Inventor of the audio cassette Lou Ottens dies aged 94

Lou Ottens, the Dutch engineer credited with inventing the audio cassette tape, has died at the age of 94.

It is estimated that 100 billion cassette tapes have been sold around the world since they were introduced in the 1960s. Ottens also later helped develop the CD. 

His invention, launched in 1963, transformed the way people listened to music. Recent years have seen a resurgence of the cassette, with sales almost doubling in the UK last year.

Ottens died in his hometown of Duizel, Netherlands last Saturday, his family announced on Tuesday (March 10). 

He became head of Philips' product development department in 1960, where he and his team developed the cassette tape.

MORE: The UK's Official Top 40 best-selling vinyl releases of 2020

Ottens retired in 1986, four years after helping develop the compact disc and CD player. Despite him declaring "The cassette is history," in 2013, sales of cassettes have been steadily increasing since 2017.

The unlikely return of the cassette is thanks to an increasing number of acts releasing their latest albums on the format, often seen as a collectible piece of merchandise. 

In 2020, 156,542 cassettes were sold in the UK, up 94.7% on the previous year and the highest total since 2003, according to Official Charts Company data.

Sales on the format remain tiny in the context of the overall music market (around 0.2%), but the increase shows the cassette revival is far from over yet.

The UK's best-selling cassette of 2020 was Lady Gaga's Chromatica, which sold 14,000 copies on the format. View the full end-of-year Top 40 cassettes here.

Article image: Heinz-Dieter Falkenstein/imageBROKER/Shutterstock