你的磁带播放机还在吗？盒式磁带又开始流行了！ Back in the loop: why cassette tapes became fashionable again

盒式磁带连同磁带播放机一起，是70后和80后童年的集体回忆。如果你的磁带播放机还没扔，现在可以把它翻出来了，因为盒式磁带又开始流行了！

Forget the vinyl revival. The cassette tape will be back on Christmas lists this year as high-profile artists ranging from Coldplay to Robbie Williams and Liam Payne release albums on a format that has come back from the dead.

忘记黑胶唱片的复兴吧。今年，盒式磁带将回到圣诞礼物清单，因为酷玩乐队、罗比·威廉姆斯以及利亚姆·佩恩等一众知名歌手纷纷发行磁带唱片，让磁带这一产品死而复生。

The tape’s comeback has caught the industry off guard, with manufacturers struggling to get their hands on the magnetic tape needed for their production when demand suddenly picked up. The BPI, the record labels association, predicts music fans, many of them under 25, will buy 100,000 tapes in 2019, double the figure for 2018.

磁带的回归让磁带产业措手不及，随着需求量的突然飙升，制造商们都在费力地寻找生产所需的磁带。英国唱片业协会预测，2019年歌迷们（其中许多人的年龄都在25岁以下）购买的磁带将达到10万盒，比2018年增加一倍。

The last time that number of cassettes were sold was 2004, when the biggest-selling albums were by Scissor Sisters and Keane.

上一次磁带销量这么高是在2004年，当时销量最大的唱片来自剪刀姐妹和基音乐队。

Karen Emanuel, the chief executive of the Key Production Group, which manufactures vinyl, cassettes and CDs, said it had been amazed by the revival. “We never stopped producing them, but demand had tailed off to tapes for police interviews.”

Key Production 集团的首席执行官凯伦·伊曼纽尔表示对磁带的复兴潮流感到惊讶：“我们从未停止生产磁带，但是如今需求减少了，主要是供警察审讯时用。” 该公司生产黑胶唱片、盒式磁带和CD光盘。

tail off: 变少；缩小

Around 36,000 tapes had been bought in the UK by June, according to the BPI and Official Charts Company data. One of the biggest sellers was Billie Eilish, who was born in 2001 when the format was already considered close to obsolete.

根据英国唱片业协会和官方排行榜公司的数据，截至今年6月，磁带销量达到3.6万盒左右。销量最大的是比莉·艾利什的唱片，这位歌手出生于2001年，当时磁带已经快要被淘汰。

The cassette of her song When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? was produced in lurid UV green and orange, making it both collectible and “Instagrammable”.

她的歌曲《When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?》制成的磁带采用了刺目的亮绿色和亮橙色，使其有收藏和被社交媒体分享的价值。

lurid[ˈlʊrɪd]: adj. 艳丽的

Retailers predict that Robbie Williams’ Christmas Present album and new offerings from The Who, Coldplay and Beck will be among this year’s bestsellers.

零售商预测，罗比·威廉姆斯的专辑《圣诞礼物》和谁人乐队、酷玩乐队、贝克的新专辑将是今年最畅销的磁带。

Emanuel said the UK factories that Key Production works with had been scrambling to find supplies of tape earlier this year when orders started rolling in.

伊曼纽尔表示，今年早些时候订单量开始增大后，Key Production的英国工厂就一直忙着找寻磁带原料。

"It’s difficult to say exactly how many tapes will be sold this year, but I think it will be more than 100,000,” she said.

她说：“很难说今年会卖出多少盒磁带，但我认为会突破10万盒。”

The hit film Guardians of the Galaxy is credited with starting the tape renaissance after clever marketers released the soundtrack on a tape that looked like the one that features heavily in the film.

有人认为热门电影《银河护卫队》推动了磁带的复兴。当时机智的营销者发布了一款电影原声磁带，这款磁带的外形和电影中多次出现的那盒磁带极为相似。

2019年至今为止销量最高的盒式磁带

1 When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go – Billie Eilish 比莉·艾利什

2 The Balance – Catfish and The Bottlemen（英国摇滚乐队）

3 Madame X – Madonna 麦当娜

4 Step Back in Time: The Definitive – Kylie Minogue 凯莉·米洛

5 Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent – Lewis Capaldi 路易斯·卡柏狄

6 Wasteland, Baby –Hozier 安德鲁·霍齐尔·伯恩

7 Happiness Begins – Jonas Brothers 乔纳斯兄弟

8 Ripples – Ian Brown 伊恩·布朗

9 Sucker Punch – Sigrid 西格丽德（挪威女歌手）

10 Shine a Light – Bryan Adams 布莱恩·亚当斯

英文来源：卫报

翻译&编辑：丹妮