盒式磁帶連同磁帶播放機一起，是70后和80后童年的集體回憶。如果你的磁帶播放機還沒扔，現在可以把它翻出來了，因為盒式磁帶又開始流行了！

Forget the vinyl revival. The cassette tape will be back on Christmas lists this year as high-profile artists ranging from Coldplay to Robbie Williams and Liam Payne release albums on a format that has come back from the dead.

忘記黑膠唱片的復興吧。今年，盒式磁帶將回到圣誕禮物清單，因為酷玩樂隊、羅比·威廉姆斯以及利亞姆·佩恩等一眾知名歌手紛紛發行磁帶唱片，讓磁帶這一產品死而復生。

The tape’s comeback has caught the industry off guard, with manufacturers struggling to get their hands on the magnetic tape needed for their production when demand suddenly picked up. The BPI, the record labels association, predicts music fans, many of them under 25, will buy 100,000 tapes in 2019, double the figure for 2018.

磁帶的回歸讓磁帶產業措手不及，隨著需求量的突然飆升，制造商們都在費力地尋找生產所需的磁帶。英國唱片業協會預測，2019年歌迷們（其中許多人的年齡都在25歲以下）購買的磁帶將達到10萬盒，比2018年增加一倍。

The last time that number of cassettes were sold was 2004, when the biggest-selling albums were by Scissor Sisters and Keane.

上一次磁帶銷量這么高是在2004年，當時銷量最大的唱片來自剪刀姐妹和基音樂隊。

Karen Emanuel, the chief executive of the Key Production Group, which manufactures vinyl, cassettes and CDs, said it had been amazed by the revival. “We never stopped producing them, but demand had tailed off to tapes for police interviews.”

Key Production 集團的首席執行官凱倫·伊曼紐爾表示對磁帶的復興潮流感到驚訝：“我們從未停止生產磁帶，但是如今需求減少了，主要是供警察審訊時用。” 該公司生產黑膠唱片、盒式磁帶和CD光盤。

tail off: 變少；縮小

Around 36,000 tapes had been bought in the UK by June, according to the BPI and Official Charts Company data. One of the biggest sellers was Billie Eilish, who was born in 2001 when the format was already considered close to obsolete.

根據英國唱片業協會和官方排行榜公司的數據，截至今年6月，磁帶銷量達到3.6萬盒左右。銷量最大的是比莉·艾利什的唱片，這位歌手出生于2001年，當時磁帶已經快要被淘汰。

The cassette of her song When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? was produced in lurid UV green and orange, making it both collectible and “Instagrammable”.

她的歌曲《When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?》制成的磁帶采用了刺目的亮綠色和亮橙色，使其有收藏和被社交媒體分享的價值。

lurid[?l?r?d]: adj. 艷麗的

Retailers predict that Robbie Williams’ Christmas Present album and new offerings from The Who, Coldplay and Beck will be among this year’s bestsellers.

零售商預測，羅比·威廉姆斯的專輯《圣誕禮物》和誰人樂隊、酷玩樂隊、貝克的新專輯將是今年最暢銷的磁帶。

Emanuel said the UK factories that Key Production works with had been scrambling to find supplies of tape earlier this year when orders started rolling in.

伊曼紐爾表示，今年早些時候訂單量開始增大后，Key Production的英國工廠就一直忙著找尋磁帶原料。

"It’s difficult to say exactly how many tapes will be sold this year, but I think it will be more than 100,000,” she said.

她說：“很難說今年會賣出多少盒磁帶，但我認為會突破10萬盒。”

The hit film Guardians of the Galaxy is credited with starting the tape renaissance after clever marketers released the soundtrack on a tape that looked like the one that features heavily in the film.

有人認為熱門電影《銀河護衛隊》推動了磁帶的復興。當時機智的營銷者發布了一款電影原聲磁帶，這款磁帶的外形和電影中多次出現的那盒磁帶極為相似。

2019年至今為止銷量最高的盒式磁帶

1 When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go – Billie Eilish 比莉·艾利什

2 The Balance – Catfish and The Bottlemen（英國搖滾樂隊）

3 Madame X – Madonna 麥當娜

4 Step Back in Time: The Definitive – Kylie Minogue 凱莉·米洛

5 Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent – Lewis Capaldi 路易斯·卡柏狄

6 Wasteland, Baby –Hozier 安德魯·霍齊爾·伯恩

7 Happiness Begins – Jonas Brothers 喬納斯兄弟

8 Ripples – Ian Brown 伊恩·布朗

9 Sucker Punch – Sigrid 西格麗德（挪威女歌手）

10 Shine a Light – Bryan Adams 布萊恩·亞當斯

英文來源：衛報

翻譯&編輯：丹妮