Music
20 Jul 20

New figures show cassette sales have more than doubled in the first half of 2020

5 Seconds of Summer, Lady Gaga, The 1975, Selena Gomez and Dua Lipa released the best-selling cassettes thus far.

The Official Charts company in the UK has released data illustrating that cassette sales have more than doubled in the first half of 2020.

Referring to the cassette as “the unlikely comeback kid of music formats”, the group said there was a 103% increase on cassette sales in the first half of this year compared to the same period in 2019.

65,000 cassettes have been bought in 2020 so far, and the figures are due to top 100,000 for the first time since 2003.

The best selling cassettes of 2020 were largely in the pop genre, with 5 Seconds of Summer, Lady Gaga, The 1975, Selena Gomez and Dua Lipa taking the top five spots.

Pop-punk band 5 Seconds of Summer’s CALM sold 12,000 in its debut week, making it the fastest selling cassette in 18 years.

The last time an album scored that many cassette sales in seven days was NOW 52 back in July 2002.

In June, it was also revealed that vinyl sales have soared after record stores re-opened for the first time since the Covid-19 lockdown.

According to statistics from the Official Charts Company, sales in the first week reached the highs of pre-lockdown

Vinyl sales surged by 27.57% week-on-week to a total of 88,486 units, while CDs also experienced a rise of 11.09% to 253,779 units.

Liam Gallagher‘s No.1 MTV Unplugged album moved 17,938 units, leading sales, followed by the reissue of Manic Street Preachers’ Gold Against The Soul with 2,838 physical sales.

Physical sales made up 19.1% of the overall albums market across the week of July 13, a three-month high.

Lady Gaga shifted 12,000 units of her new album Chromatica, The 1975 come in third place with their recent Number 1 record Notes on a Conditional Form, while Selena Gomez is fourth with Rare.

Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia - the biggest album release of the year so far by a British artist - is fifth.

Other pop acts in the Top 20 list include Louis Tomlinson's debut album Walls, Carly Rae Jepsen's Dedicated: Side B, Louise with her comeback record Heavy Love, Pet Shop Boys' latest album Hotspot, and Harry Styles' Fine Line (released in 2019).