Cassette Store Day is Today! Seven Things to Know About the Event

The day is finally here! Cassette Store Day 2016 is taking place at record shops all over the world today with exclusive releases celebrating the medium that is the cassette tape.

Back in August, Vinyl Bay 777 gave you our preliminary take on some of the top Cassette Store Day releases coming out, citing rereleases from the likes of the Ramones, Death Cab for Cutie and Heavens to Betsy, as well as compilations from Burger Records and J Dilla. Now in its fourth year, Cassette Store Day has more than 160 releases available with stores in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France and Japan participating. A full list of releases can be found on the event’s website.

Now that it looks like Cassette Store Day has become the next big thing in celebrating physical music, let Vinyl Bay 777 tell you a little more about the event. Here are seven facts you should know about today’s event.

1.       It is NOT Record Store Day: The concept might sound similar, but they were started by different people for different reasons. Record Store Day came first to recognize small record shops and the music, artists and music fans that make the music scene so special. Cassette Store Day was modeled after RSD, and even named after it, but its initial intent was to help bring back the cassette tape.

2.       It is still about stores, sort of: While not really about stores, there is an element of wanting people to buy releases in person. In a 2013 interview with Billboard, CSD co-founder Steve Rose said of keeping the word “store” in the title: “Really, we kept the store part as we wanted the day to be more about shops and less about online.”

3.       You Can Buy Exclusives Online Too: When Cassette Store Day first began, like Record Store Day, a store couldn’t put a release on their website until a week after the event. Now, you can buy an exclusive release from your favorite record store’s online shop as well as in-store.

4.       It is working: Cassette Store Day really has helped, in some way, re-launch the popularity of cassette tapes. They are more widely available than they were four years ago. Cassettes still have a long way to go before they reach the level of return that vinyl has seen, but that is why there continues to be a need for Cassette Store Day.

5.       It started in the UK: Cassette Store Day was started by three labels in the UK: Sexbeat Records, Suplex Cassettes and Kissability. These were the ones that put out the first 50 releases in 2013.

6.       It wasn’t always this international: The first Cassette Store Day occurred only in the UK and US. Even in the US, CSD was limited to just two events; one at LA’s Burger Records and the other at Silent Barn in Brooklyn.

7.       It had big name artist support from the start: While mostly about indie labels and indie bands, there were still big name artists within 2013’s initial releases. Of the 50 exclusives put out, The Flaming Lips, Deerhunter, Haim and F***ed Up all had titles included. The next year included titles from artists such as The Gaslight Anthem, Julian Casablancas, Karen O and They Might Be Giants.

Cassette Store Day is on the brink of helping the physical medium of the cassette tape make the same return as vinyl has in the last 10 years. Through exclusive releases, it is making shopping for cassettes fun and interesting again. There will always be a market for physical, tangible music and events like CSD and Record Store Day prove that.

Celebrate Cassette Store Day with Vinyl Bay 777 and vinylbay777.com. Pick up exclusives from your favorite new artists and reissues from more established artists. When you’re done, you can browse the store’s selection of new and used, vinyl records, CDs and cassette tapes.