Time to party like it’s 1989, because after the news that vinyl sales outstripped digital downloads for the first time ever, comes word that cassette sales rose by 74% in 2016.
While this is more evidence that humans are hard-wired to want “things” rather than mere access to things, it’s hardly a surging renaissance for the format, with only 129,000 copies sold in the U.S. in 2016. It’s a rise from 2015’s 74,000 sales but still fairly small numbers.
The highest-selling cassette was the Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1 which sold 4,000 copies – no doubt due to the key role this tape plays in the film, while 25 different tapes moved more than 1,000 copies. These included Justin Bieber’s Purpose, Prince’s Purple Rain, Kanye West’s Yeezus and Eminem’s The Slim Shady Show – which sold 3,000 copies.
A lot of the recent surge has come through Urban Outfitters stocking the format, with the outlet shifting 27,000 cassettes through 2016. Anachronistically, the internet is by far the major way that cassettes sell these days, with 55,000 sales. Cassette Store Day also saw a surge in sales, due to many limited-edition releases being made available on the day.
