As a child of the 90s, my musical education was delivered first by cassettes, and then by CDs. I much preferred the former: I liked how they rattled, how the car cassette player seemed hungry to gobble them up, and how only an overgrown fingernail, or an HB pencil, could fix the chaos of magnetic tape that sometimes erupted in their see-through insides.

Still, I can’t say I’ve been yearning for their return. Even when I was wet behind the ears, I knew the sound going into them was better when it came from a CD. So it must be something other than sonic fidelity powering the current cassette revival, which has seen everyone from Justin Bieber to Dua Lipa releasing albums on tape. According to a scholar of music’s materiality, it might be because music fans miss touching, feeling, and unboxing their albums – a craving that’s only become fiercer since our tactile environments shrank in March last year.

Perhaps in a similar effort to rewind – but also to rewild – an expert on human-nature connections has argued that “nature studies” become compulsory for UK students. And we’re keeping you in the loop about delays in the delivery of the AstraZeneca vaccine: a delicate balancing act between supply chains and demand.

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