Gen Z fueling a cassette tape comeback

When Charlie Kaplan — founder and owner of Long Island-based online store Tapehead City — noticed that Urban Outfitters had devoted a section to cassettes and their players, he knew that a new generation was getting into the Walkman groove. 

“The younger kids are getting into cassettes for sure,” Kaplan, 41, told The Post. “Especially with these bigger pop artists like Taylor Swift selling crazy amounts of tapes. I mean, I don’t think there’s, like, 40-year-old dudes buying them.”

No doubt — cassette sales are booming again, rewinding the clock back to the boombox era when they ruled as a more portable alternative to vinyl.

After decades in decline with the emergence of CDs and then digital music, cassette tapes — released by the likes of Swift, Billie Eilish and Harry Styles — have experienced a 443% increase in US sales since 2015, according to Luminate data.

Following the vinyl resurgence, cassettes are the latest example of young music fans who grew up on downloads and streaming now embracing the physical products of their parents’ generation.

Nostalgic pop culture moments — such as Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) listening to tapes on “Stranger Things” and Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) rocking out to his Walkman in “Guardians of the Galaxy” — have helped make cassettes hot again.

“I read the book ‘Thirteen Reasons Why’ for a school project, and that featured someone who recorded messages on cassette [for others to listen to after her suicide],” said 23-year-old tape collector Zoël Labelle of the 2007 best-seller, which was turned into a popular Netflix series that ran from 2017 to 2020.

“I feel like cassettes kind of got forgotten. But when they were kind of obscure enough to be unfamiliar to the younger generation, they became kind of cool. Being my age, I see a lot of people, a lot of kids that are fascinated with things that are vintage, like old camcorders, T-shirts, comic books. Like, Michael Jordan is just huge again.”

When Tower Records relaunched as an online store in 2020, they began with just vinyl, but quickly added CDs and then cassettes.

“Nirvana is a top seller for us. Orville Peck, De La Soul, Beach House, the Shins, Phoebe Bridgers — those are the ones that we are seeing some traction on,” said Tower Records president Danny Zeijdel, 41. “I see it more as doing something unique and different from an artist perspective.”

Cassette sales also got a boost from difficulty manufacturing records.

“A couple years ago, there were issues with getting vinyl produced,” said Zeijdel, “and maybe a way to do something else that’s physical was going into cassettes.”

During the heart of the pandemic, indie acts turned to cassettes as a way to make money — and stay connected to fans — that was cheaper and quicker than vinyl.

“They were looking for opportunities to do tapes with us,” said Kaplan, whose Long Beach-based company sells new releases and special reissues as well as used tapes.

“You know, they’re not touring, they’re not making money. Also, everyone was home on their computers, so I definitely noticed sales skyrocketed for me during that time.”

But the cassette resurgence is also a product of fans showing their support for their favorite artists — most of whom are making pennies on streaming.

“The artists are complaining about the streaming payouts,” said Zeijdel. “Instead of buying a T-shirt, maybe [buying] a cassette is something nicer to help the artists out.”

Still, finding something to actually play those cassettes on can be tricky — unless you or your parents have been holding on to old equipment for decades.

Kaplan says that your best bet to find a decent device might be “your local thrift store. You can get one for 10 bucks.”

In fact, Labelle’s cassette passion was fueled when his father found a Walkman at a yard sale a couple years ago and bought it for him.

“From that point on, it just, like, felt different because I was listening to an album in its entirety, without any interruptions,” he said. “It wasn’t like a shuffle or a random song coming on playlists. So you feel like you get more of a real true album experience with the cassettes.”

Sony has introduced Walkman-like products that only play digital music — and cost as much as $3,700 — but if you’re looking for the real deal, you can find refurbished Walkmans online.

Recording the Masters (RTM) — a French company that makes studio-quality cassette tapes for labels and artists — released its own portable player in late 2022.

As a tape collector himself, RTM sales manager Matt Drayton, 29, is getting to relive his childhood memories both on and off the clock.

“I used to love them as a kid,” he said. “I remember my dad recording things on blank cassettes, cassettes playing in the car as well, so it’s really come full circle.”

Indeed, it’s also bringing back the challenges that came when cassettes got eaten up or became unspooled.

Labelle learned the hard way when his tape of Ice-T’s “Power” got stuck in a JVC boombox that he was testing out at a thrift store.

“I spent a solid 10 minutes just kind of digging it out,” he said. “And then I walked over to the customer service desk, asked for a pen, and I was fortunate to loop it all back together. Part of me was like, ‘I’m finally getting the pencil experience man! This is what it was like back in the day!’ “