'Guardians Of The Galaxy' Helped Drive Best Cassette Tape Sales Year Since 2012

Marvel Studios' 2014 Guardians of the Galaxy helped boost cassette tape sales, the mostly-retired format's best since 2012 as revealed by Nielsen Media Research's annual Music Year-End Report for 2017 (via The Verge).

According to the Nielsen report, the surge in music streaming continued throughout 2017 as on-demand streaming of albums, songs and audio grew 12.5% year over year.

Cassette tapes, now in vogue, have seen a resurgence even as consumption of physical media in music declines: sales rose last year to 74% with 129,000 units sold, attributing nostalgia and the importance of Guardians of the Galaxy's "Awesome Mix" soundtrack to its plot.

A cassette tape soundtrack for Netflix's 1980s-set Stranger Things came in second.

The soundtracks for Guardians of the Galaxy and 2017 sequel Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 were curated by writer-director James Gunn, who posted about the album sales on his Facebook page.

"I wanted to change the world with Guardians," Gunn wrote. "Is this what I was looking for? I'll take what I can get!"

Gunn recently revealed he clashed with a now-defunct Marvel creative committee on the first Guardians, the group of "comic book writers and toy people" warning the filmmaker against integrating '70s music into its plot. He described their notes as "haphazard."

Vol. 2's soundtrack is nominated for a Grammy, and Gunn has already selected most of the songs planned for use in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

The Guardians — Star Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), Groot (Vin Diesel) and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) — will next be seen in Avengers: Infinity War, in theaters May 5.