EIGHT TRACK MIND

A lot of people have iPods/mp3 players nowadays, and can't imagine what they did without them. The cassette and the once ubiquitous Sony Walkman are all but dead, and most would even consider CDs to be a passe and awkward design for mobile media. But how quickly we forget about one of the most popular and subsequently maligned media of the 20th century: the 8-track tape.

The 8-track was quite popular in the 1970s, yet it was probably the worst music media ever invented. It was basically an endless loop of tape inside a bulletproof plastic casing, so while it was "continuous play" you couldn't fast forward or rewind it. Instead, it took an album and split it into 4 "programs" of equal length; if you wanted to hear a particular song, you'd have to wait for it to come back around again. Sometimes, an album's songs (most recorded with the two-sided vinyl LP record in mind) couldn't be split up equally amongst the 4 programs, so occasionally a song would fade out halfway through before it switched to the next "program" and then continue after fading back in. Other times, a song would appear on the tape TWICE to fill it out. Atrocious. I distinctly remember "Dark Side Of The Moon" to be one of the worst victims of this limitation.

There remains some misplaced nostalgia about these, proving yet again that people are strange. If I had to find a silver lining, the best part was that they were nearly indestructable, making it the ideal media to carry around, or throw under the seat of the family van (we had 2 vans throughout the years). Consequently, we had a few dozen 8-tracks that we got from various places over the years: defunct stores like Two Guys and Bradlees, various yard sales, and the famous Englishtown Auction, just to name a few. This is not a complete list, but here are some titles that I recall our family used to own:

Bee Gees "Greatest"
Billy Joel "Glass Houses"
Genesis "Three Sides Live"
Paul McCartney & Wings "Back to the Egg"
Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band "Stranger In Town"
Steve Miller Band "Greatest Hits"
Styx "Grand Illusion"
Supertramp "Breakfast In America"

Atlanta Rhythm Section "Champagne Jam"
Cat Stevens "Moonshadow"

Seals & Crofts?
Dave Mason?

Yikes. I recall buying a carrying case and getting a few of those as part of the package. Since you never "flipped it over" and there were no "sides", I guess the Genesis one could be called "Three Programs Live"? I know we had a bunch more, but I feel nauseous after typing those out. I have to go lie down now.

In closing: the 8-track tape was a complete piece of crap.