Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl cassette in Portofino Orange Glitter shellCredit: Taylor Swift
The resurgence has also been driven by the paltry royalties paid by streaming platforms – Spotify pays between $US0.003 and $US.005 per stream. As a result, artists have leant into physical formats as a more reliable income stream and as a way to better connect with fans.
Other artists, such as Melbourne band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, have pulled their music from Spotify (the band did it in protest at its founder’s links to the defence industry), adding to the appeal of their physical releases.
Cassettes and CDs stacking up
Records continue to be dominant, but CDs and cassettes are again populating display racks in shops and merchandise stands at gigs.
Aside from nostalgia and aesthetics, discs and tapes are more profitable and less risky for artists, said Scott Wilson, owner of Replicat, which manages music and merchandise manufacturing for independent labels and artists.
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Fledgling bands and artists can order CDs and cassettes for as little as $6 each in production runs of 100, and commonly sell them for between $15-$30 to fans. Meanwhile, ordering 100 vinyl records will cost about $25 per unit, but routinely sell to listeners for between $50-$100.
Vinyl records become much cheaper, down to $10, when production volumes increase. Cassette orders, for their part, can be turned around in two weeks, and can be done in runs of just 50, requiring minimal upfront risk for artists.
“Buying a physical album isn’t just about the music – it’s about supporting the artist directly [and] owning a keepsake,” Wilson said.
Matt Huddy, manager at Sydney’s Red Eye Records, said that while records had overtaken CD sales in the last decade, demand was now split roughly evenly between the two. He put that down to price, saying younger customers, including teenagers who can’t afford vinyls, still want to buy something physical to support their favourite artists.
“We’ll always be tactile creatures and the feeling you get from putting on a CD, LP or cassette will always feel better and more of a connection to the music you’re playing than pressing a triangle on your phone,” Huddy said.
“Ownership of physical media plays a part too; it becomes a part of who you are.”
Musicians can also take advantage of new colours and materials. Taylor Swift released her latest album The Life of a Showgirl in multiple collectible variations, such as a “Portofino Orange Glitter” cassette, and vinyls in “Summertime Spritz Pink Shimmer” and “Yellow Sparkle Vinyl”, with exclusivity deals to different retailers.
Jarrah Saunders duplicating cassettes at Dex Audio in Melbourne’s Kensington. Credit: Jason South
Cassettes in bright colours are also common among other modern artists releasing on the medium, such as Dua Lipa, Charli XCX, G Flip, Royel Otis and The 1975.
Production lines reopened
Cassettes are a medium that local artists almost lost entirely. Dex Audio, in Melbourne’s Kensington, was Australia’s last remaining high-quantity cassette-duplicating business, and its machines were largely unused through much of the 2010s.
“It’s funny, about eight years ago, I was looking to make some space in the warehouse here and we had all this surplus cassette equipment just gathering dust, I was about to call the scrappers but then our manager intervened and said ‘I’ve just had an inquiry for a cassettes’,” recalls Greg Williams, who co-founded Dex in 1978. The business is also Australia’s only manufacturer of CDs and DVDs.
‘There are fans buying the records, CDs or cassettes of their favourite artists, and they may not have anything to play them on.’
Scott Wilson, owner of Replicat
Williams restored the equipment, drew up a price list and trained staff to duplicate tapes. While orders are nowhere near the 300,000 per month they once produced in the medium’s 1980s heyday, Williams expects to produce 10,000 audio cassettes over the next month, in what is one of the busiest times of the year ahead of Christmas and bands touring.
“It’s been increasing recently. People expect to see it as merch at a show,” he said. “We’ve got a whole new generation who haven’t experienced tapes before, and what stimulates them is colour. We’re doing a lot in primary colours now, they want them to pop.
“The kids are taking ownership of tapes, putting their own stamp on the medium, and I kind of like that,” Williams said.
Cassettes produced at Dex Audio in Melbourne’s Kensington.Credit: Jason South
However, young fans of artists who are releasing physical formats are bumping into a bizarre problem: most don’t own devices on which to play them. Even CD players have vanished from most modern cars.
“There are fans buying the records, CDs or cassettes of their favourite artists, and they may not have anything to play them on,” said Wilson.
Teenagers buying cassettes are also finding they don’t have the tools traditionally used to rewind them: pencils, after all, are less common in the digital era. “We’ve seen young artists selling audio cassettes with a free pencil to fans,” said Wilson.
Procuring a player can be tricky – Dex Audio frequently receives queries about repairing second-hand machines – so cassette and CD player manufacturing has been revived as a result.
We Are Rewind, a personal Bluetooth-enabled cassette player recently put into production. Credit: We Are Rewind
Retailers including JB Hi-Fi now advertise a range of cassette and CD players, in addition to selling new releases on the format. While the retro boombox and Walkman designs are popular, other players have new features such as integrated bluetooth so they can be used with wireless headphones.
One of those manufacturers is French company We Are Rewind, whose products are sold at JB Hi-Fi. “Every time I talk about what I do to people I meet, they open their eyes wide and say, ‘Really? That’s crazy, the cassette is actually coming back?’ ” said Romain Boudruche, its chief executive.
The company, which started in 2019,expects to sell up to 20,000 of its Bluetooth-enabled brightly coloured players, which include personal devices and boombox speakers, next year. Its customer base is split between 50-60 year olds wanting to play their old tapes, and a much younger generation who first discovered the older tech through shows such as Stranger Things, said Boudruche.
Sydney’s Red Eye Records is expecting a busy sales period leading into Christmas.Credit: James Brickwood
Given all the new fans, stores must stock diverse tastes. Classics such as Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon “always sell well” at Red Eye, Huddy said, and ahead of this Christmas, new releases from Rosalia and alternative indie band Geese are expected to sell out.
Ultimately, it’s about being prepared for any music fan to walk in excited to grow their physical music collection. “You could be selling a [rapper] NAS LP followed up with Beethoven’s 7th.”
