From BPI.

 

https://www.bpi.co.uk/news-analysis/cassett...alysis-reveals/

 

Artists including Arctic Monkeys, Florence + The Machine and Harry Styles lifted UK cassette sales to their highest level in nearly two decades last year, according to new analysis from the BPI, the representative voice for the UK’s world-leading record labels and music companies.

 

Based on Official Charts Company data, sales of the retro format grew for a tenth consecutive year in 2022, reaching annual totals not seen since 2003, when the year’s two most popular titles were Now That’s What I Call Music compilations and Daniel O’Donnell had the top artist album.

 

The revival of the audio cassette market is highlighted, among many other fascinating trends and stats, in All About The Music 2023 – the 44th edition of the BPI Yearbook, which is out now1.

 

While sales of cassettes remain quite a bit lower than vinyl, having grown by 5.2% year-on-year to 195,000 units in 2022, the format is playing a significant role in the sales mix of some brand new album releases. On 10 occasions last year, the format accounted for over 10% of the chart sales of the No.1 album on the weekly Official Albums Chart. Some of these chart-topping albums sold more copies on cassette than on vinyl when they debuted at No.1, including Florence + The Machine’s Dance Fever and 5SOS5 by 5 Seconds of Summer. More than a fifth of each album’s first-week chart sales were claimed by cassette. For some new albums, a cassette version went on sale when a vinyl release was not available, as was the case with Central Cee’s 23, Digga D’s Noughty By Nature and Blackpink’s Born Pink, which all reached No.1 last year.

 

OFFICIAL CASSETTE ARTIST ALBUMS CHART 2022 – © Official Charts Company

 

1. Arctic Monkeys – The Car

2. Harry Styles – Harry’s House

3. Florence + The Machine – Dance Fever

4. Muse – Will Of The People

5. Central Cee– 23

6. Robbie Williams – XXV

7. 5 Seconds of Summer – 5SOS5

8. Blackpink – Born Pink

9. The 1975 – Being Funny In A Foreign Language

10. Machine Gun Kelly – Mainstream Sellout

 

Sophie Jones, BPI Chief Strategy Officer and Interim CEO, said: “For many of us growing up, cassettes were a rite of passage as we listened to our favourite artists. So it’s heartening that this once much-loved format is back in vogue, even if still a tiny part of music consumption overall. Like vinyl, a number of contemporary artists are warmly embracing the cassette as another way to reach audiences and on occasions it has even helped them to achieve a No.1 album. While streaming is by far the leading format, the renewed popularity of cassettes and vinyl highlights the continuing importance of the physical market and the many ways fans have to consume music.”

 

Arctic Monkeys had the year’s biggest-selling cassette with The Car, finishing ahead of Harry Styles’ Harry’s House, which was the top album across all formats. The top five cassette sellers were completed by releases from Florence + The Machine (Dance Fever), Muse (Will Of The People) and Central Cee (23), while artists including Blackpink (Born Pink), Machine Gun Kelly (Mainstream Sellout), Robbie Williams (XXV) and The 1975 (Being Funny In A Foreign Language) also finished in the year’s Top 10. All but two of the Top 10 sellers sold more than 5,000 cassettes during the year, while there were 40 occasions in 2022 when an album sold over 1,000 cassettes over the course of a week. This compares to 34 titles doing the same the year before.

 

Every one of the Top 10 cassette sellers was released in 2022, as were the entire Top 20, which included releases by Avril Lavigne (Love Sux), Jamie T (The Theory Of Whatever), Knucks (Alpha Place) and Blossoms (Ribbon Around The Bomb). The top catalogue seller was Iron Maiden’s The Number Of The Beast, which was reissued on cassette in March last year to mark its 40th anniversary. Another popular catalogue title was the original soundtrack to the 2014 Marvel Studios film Guardians Of The Galaxy, which includes vintage tracks by 10cc, David Bowie and Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell. Sub-titled Awesome Mix Vol. 1, the album was one of the earliest titles to be released on cassette since the format’s revival and is one of the biggest sellers over the last ten years.

 

A decade of growth for cassettes marks a remarkable turnaround in fortunes for a format which between 1985 and 1992 led the UK albums market before being overtaken by CD. However, by 2012 its total annual sales had dropped below 4,000 units. Since then purchases have risen every year, but its revival picked up markedly in 2020 when it grew from just over 80,000 units the year before to nearly 160,000 units, almost doubling in size in a single year. It surpassed 185,000 units in 2021, while the 195,000 units it sold last year took it to a level not seen since before Apple launched its iTunes Music download store in the UK.

 

Drew Hill, MD Proper Music Group and VP Distribution at Utopia Music, said: “While cassettes comprise only a small percentage of the UK album market, the format’s continuous growth over the last decade speaks to the ongoing fan demand for a myriad of ways to listen, collect and value music. We reside in a golden era of choice, where music fans are looking to labels and artists to offer a broad spectrum of physical options to complement digital streaming.

 

*2023 Year Book costs £110 + shipping and VAT where applicable.

I have to say I hate cassettes but collect them for the artists I collect on, unlike vinyl nobody is buying cassettes to play they are usually a ‘forced’ purchase as part of a bundle or to get a signed item or heavily reduced in chart battles and used to whip the fanbase up into a buying frenzy.

 

The only positive I guess is that it helps the physical market but they are nothing more than collectors items filling up cupboards :lol:

Amazon still sells cassette players. Their best seller is DIGITNOW! Portable Cassette Player/Cassette to MP3 Converter Capture Cassette Tape to MP3/CD Audio via USB at £17.99.

