Tomorrow on Cassette

Regular price €102.99
Quantity:
In stock with our UK publisher. 14-28 days
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days
14 days return policy Shipping & Delivery
1980s technology
A01=Benjamin Duester
audio cassette
Author_Benjamin Duester
Category=AVX
Category=JBC
Category=KNTF
Category=PDR
cultural phenomena
DIY music scene
economic technology choices
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_business-finance-law
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_science
eq_society-politics
genre
material studies
music media
nostalgia
Western mass media

Product details

  • ISBN 9798765105948
  • Weight: 500g
  • Dimensions: 158 x 230mm
  • Publication Date: 12 Jun 2025
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Hardback
Secure checkout Fast Shipping Easy returns

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.

More from this author