, soaking up the local culture and sampling the very finest in cuisine, hotels and resorts for the magazine’s discerning readership. He also enjoys writing his fortnightly page on collectables, delving into the fascinating world of auctions and art, classic cars, coins, watches, wine and whisky investing.

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