Cassettes are most commonly thought of as a niche medium that catered to a nerdy audience of experimental music enthusiasts and freaks. But recently these little plastic boxes have made a comebackand seem to be on the brink of re-entering the mainstream once and for all. The format owes its recent gentrification in no small part to the world’s foremost hip-selling underground-appropriating corporate machine: Urban Outfitters. In recent years the one-stop indie shop has peddled more vinyl records than most other outlets and started to press their own, and now they’re adding tape to the empire. We’ve perused their shelves and beyond to find nine mainstream and/or major label records that recently saw a cassette release and thus have contributed to the medium’s much-hyped and sometimes exaggeratedrevival.
THE GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY SOUNDTRACK (HOLLYWOOD 2014)
The soundtrack for 2014’s highest-grossing movie in the US and Canada was released in every format imaginable in order to reach maximum exposure: CD, vinyl, MP3 and…cassette. The tape makes a cameo in the film when the main character gives his mother a mixtape with the same songs featured on this Record Store Day special edition, including cuts from David Bowie, Marvin Gaye and The Jackson 5. Its release marks the first cassette product from Disney since 2003, which gives some indication of how “back” this format is.
