Skip to main content

Forget vinyl, cassette tapes are the hippest new format from the past

cassette tapes thrive 80s nostalgia
dubassy/Shutterstock

Vinyl records aren’t the only analog music media undergoing a revival in the modern era. A company that specializes in another nostalgic format — cassette tapes — just had its best year ever.

Springfield, Missouri-based National Audio Company (NAC), which opened in 1969, produced 10 million tapes last year according to a Bloomberg. report. The company noted that cassette sales are up 20 percent year-over-year, with 70 percent of the sales in the music category. The news follows the aging format’s recent resurgence on a broader scale, which has resulted in cassette-only record labels, an annual Cassette Store Day, and even a cassette re-release of Metallica’s debut record Hit the Lights.

Recommended Videos

NAC is the leading cassette tape manufacturer in the U.S., producing runs for both major record labels like Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group, and a variety of indie labels.

“I think you could characterize our operating model as stubbornness and stupidity,” said the company’s president Steve Stepp to Bloomberg. “Now, we’re making more audio cassettes than we’ve ever made. And that’s something to say in 2015.”

The company, which still uses machines built in the ’70s, has stayed alive since the format’s heyday in the mid ’80s. And Stepp isn’t too surprised about the revival. Apparently 30 Rock’s Dennis Duffy was right: Technology is cyclical.

“[We were] preparing ourselves to pick the music market up when it came back,” he said in a Bloomberg video, “and that’s exactly what happened.” Now, NAC is responsible for producing cassette releases for do-it-yourself basement bands, big acts like Metallica, and even the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack.

The latter soundtrack was the second best-selling cassette of 2014, selling 2300 copies according to Rolling Stone. That’s no surprise to those who’ve seen the movie, given Star Lord’s love for his prized cassette mixtape. Late Mexican singer Cuco Sanchez’s Tu Solo Tu was the top seller, with 2600 units. These numbers may pale in comparison to 2014’s top vinyl sellers (Jack White leads that list with 87,000 copies sold of Lazaretto), but they’re still rather impressive in the streaming age.

Cassette sales surely aren’t going to usurp CD, vinyl, or digital download sales, but they’re enough to keep one company’s doors open for 46 years. And that’s due, first and foremost, to good old fashioned nostalgia. “Probably the thing that has really enlarged our business at a faster phase than anything is the retro movement,” explained Stepp.

Chris Leo Palermino
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Chris Leo Palermino is a music, tech, business, and culture journalist based between New York and Boston. He also contributes…
How to add family members to your Apple Music subscription
Apple Music Browse screen.

Apple Music is one of the go-to streaming services for all things melodic and melody-adjacent. Hosting over 88,000 million subscribers globally and featuring upwards of 100 million tracks from the leading artists of today, Spotify's nemesis has plenty to love.

If you're a new subscriber, Apple Music gives you a break-in period of one free months of service. After the trial period, memberships are billed on a monthly or yearly cycle with the most popular Individual plan coming it at $11 per month / $109 per year. While that's on par with the average cost for other music streamers, saving a buck here or there is never a bad thing. While college students can get Apple Music for $6/month, another way to save on your subscription is with an Apple Music family plan for $17 per month.

Read more
What is spatial audio? The 3D sound experience fully explained
Person listening to spatial audio using Apple AirPods Max headphones.

Since Apple added “spatial audio” to the Apple Music streaming service and the AirPods family of wireless earbuds and headphones in 2021, it feels like you can’t read about new audio products or services without running into that term. And just a few short years later, it’s seemingly everywhere.

This has led to a lot of misconceptions about what spatial audio is, how it works, and why you need to hear it for yourself. People often ask, “If Apple created spatial audio, why are other companies claiming they do it, too?” The answer is that Apple didn’t create it, and you certainly don’t need to own its products to experience spatial audio.

Read more
How to download music from SoundCloud on desktop and mobile
Soundcloud Interface on a Macbook.

If you’re a huge music fan, you’ve probably combed through the many playlists, artists, and albums of your Spotify or Apple Music subscription. But what about all the indie artists of the world? Some music-streaming platforms are better than others at celebrating the
‘unsung gem’ acts, but one of the most reliable forums for new, off-the-grid tunes is SoundCloud.

Founded in 2007, SoundCloud has always prioritized music that’s a bit under the radar. With over 320 million tracks in its library, the platform will even let you download a majority of its songs and albums.

Read more