First, came the resurgence of vinyl. Now the humble audio cassette be making a comeback among music buyers.

Scottish acts Texas, Jesus & Mary Chain and Gun among the top selling acts on tape.

More than a quarter of a century after the format lost its status as the top selling platform for music, music consumers are now revisiting the once-defunct cassette in increasing numbers, making it the fastest-growing format in Britain.

Herald View: Future of music presses the rewind button again

While not quite up to speed with sales of vinyl and CDs and barely making a dent on the millions of downloads and streams of songs every week, fans of Kasabian have turned back the clock to put the Leicester band at the top of this year’s audio cassette chart.

The best-selling artist album on cassette so far in 2017 is the Sheffield band’s No1 1 album For Crying Out Loud, which was made available exclusively through the band’s website.

"That's the best thing I've ever heard," Kasabian’s Serge Pizzorno said. "It's quite psychedelic, isn't it? That's put a big smile on my face.

"It's about fan loyalty, I think. It's about having a physical object. One of your favourite bands has put out an album and you want it on a different format that you can hold in your hands. It's nice to see the sleeve and the artwork in a different way as well."

Pizzorno said that some of his earliest music memories were with cassettes, adding: "I remember passing around rave tapes at school. Getting Fantazia 92 and just playing it constantly. That and recording the Top 40 off the radio on cassette so you had all the latest songs."

"It's just nice to have physical things, isn't it?" he said of the format's mini resurgence. "As amazing as the digital world is, where everything is floating in the air and you can have what you want at any point, you pay for something but you don't have any possession of it.

"For a new generation, when you haven't got a lot of physical music stuff, it's nice to choose your favourite band and have something you can see and hold and have it in your bedroom. Weirdly, I think it's what a younger generation wants. It's a nice little thing to have as well, it just looks nice. Maybe don't ditch your collection and just buy tapes though, or you'll have a garage full of them."

Herald View: Future of music presses the rewind button again

Scottish acts Gun, Texas and Jesus & Mary Chain are all among the Top 40 releases on cassette this year.

Garry Smith, owner of Concorde record store in Dundee said: “I’ve heard of people buying cassettes and sticking them on their mantel piece because they are collectable.

“People want a physical product.”

With vinyl having made a glorious comeback four years ago, this year has seen UK sales of cassette albums double, rising by 112% compared to 2016, the fifth year-o-year rise in a row.

High profile acts including Royal Blood, Jay Z and Lana Del Rey all released limited runs of their albums on the retro format as a collector’s item for fans.

In 2017 alone, more than 80 albums have been released on cassette, driving almost 20,000 sales to the first week of November alone.

It's the highest level of cassette sales since 2006

The UK’s best-selling album on cassette in 2017 is the Guardians of the Galaxy – Awesome Mix 2 soundtrack.

The collection features classic songs taken from the sequel released this year, including ELO’s Mr. Blue Sky and Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain.

Herald View: Future of music presses the rewind button again

Other albums released this year that are proving popular on cassette include Enter Shikari’s The Spark, Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott’s Crooked Calypso and Arcade Fire’s Everything Now.

The first albums on cassette arrived in the UK in 1967.