The nicest thing anyone has said to me recently is: ‘But surely you’re far too young to remember cassettes?’ Sadly, I had to break it to my new neighbour that, as a child of the 1980s and a 1990s teen, I’m not – which is why I’m bemused to learn that tapes are the latest piece of retro tech to make a comeback. 

Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Charli XCX are among artists who’ve released new music on cassette, fuelled by Gen Z’s apparently insatiable appetite for nostalgia and clunky devices long since sent to landfill.  

Sure, I can see the appeal in a format with a bit of soul and a physical presence: I’ve written about buying vinyl for my young sons for The Spectator after realising they didn’t understand the notion of an album, thanks to streaming. And I’m in favour of a device that has a bit of weight and warmth, like the Nokia 3210, and doesn’t, unlike a smartphone, distract you with multiple notifications trying to haul you off elsewhere.  

But cassettes? Like heroin chic and slut-shaming interns, they’re best left back in the 1990s. Tapes became obsolete for one reason: they were crap. Inconvenient, muffled, and short-lived. Take the short shelf life. Most of........

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