The hissing sound that's always in the background on a tape, the imperfections of the tape running on the heads of a tape player—it's a unique quality.

Although aesthetic preference is one reason for [cassettes'] resurgence, cost is ultimately the chief factor.

Cassettes offer not a single advantage over other music media. They sound worse... You can't scan easily from track to track, the way you can with CDs, MP3s or even vinyl... The cassette boxes are wide and squat in ways that make them extremely difficult to shelve efficiently, and if you've ever had a stack of the damn things slip out of your hand and crash to the floor... really, need I go on? Cassettes are the worst.