The last 8-track tapes I bought were from Woolco (Rainbow Plaza, Rainbow City, AL) before they closed back in the early 1980's. More people were buying cassette tapes back then. By the late 80's the 8-track cartridge was on it's way out. I was stocking up on them because I still had a player and the cartridges were going for fifty cents each at Woolco.I don't know what it is about those clunky things. You'd be listening to the music and there would be a pause right square kadab in the middle of the song and 'CLUNKITY'. The track would change and the listener had a few moments to ponder the meaning of the lyrics he'd just heard before the rest of the song eventually came along.
Even so - I liked 8 track tape format for all it's flaws. I remember my brother Brooky had an 8-track player installed in his MGB with plug in for head phones. I remember a certain trip to Florida we made together with the top down, shirts off, and head phones on. Driving down narrow roads and through small towns listening to The Who, Linda Ronstadt, Moody Blues and Pink Floyd as the road unwound before us.
I had a portable 8-track player that my Uncle Pat gave me that I used to listen to through head phones. I'd sit beneath the shade of the eaves of my old home listening to the music of Cat Stevens, Harry Nilsson, and Randy Newman It was so compact and portable for that day that it was like carrying around a bagel toaster
There came a day when 8-tracks were no more. Even little cassettes are a rarity. Today people have wee-sleek little MP3 players that fit into a pocket that store hours upon hours of music. With all this new cleaner sounding streamlined tiny technology - why do you suppose we baby-boomers remember the 8-track with so much fondness?
1 comment:
Modern technology has made things smaller, but hasn't really made them sound better (although, I must admit digital recording doesn't sound a grating as it used to). Mp3s are "comnpressed"; that is, "less essential" "information" is left out so the resulting file is much smaller with "reasonable" loss of fidelity. They are fine for the way they are listened to--with earbuds or in a car. Who has a real "hi-fi" anymore? I think high fidelity in audio is as rare as it is in Hollywook marriage.
8-track, like LPs, had their own fidelity issues (like hiss or rumble), but they had a really fat, smooth sound. I did hate what 8-track did to record order. The worst offense, in my book, was the fade out, track change, fade in right in the middle of Lowell George's wonderful slide solo on Jackson Browne's "Bright Baby Blues" from The Pretender.
I think the most-played album on the Florida trip was CS&N Deja Vu.
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