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Urban Outfitters take the cassette revival beyond Cassette Store Day

By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 16 October 2015

A ‘cassette revival’ you say? Well, those pesky Urban Outfitters, who have played their part in the vinyl revival in recent years, are now stocking good old fashioned (well, old fashioned) tapes, both online and in 21 of their US stores.

Seemingly aware that even the coolest of the cool kids are unlikely to have a tape deck at home, the retailer is also selling retro cassette players. Perhaps the cool kids could use them to record their thoughts and chats and ‘OMG! Moments’ and share them with obliged family members, rather than pushing their bedroom recordings up onto YouTube and becoming global superstar sensations. If that’s the outcome, bring on the cassette revival I say.

Of course, beyond making their own recordings, you might worry that owners of an Urban Outfitters cassette deck might struggle to find actual albums to play on their new devices, though the retailer promises to sell a steady stream of exclusive cassette releases. And, of course, this is all kicking of just as this year’s Cassette Store Day gets underway tomorrow, and there’ll be plenty of taped recordings to pick up through that too.

So it’s a foolproof plan. I wonder if this means Urban Outfitters will start selling overpriced Bic pens and Sellotape too.