The audio cassette tape-first introduced in the 1960s but at the height of its powers in the 80s and 1990s-endured for many reasons as it was a durable and low-cost vehicle for tunes that were easy to duplicate and enabled wide audio dissemination.

Even as digital technology went onto give consumers convenient ways to consume music, the cassette tape never went away, with contemporary artists such as Billie Eilish releasing music on the physical medium in 2019. While that doesn’t mean that folks are actually playing them, tapes, unlike Spotify streams, are a tangible manifestation of the tunes we love.