Cassette tapes reborn as music format
Print Edition
COLLECTORS and music fans wearing the T-shirts of obscure rock bands brave the tropical heat outside a record store near Malaysia’s capital, waiting to get their hands on new cassette tapes.
No, this isn’t a flashback to the 1980s, but an event marking recent International Cassette Store Day, an annual celebration of a music format once thought headed for extinction but now enjoying a rebirth.
Vinyl’s renaissance is well-documented and now it seems cassettes are rising from the grave, with artists such as Kanye West and Justin Bieber releasing songs on tape.
In Southeast Asia low production costs and a retro-cool image have made cassettes an underground-music fixture, especially for struggling bands getting their name out.
“Cassettes are our best sellers,” Mohammad Radzi Jasni, owner of the store, Teenage Head Records, said after shoving one by Singaporean surf-punk band Force Vomit into a bulky tape player.
“They are still the best way to discover new bands here. It’s very affordable for the guys releasing it and the fans buying them,” he added.
Manufacturing costs can be as low as 4 ringgit (US$1) per tape in Malaysia, compared to 60 to 80 ringgit for a vinyl record.
Vinyl’s cost is a hurdle for young bands and DIY labels in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.
There are no vinyl-pressing plants in Southeast Asia, cassette lovers say, while cassette plants still dot the region.
To mark International Cassette Store Day, Teenage Head Records released 200 cassettes featuring Malaysian rock band Bittersweet. Almost all were sold out by the day’s end.
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