After giving my new Radio Shack Realistic 8-Track Tape Player a test run with the easy listening tape that came with the player, I ran out and bought my first tape:

Juice Newton's Juice album in my grandfather's truck.

It was probably a Herb Alpert tape in by best friend's Dad's car in the early 70s.

The first stereo I took to college had a built-in 8-track player. I never had more than 10-12 prerecorded tapes, and eventually gave 'em away to a friend who had a player in his car.

Hmm, not sure which 8-track was the first one I ever heard, but I'm pretty sure these were the first two I owned (I was mostly an LP guy, so I only ever owned a handful of 8-tracks).


(I especially loved how they split "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" between two tracks..or were they called "programs?")

Can't say for sure, but it might have been Steely Dan's "Pretzel Logic".

The Doors 13

Did anyone actually like 8-tracks or think they were a good idea? Even when I was a kid I thought they were crap. Songs got split into two, the sound wasn't very good, you couldn't fast-forward or rewind (except on some higher-end players). For me the only thing worse than an 8-track was the 8-track-to-cassette car converters. Those had some truly awful sound.

Oh lord, they were awful. Noisy, poor sound, practically no album artwork. Then there was the method of cutting a song in half across two channels, so that in the middle of a song, the music would fade out, a second or two later the tape would change channels, and the song would fade back in and finish. Albums were often resequenced to evenly divide the songs across the four channels, or a song would be on the tape twice to fill up space on a channel. And the players were easily knocked out of alignment so that, instead of hearing one channel, you'd hear parts of two channels playing together.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

But other than that, they were great!

Not only would a song fade out & then fade back in, but you'd get that loud CLICK between programs (which I'm sure was wonderful if you were listening to something relaxing). Also, let's not forget that at least one of the programs would have silence at the end that you couldn't ffwd through.

They had a fun Star Trek quality to them... Music that you just pushed in and pulled out of the player with no eject button. Plus they felt good in your hand. Not as dainty as a cassette, not as cumbersome as an LP. It was all about convenience, not about the sound quality.

Either Cosmo's Factory - CCR or Pearl - Janis Joplin or Traffic's John Barleycorn In my circle of friends who got their car first didn't like Zappa so I was at his mercy.

Only have a few 8 tracks left
Flo & Eddie
200 Motels
a sampler that contains an Eric Clapton track Smile that was exclusive until it made one of Eric's boxed sets.

Yeah 8 tracks were never very musical, I much preferred cassettes and put one of those players into my first car a 1972 Chevy Nova.

2 of my friends though had 8 track players so I would buy some for them as we drove around. Bought Pink Floyd's The Wall for one and the first Cars album for another.

The Doors were also very popular back then.

First 8-track I ever heard was Lee Michaels 5th. Over & over & over again at a friend's house.

First 8-tracks I owned were given by a different friend. Can't recall the titles but the artists included the James Gang, Three Dog Night and Deep Purple.

First 8-track I bought was Linda Ronstadt's Heart Like A Wheel.

Never liked 'em too much, for all the reasons already mentioned. That being said, the old nostalgia buff in me still plays them every now and then!

I used to subscrIbe to 8 Track Mind magazine.

Never owned one. As far as tape, i had a r2r as a little boy, & than went to cassette.

The band - brown album.

Even more than vinyl, 8-track is something that belonged to my parents' generation... for the reasons previously mentioned, it's hard to imagine anyone preferring these to cassettes.

When my Dad bought his first 8 track player for the car he let me pick two titles with him saying make sure you pick something Mommy would like. So I picked out "The Beach Boys Greatest Hits Vol 2" and Herb Alpert & The TJ Brass Vol 2. Hmmm, after all these years I just realized that they are both Vol 2's. Interesting.....

Rick A.