Tomorrow on Cassette

Tape Jams in the New Media Age

Dr. Benjamin Duester (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

248 Seiten

2025
Bloomsbury Academic (Verlag)
979-8-7651-0594-8 (ISBN)

Artikel merken

Growing sales numbers for cassette tapes in the Global North since the early 2010s have led mass media outlets to repeatedly proclaim a tape revival.

Yet, the grassroots projects of devotees in niche punk, noise and hip-hop DIY music scenes have continuously upheld the unique material benefits of cassettes while wider society considered them a relic of bygone times. Contrasting the popular notion of current cassette use being a mere side effect of the blazing interest in the vinyl record, this book argues that the lasting embrace of tapes is based on complex cultural, economic and material factors that shape cassettes as hybrid artefacts of music in the new media age.

Drawing on interviews with 85 experts active in DIY music cultures as independent record shop operators, musicians, event promoters, fans and collectors across Japan, Australia and the United States, Tomorrow on Cassette presents a seminal exploration of how the cassette tape’s significance as a tool for material expression, creativity and sociality perseveres in the 21st-century.

Benjamin Duester is a cultural sociologist interested in the intersection of popular music, material culture and political ecology. He is an ERC-fellow in musicology at Georg August University of Göttingen, Germany, and a co-founder of the international skate research network SSHRED (Skateboarding, Sustainability, Health Research and Environmental Design) for which he co-convenes the SSHRED seminar series.

Acknowledgements
Note on Translations
List of Figures
Preface
Part I: Industry Artefact
1. A Brief History of the Cassette
2. The State of the Cassette Industry
3. ‘Tapes Never Went Away’
Part II: Material Memento
4. Streaming or Owning Music?
5. They’re Not Making ‘Em Like They Used To…
6. A Visual Turn of the Tape
Part III: Cultural Currency
7. Sticky Tape: Cassettes and Social Cohesion
8. Cassette Store Day
Epilogue: Tomorrow on Cassette or: a Plastic Fantastic Dilemma
References
Notes
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	31.05.2025
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	158 x 230 mm
Gewicht	500 g
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Musik ► Allgemeines / Lexika
	Naturwissenschaften
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Medienwissenschaft
ISBN-13	979-8-7651-0594-8 / 9798765105948
Zustand	Neuware