High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape

This entertaining book charts the journey of the cassette from its invention in the early 1960s to its Walkman-led domination in the 1980s to decline at the birth of compact discs to resurgence among independent music makers. Scorned by the record industry for "killing music," the cassette tape rippled through scenes corporations couldn't control. For so many, tapes meant freedom—to create, to invent, to connect.

Marc Masters introduces readers to the tape artists who thrive underground; concert tapers who trade bootlegs; mixtape makers who send messages with cassettes; tape hunters who rescue forgotten sounds; and today's labels, which reject streaming & sell music on cassette. Their stories celebrate the cassette tape as dangerous, vital, & radical.

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Marc Masters is a music journalist whose work has appeared on NPR & in the Washington Post, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, & Bandcamp Daily. He is author of No Wave.