For all the talk about the "death" of the CD, there's little talk about the other physical formats. Today the NY Times' Andrew Adam Newman has an article called "The Analog Geezer That Keeps Working" about the all-but-written off cassette, the CD's 42-year-old predecessor. Though cassettes account for only 1% of music sales, they are responsible for 37% of all audio book sales.

Why is that? Newman gives a few reasons. First, the cassette lends itself to the audio book. Rewinding is simple, and older CD players do not start where you left off. Also, 53% of people listen to audio books in cars, and most cards have cassette players.

Music sales follow hardware usage. That's why I believe the CD will be a viable format for years to come. Stereos play CDs and computers have CD drives. Take away the ability to play CDs and consumers will quickly adopt a new format, like digital. Take cassette players out of cars and boomboxes and cassette usage will drop accordingly.

Cassette sales took a hit when Tower went out of business. I remember talking to the buyer who stocked the three-for-$10 cassettes in the floor display unit. He said he could hardly keep them in stock. And this wasn't in some backwoods market where people are years behind the technology curve. This was Manhattan. Yes, there's still a market for cassettes. Not everybody can listen to a CD. For example, America's prisons are a heavy consumer of cassettes. CDs are not allowed in most prisons because they can be used as weapons.

"The cassette is dying a slow death,” said an audio book producer in the article. “But an exceedingly slow death." In some circles there may be a growth in cassettes. Cassettes are the new vinyl, the new contrarian statement of the music underground. In the last few months I've purchased two cassettes from merch tables at venues. One was a split cassette by the bands Black Walls and Heartwarmer. The other was a numbered (I have 17 of 73) cassette by Weirding Module, an avant-noise side project of the band Awesome Color. In the past I would always buy a 7" single when at a show. Now, if I see a cassette, I'm so impressed that I buy it.

[music jobs] HR Manager at EMI NA; New York, NY.