This week, it has been 37 years ago that the first Sony Walkman was available to consumers in Japan. The US had to wait a little bit longer: It was introduced there in June 1980. Finally there was a way to listen to music on the go, in an easy portable way. Carrying a stack of cassettes and spare batteries was a bit more of a hassle though. Mix tapes were a wonderful solution: You could create your own playlist, or make one for someone else, and because space on your cassette was limited to 60 minutes (or 90, or 120 if you were really lucky), you had to be ruthless in your selection, and only the very best tunes made your tape.

Cassettes are still doing well. The only remaining cassette factory in the US, National Audio Company, has been manufacturing analog audio tapes since 1969. The company says it had its best year ever in 2015, and 2016 is on track for exceeding that.

While the 80s was the decade for Walkmans, most of the Most Wanted cassettes in the Discogs Database surprisingly date back to the 90s and even as recent as 2012. Let’s have a look at the top 10! We’ll only look at cassettes that were released individually, cassettes that are part of a box set are not included.