8-Tracks!

One of my earliest memories about music is riding in my parent's big blue Chevy van as a very young child, and listening to my parents 8-track tapes. Those long-ago times are very vague and foggyin my mind, having almost been completely forgotten until a few years ago when I did some deep soul searching and tapped into them.
I do recall a few of the artists represented in my folks' small collection of those infamous black cartridges. Blondie was a favorite of mine (and still is, to this day). Creedence Clearwater Revival - don't remember any of the songs off the top of my head, nor do I remember Anne Murray; although I did remember the artwork and recently bought that album on vinyl and didn't recognize any of the songs. I particularly remember "Betty Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes but I'm not completely sure whether this was on a soundtrack or something, or if my parents actually had a Kim Carnes 8-track album.
Last is my most remembered artifact of the 8-track era: "Fly Like an Eagle" by the Steve Miller Band. My parents loved this 8-track, but the song creeped me out as a kid. I was literally scared of this song. Those spaced-out, echoey synth runs gave me the willies!!! Of course looking back it seems like that song probably had the greatest impact on my future musical tastes than anything else at the time. (Thank god I didn't turn into some Anne Murray devotee!) I later learned I was not alone in the "afraid of a song" category: my boyfriend Dylan suffered the same effect upon hearing Heart's "Magic Man" as a youngster, although I think his fear was more lyrically-based.
Sheena Easton's "Morning Train" also seems familiar but again, it's unclear to me if this was actually an 8-track my parents owned, or if it was just on the radio a lot. It obviously has that sound that would appeal to kids.
I'm not sure how old I was when my parents moved on from 8-tracks and into the world of cassette tapes, but it must have been around the time I was in Kindergarten. The last hurrah was supposedly young Devin putting raisins in the 8-track player at home, rendering it useless and hence forcing my parents to upgrade their system.
Now, while researching for this blog I came across a few things of interest. First, the photo above was nicked from an amazing website, www.8trackheaven.com, where one can literally explore everything one ever wanted to know about the nearly forgotten format. It was on this website that I also discovered that I may not have been the one to ruin my parents player. From the website:
Although 8-track has always been a somewhat, shall we say challenging format, certain aspects of it become more difficult with the passage of time. Many of the frequently-encountered malfunctions of 8-track tapes and players are caused by time and repeated use. For example, the dreaded 8-track tar, a horrible mess which fills your player with goo, is caused by decaying rubber pinch rollers.
So, I would wager a bet that maybe I didn't put raisins in the player, maybe it suffered from this "8-track tar" phenomenon. Although, I do have a hazy memory in my head of actually putting raisins in the tape deck....
By the time I was old enough to start my own music collection, 8-tracks were officially a thing of the past. Cassettes were king. Shortly after I became interested in pop and rock music, the 7" single made a dramatic disappearance from local stores. Tiffany's "I Think We're Alone Now" was the last 7" single that I held in my hands and contemplated buying. I ended up saying no, only to buy it many, many years down the line in some dusty record shop. I mourned the loss of vinyl, as my mother fondly recalls, but 8-tracks were all but laughed off by everyone who dared speak of them at the time.
Now it's the 2000's and even CD's look to be going out of style. Cassette tapes are today's 8-tracks, a silly contracption that us 80's children remember fondly but have gladly relegated to boxes in our parent's basements. The kids of today buy and trade MP3's online for their iPods and cell phones. Even so, new vinyl continues to be pressed as DJ's and collectors around the world keep that oldest of formats alive. But let us not forget those that have fallen along the way; those that have become the butt of many a joke: the 8 track cartridges of the 1970's.