Interestingly, he says this is necessary because a lot of music simply hasn’t been transcribed into a digital format. The 47-year-old runs a Facebook page called Audio Restorations, and spends much of his time digitizing rare audio recordings from audio cassettes and LPs. “Only cities like Lucknow and Kolkata have shops that still stock a few dusty tapes, even if they are selling the latest formats."ĭelhi-based Moloy Ghosh is an exception. “No music company in this country imports or manufactures cassettes any more," he says.
“Some are now waking up to the fact that they are making a comeback, like vinyl," he says, but admits to not knowing anyone who is on a collecting spree or mopping up last stocks of old releases from dealers or defunct stores.
Sridhar T.V.N., a record company veteran, believes the only people in India still listening to audio cassettes are those who are too nostalgic to get rid of them. According to media reports, sales are still climbing, which isn’t something any company in India can claim. The National Audio Company, reportedly one of the few remaining manufacturers of cassettes in the US, produced more than 10 million tapes in 2014 sales went up 20% the year after. Not everyone believes the format is dead though. When asked about sales over the past decade or so in the Indian music industry, he says there is no data-the decline commenced over a decade ago, as demand for vinyl began to rise. Chhatrapati, vice-president, South Asia, physical, live and merchandising at the Universal Music Group, says his label stopped manufacturing cassettes seven-eight years ago-there was no market for the format. Unsold stock was just crushed and steamrolled into recoiled plastic." “We sold a cumulative of Rs45 crore worth of cassettes and CDs (the latter accounting for 25%) over three years," he says, “At an average price per cassette (Hindi and English) of Rs50 per tape. Sales began to decline by the early 1990s though, as mini and compact discs began to appear.Ĭhris George, founder and chief executive officer of the now defunct, one of India’s first e-commerce sites focused exclusively on the music business, says his website sold audio cassettes until 2003, at which point the cost of CDs fell considerably and digital music took over. By the 1980s, bootleggers were making a killing worldwide, and could be found in most Indian cities by those who knew where to look.
This was followed by the mass production of blank tapes, which inadvertently helped give birth to hip hop and helped young men like me impress young women by recording selections of songs for their exclusive listening pleasure. Cassette decks for cars arrived a few years later, forever changing the way mankind travelled, and making long trips on India’s stressful roads infinitely more bearable.
To put things into perspective, music cassettes arrived in the US in 1966, slowly elbowing the popular LP out of the way. Where did all the audio cassettes go anyway? It’s been over two decades since the format was an industry leader, and seven years since Sony stopped manufacturing its iconic Walkman.
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