 

Easy to Operate: With Audacity software, you could convert old mix tapes and cassette to MP3 via USB on iPod/MP3 player or burn to CD.

 

Portable Design: Compact Size and suitable weightmake you could listen to the cassette music anywhere with this Cassette Walkman

 

Supports External Player: WIth earphone included, you could listen to music in cassette via 3.5mm earphone jack directly or connect to more profession extermal music player.

 

Various compatibilities: Compatible with Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7, Mac older than version 10.5. Battery(not included) or USB powered.

 

Package Included: 1 x USB Cassette Capture, 1 x USB Cable, 1 x Software CD, 1 x 3.5mm jack earphone, 1 x User Manual

I'm often tempted to suggest that cassette sales shouldn't count towards the charts in this day and age - they are now little more than collectible items for the fanbases and I don't believe the majority of them get listened to.

 

Of course they help to keep first week album sales relatively healthy so the OCC wouldn't want to do away with them, but at the same time it's another factor distorting what the album charts are purported to represent.

I'm often tempted to suggest that cassette sales shouldn't count towards the charts in this day and age - they are now little more than collectible items for the fanbases and I don't believe the majority of them get listened to.

 

Of course they help to keep first week album sales relatively healthy so the OCC wouldn't want to do away with them, but at the same time it's another factor distorting what the album charts are purported to represent.

 

They still allow mini discs to be counted so there is no way they would do away with cassettes but I agree, I collect on 2 artists and have all the cassettes they’ve released but they are all still sealed and stored away, I don’t know anyone that buys them to play them - I’d guess less than 1% of purchases actually get played if that.

Story about cassette sales on ITV news at 6.30pm.

I'm always fascinated by cassettes as a way to listen to music. Like most of us, I had many singles on cassette as a kid but of course stopped buying them as CDs took priority. I did dabble in buying a cassette player and some albums in 2018 but the quality of the player/cassette (couldn't tell what was worse) just prevented me from pursuing it any further as a way to listen to music given the digital quality that is available to us. I don't mind having to listen to something all the way through which I know can be a detractor for cassettes as you can't pick where you start from but a little bit of forwarding and learning where the tracks start isn't too difficult to work out. I appreciate it's definitely more of a fan/collector thing now to get albums in this format as they are often designed in different ways to vinyl, I just wish the audio quality was improved given the length of time since they phased out the first time. I don't think it's remotely possible though given the format (and how flimsy the tape actually is) to even achieve great quality.

They still allow mini discs to be counted so there is no way they would do away with cassettes but I agree, I collect on 2 artists and have all the cassettes they’ve released but they are all still sealed and stored away, I don’t know anyone that buys them to play them - I’d guess less than 1% of purchases actually get played if that.

It's not like CDs get played in this day & age either.

proud to be a part of that number after snagging a cassette copy of Everything Everything's Raw Data Feel last year :teresa:

 

I wonder how many minidiscs were sold last year.

It's not like CDs get played in this day & age either.

 

Don't they? With vinyl and cassettes there's usually unique design elements/colours/artwork to them which make them collectable to be on display. A CD doesn't usually have that option offered

 

Had no idea minidiscs were still a thing in music land

It's not like CDs get played in this day & age either.

 

I would assume they get played a lot more than cassettes? I still know people that buy CDs to play them.

I wonder how many minidiscs were sold last year.

 

Had no idea minidiscs were still a thing in music land

 

A few artists have done them but in ridiculously small numbers (but the resale market on them appears to be high).

 

Sam Fender done 100 copies for his first album and 200 for his second, there have been some other big artists that have done some runs of 50-200.

 

I think this is the only company that still makes them now - https://www.bandcds.co.uk/minidisc/minidisc...ull-size-cases/

 

The recent Sam Fender one - https://shop.samfender.com/collections/musi...under-mini-disc

Edited April 19, 20232 yr by ___∆___

I didn't buy any of the Top 10 cassettes listed above! I did buy these on cassette in 2022:

 

Carly Rae Jepsen - The Loneliest Time [Orange]

Conan Gray - Superache

Lauv - ~how i'm feeling~ (released in 2020)

Nicola Roberts - Cinderella's Eyes [Green] (released in 2021)

Shawn Mendes - Wonder [blue] (released in 2020)

Spice Girls - Spiceworld 25 [Double]

Steps - Platinum Collection

 

Nothing in 2023 so far, but I'll be getting Louise - Greatest Hits cassette in June!

 

 

CDs - I probably haven't played one in a CD player since before I downloaded iTunes in 2005! From that moment, I just ripped the CDs and listened to the files on iTunes or iPod. I think it was either 2017 or 2018 when I really embraced Spotify, so my CD buying has definitely reduced over the past few years. I'll only get CDs of the artists I really love. I still rip them to iTunes, even though I rarely use iTunes these days. My CD purchases are almost as redundant as cassette purchases in all honesty. Out of all the physical formats, it's only really vinyl that I properly use now, i.e. I actually play them.

I'm often tempted to suggest that cassette sales shouldn't count towards the charts in this day and age - they are now little more than collectible items for the fanbases and I don't believe the majority of them get listened to.

 

Of course they help to keep first week album sales relatively healthy so the OCC wouldn't want to do away with them, but at the same time it's another factor distorting what the album charts are purported to represent.

 

To be fair I imagine this is the case for a lot of CD and especially vinyl sales as well - physical media in general has become glorified merchandise for a lot of current artists.