Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off
People don&#x27;t want to just listen to music, they want to interact with it, own physical objects, and curate their own collection of music. The dominance of digital and streaming has left a gaping void in this, and this is a reason why vinyl has taken off – you can hold it, you have to interact with it to listen to it, it arguably sounds better, you have your own little art collection, and you have to put in much more effort to find and obtain it. CDs offer a similar experience, but it&#x27;s <i>too</i> similar to digital to be worthwhile, so cassettes have taken off because it&#x27;s a cheap and easy way for labels and artists to sell something physical. It sounds bad, but it&#x27;s interesting to listen to and if you want to listen to a higher quality version you can find it online. (and if you can&#x27;t, the choice of tape as a medium was intentional by the artist)<p>It&#x27;s weird to me whenever the move towards analog is written off as some vapid millennial&#x2F;hipster trend. The dominance of digital and streaming services has stolen this experience from us, and we are fighting to get it back.