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| Cassette tapes are displayed in Dope Records, a record shop in Mapo-gu, Seoul, Sept. 11. Korea Times photo by Park Ji-won |
By Park Ji-won
In the 1980s and 1990s, playing a cassette tape was one of the most common ways to enjoy music. It was small and cheap, so it was a good format for production companies to release their music on and for consumers to enjoy popular songs at lower prices.
With technology advancements, sales of the cassette tape decreased along with vinyl records as CDs overtook them as the most popular format in the mid-1990s, later to be overtaken by MP3 players and then again by digital music streaming services.
But the boom of the retro culture here in recent years, as well as the popularity of the film "Guardians of the Galaxy," has led to a revival of the cassette tape, attracting both young and older generations to collect the media as it brings nostalgia to those who miss the unmistakable sound and gives those who are young the experience of discovering "new" old music and building rare music collections.
Musicians still release vinyl records, sometimes just for fans or sometimes as a limited edition. But it is again becoming common for commercial music tracks to be released on cassette tape format.
BTS, the undisputable K-pop sensation, released "Dynamite," a disco-pop track, online Aug. 21 as well as in cassette tape and vinyl record formats. SSAK3, a one-off K-pop group consisting of singers Lee Hyo-ri, Rain, and comedian Yoo Jae-suk, also released a mini album in August in CD and cassette tape formats. In October 2016, SHINee, a K-pop boy group, also released its single on cassette, which was a very rare move at the time.
There are no statistics to show the market size of for cassette tapes in Korea, but their sales are constantly growing in the international market. About 65,000 music cassettes were sold in the U.K. in the first half of 2020, according to the latest data of the Official Charts Company. The company says it is double that sold in the same period in 2019 and the entire sales in 2018.
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| Cassette tapes are displayed in Dope Records, a record shop in Mapo-gu, Seoul, Sept. 11. Korea Times photo by Park Ji-won |
In Korea, collecting cassette tapes and making mix tapes have become a popular hobby for the young and old.
The number of members who joined online communities to share information on cassette tapes also has been largely growing in recent years. "People who listen to music with cassette players," one of the largest cassette tape communities which was launched in 2016 on Naver, has about 12,000 members as of Sept. 16. Many new members wrote that they joined the club to have more information about the analog media; some want to learn more about how to buy, store, use the tapes, and the ways to create their own tape.
It is not easy to find a record shop, let alone one that sells cassette tapes, these days. But in Seoul, the products can be found in some old-fashioned record shops such as Seoul Record, Dol Record, and Seoul Music.
Surprisingly, the demographic of cassette tape lovers is not only made up of people who used the media in the 80s and 90s. Teenagers and people in their early 20s account for a large portion of the consumer base now.
"Our main customers are in their teens and early 20s," Kim Yun-jung, owner of Dope Records, a record shop in Mapo-gu, Seoul, said. The shop is one of the must-go places for music lovers, especially those who collect cassettes as it has about 20,000 in stock, as well as vinyl records and music-related merchandise from all over the world. The prices of tapes range from 500 won ($0.42) up to 200,000 won for rarities.
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| Cassette tapes are displayed in Dope Records, a record shop in Mapo-gu, Seoul, Sept. 11. Korea Times photo by Park Ji-won |
"I heard that some of the customers even don't have a cassette player at home. But they buy the tapes only as collectibles. It is part of being a 'hipster' in the 'retro' culture." He said the young customers find the media interesting as they are from generations who have only enjoyed music via streaming services without dedicated music playback devices.
"The people who have used a cassette player know how inconvenient it is. But many young people find it interesting as many of them have never seen such physical devices playing music. Some said they listen to YouTube music or iTunes while placing the cassette tape and cassette player next to them."
Experts say the popularity of cassette tapes would last for a while amid the pandemic.
"Buying a cassette tape is still something pursued by a small number of fans. But, people have a certain nature to possess what they like. Also, as COVID-19 spreads, fans are finding ways to spend their money on, and music production companies are also putting more efforts on, making their records into multiple different versions. These factors are leading the expansion of the physical record market as well. So I expect that the popularity of cassette tapes will last at least for one to two years until the pandemic settles," popular music critic Kim Yoon-ha told The Korea Times, Wednesday.
