Why cassettes?

Okay, it's been too long since my first post and I spent some time thinking about the first topic I'm going to write about. But you know how it can be - so many things to say, but not much to write when it comes to the blank page. Anyway, in my introduction I told a lot about my occupations (you can always read it below) and one of the biggest of them is collecting tapes. Yes, cassette tapes, compact cassettes:

A lot of mass media already wrote about it - some years ago, some just recently stating that tape format has returned. That's right! Yet, it never actually vanished. Of course, mass media considers only big numbers provided by big companies, major labels... But we all know that major industry, despite millions of sales and huge efforts put in advertisement it's only a tiny bit of whole music world, which unfolds more and more nowadays. Simplicity of music soft, tons of online tutorials, fast computers and affordable solutions for home studio - all that turned music making into something usual and fun, taking away privileges from big industry. With Soundcloud and Youtube anyone can reach audience these days, music became so diverse, everyone with a computer or even just smartphone can be producer now... Of course there are always two sides! If you are dedicated listener with certain taste which you don't want to sacrifice to radio companies selling you whatever is trendy right now, you'll be out there, looking for certain artists, genres, labels and deeper you go, the harder it gets to find something really worthful. Internet is a mess, despite tagging, labeling, cataloging, etc. Industry changed a lot, and self-made producers can step out but also they may remain completely unknown - and it only depends on the ability of the artist to be its own manager, SMM, PR and many other things... At some point, internet was flooded by "bedroom" musicians with tons of music available for free and it was such long awaited freedom - from evil corporations and greedy major labels and TV and other bullshit. Indie. D.I.Y. Free folk. New Weird America. Drone. New-new age. Bedroom Pop. Hypnagogia, hauntology, webpunk, vaporwave... Yep, freedom was there but it came with cold wind in the wallet and rare attention from anyone except close friends and same D.I.Y. media.

If you read How Music Got Free: A Story of Obsession and Invention book by Stephen Witt (which I highly recommend) or simply used to download mp3's from file sharing blogs and sites (ftp's. Soulseek, DC++, torrent trackers, doesn't matter actually) you probably noticed that moment in your life when you have so much music so you can barely listen it. You have so much choice, so usually just choose to listen to same old stuff you love for ages... Or simply tune in some radio and forget about it. There was a moment in music industry, when single internet user could own whole cataloges of all major labels. On the hard drive. Isn't that wonderful? You have all music in the world, but how do you select what to listen?

The idea of record label was a beautiful and simple thing some years ago... And it's essence is not promoting artists, making sales, tours, ads - first of all, it's a filter. Of all music which exists out there, record label filters tiny portion of this flow and makes is noticeable. Cool, isn't it? But you know all those stories, when artists become slaves of their contracts and so on. But the fact that to exist, label has to maintain some quality standards in its selection of artist is very much needed on every level, even it's just black metal or harsh noise cassette underground. So when this flood of mp3's happened, people were drowning in that freedom. Of course, major industry suffered a lot and you can read it in above mentioned Stephen Witt's book - it's really interesting and they should made Hollywood movie off it! FBI infiltrating anonymous groups of internet pirates; German scientist trying to confront big corporations with newly invented audio format; major labels on the edge of hysteria... Yeah, it's good!

I used to download tons of music myself and was really obsessive about it - when I got interested in, say... early doom metal from UK, I had to download for every band complete discography with all singles, demos, EP's, etc... I spent nights surfing for some rare demo or live bootleg. Did I listened to all of it? Barely, maybe once or twice. It wasn't about music anymore... That's a huge topic to discuss, actually - psychology of such discoveries. But what I actually listened to were my tapes. Despite terabytes of music on the hard drives and back up DVD's I always kept some tapes around and really listened to them a lot. I knew every song off any album I've got. I knew exactly which sound is going to follow next after few seconds of silence between songs. I knew which one tape is which even without covers and labels on them... Yes, there were CD's and vinyl. But CD's were so easy to damage, they would skip and won't play, they wouldn't stand dust. Same and more with vinyl. And they were much expensive, of course! While tapes were everywhere and you could play them right off the moment you stopped. That was the simple magic of them :-)

And at this point you probably revived some memories and felt that nostalgia, right? That's good! And considering everything which happened with music world in last two decades it's completely natural thing to do - when you face avalanche, you ran to safety, to something well-known. I'm not going to talk about what happened to big industry, there are plenty of books and press on that topic, I'm more interested in underground. And all those "undergrounds" revisited idea of music label and commerce quite quickly. And at some point, around 2009-11 tapes made a big return. According to Bandcamp, fastest growing online streaming platform in the recent years, year of 2017 saw "growth in physical sales led by vinyl (up 54%), CDs (up 18%), and cassettes (up 41%)" and you have to consider the fact that this is the platform for independent musicians and labels, no big bellies! "All-time payments to artists through Bandcamp reached $270 million" says the article and these are really good numbers because the rest of streaming industry faces huge dropdown.

So yes, vinyl and tapes rule again. And of course there are thousands of collectors who'd kill you arguing about how good vinyl sounds compared to anything and how good it is to hold big artwork in your hands, etc. And I agree, vinyl is cool for many reasons. Yet, tapes are much cooler for me personally and for the independent artists in general. They are way cheaper. They are easy to produce even at home. They are easy to sell at the show because fan would put it in the pocket and enjoy the rest of the show while buying vinyl would keep at least one of your hands busy :-) You can easily repair or copy it if it damages. They are easy to ship in the mail!..

I can go on, but the thing is that despite changing apartments, cities and countries I always had some tapes with me. And never stopped collecting - only music styles changed. Right now I mostly buy vaporwave and ambient cassettes and this scene amazes with it's pace! People set alarms to get in time when label drops cassette release because they get sold out in minutes. People pay crazy amounts of cash for rare albums released only two or three years ago while all of it can be downloaded for free at the same Bandcamp or simply streamed on Youtube. But that's the essence of the label and the physical object I was talking about - the format isn't that important, tapes are just easiest to make. What matters is the selection, the dedication, the fact that in this wast and constantly growing ocean of sounds someone puts tiny portion off it on tape, makes an effort in the physical world - going to printing and duplication companies, dubbing tapes on old japanese decks in real time one by one, going to post to ship everything... Only because there are people who are waiting for it, people who understand the effort. And this effort makes music valuable, gives it a chance to be noticed and to get deserved attention. Because as we all know, attention is the most important thing it today's world.