Cassette Tapes

February 6, 2005 9:42 AM

I'm looking for a music store that has a reasonable selection of cassettes of current release LPs. [+]

My husband has a cassette deck in his car, a huge cassette collection, and no interest in CDs or MP3s. While he tends to rely on what he's already amassed for music, there are a handful of newish albums he'd like to get a hold of in his preferred medium. Locally (predictably) he's had no luck.

Metal is the genre of choice, but please feel free to share any resource.

posted by gnomeloaf to shopping (5 comments total)

Umm, online retailers? We'll need to know where you live if you're looking for brick and mortar shops.
posted by Evstar at 10:00 AM on February 6, 2005

It's probably not a matter of finding the right store; none of the metal labels that I know of issue current releases on cassette. They just don't make 'em.

I also have a heap of old cassettes and a cassette player in the car; I just buy new stuff on CD and make cassette copies of things that I might want to take in the car.
posted by Wolfdog at 10:37 AM on February 6, 2005

My label released its last cassette in 1995, and that was a mistake.
Best to make your own; they will sound better anyway.

To find out if a particular release ever existed in that format, try looking on GEMM (top search box will scan the entire database) .
posted by omnidrew at 11:05 AM on February 6, 2005

I left my location out because I'm not averse to travel if it's doable, or calling and trying to arrange something if it isn't.

Thanks for the GEMM link -- and not surprisingly, I'm coming up blank. Maybe it's finally time for me to sit him down and gently explain the facts of upgrade life.
posted by gnomeloaf at 1:57 PM on February 6, 2005

Amoeba (San Francisco/Los Angeles) still carries cassettes and LPs, though it's true that plenty of stuff just isn't released on vinyl or tape anymore. (In my experience, the new releases I've seen on vinyl tend to be stuff appropriate for DJ'ing -- hiphop, acid jazz, etc.) I used to be a bit of a vinyl diehard myself, so I have some sympathy for that reluctance to cross over to the digital side of things -- but even I had to give up about 8 years ago and turn to CDs, because so much stuff I liked just wasn't released in any other format.
posted by scody at 3:24 PM on February 6, 2005