There May Still Be Hope For Your Busted Cassette Tapes

I remember by first tapes, clear as the transparent plastic used to forge their casing. Most were passed on from ma dukes, who made ritual out of bumping Tommy Boy and Rhino mixtapes on our weekly grocery runs. But few, if any, made their way out of the whip, constantly unwinding and cracking after a few years of rotation and then when dug up, were barely audible. But those tapes, though they were rendered virtually unplayable by the time I had reached the age of compiling my own collection, remained a massive founding article in my musical sojourn and truly shaped the way that at least this writer came to hear and not just listen.

Luckily for myself and the world of collectors that still have a box stashed in one of their closets unsure of whether they could still spin, there may still be hope for the medium. According to a recent study published by Chemical & Engineering News, a new non-invasive chemical process has been developed to test their playability without damaging the tape itself. And while this may seem like a rather insignificant development for the common music nostalgist, the applications are pretty groundbreaking, as roughly 40 percent of tapes in museum and archives across the globe could very well be revived from their purgatory without the threat of damage through this newfound process. So it just might be time to dig out those boxes and reclaim the glory of your towering stash.

h/t Popular Science