Anyone else remember the 8-track tape? It was a terrible format in many ways. Once I finally had to switch, I realized that. But I am still nostalgic about it. I had quite a stack of those things when I was in high school. All my lawn mowing money went into them. I made this list on Rate Your Music a while back, before I started my blog. I’m not going into detail here like I did on RYM — you’ll have to check it out there if you want to know why a rock ‘n’ roll kid had albums by Neil Sedaka and Walter Murphy — but here is the bare bones version of my 8 track collection, the best I can remember:
Boston – s/t
Van Halen – s/t
Blue Öyster Cult – Fire of Unknown Origin
Devo – Freedom of Choice
Aerosmith – Greatest Hits
Electric Light Orchestra – Time
AC/DC – Back in Black
Cheap Trick – Dream Police
April Wine – The Nature of the Beast
Eagles – Hotel California
Kansas – Audio-Visions
Queen – The Game
Various Artists – Heavy Metal: Music From the Motion Picture
Journey – Departure
Journey – Escape
Walter Murphy – Rhapsody in Blue
Bee Gees – Here at Last … Bee Gees … Live
Three Dog Night – Joy to the World: Their Greatest Hits
Styx – Paradise Theater
Neil Sedaka – A Song
Pat Benatar – Crimes of Passion
I toyed with the idea of just copying my whole list over to WordPress with all its descriptions, but I think I’d rather use this as an introduction to the list feature on RYM, one of the best aspects of my favorite site on the Internet. I have several fun lists there, including a non-musical one about parasites you shouldn’t look at unless you have a really strong stomach. Anyway, check out this list and my others too. And if you have the inclination, check out some of the other users’ lists. I always enjoy doing that. You never know what you might find. I’ll dig up a few and promote them here in the future. See if this doesn’t get you hooked: http://rateyourmusic.com/lists/
Also, give Rate Your Music a spin in general. There’s so much to enjoy for any music lover – rate your albums, write reviews, talk to a knowledgeable (if sometimes a bit rowdy) community of music lovers. They have turned me onto so much good music.
The site has also expanded to encompass movie reviews and ratings. If that’s your thing, you’ll also find plenty to keep you occupied.
I never had the pleasure of owning the unweildy 8-track, going staright for the cutting edge technology that was the musicassette!
-But you’ve certainly awakened memories of some great albums – April Wine’ s”Nature’ for instance.
They didn’t have the 8 track format across the pond did they? I wonder why it was just us?
Yeah, they did have it in the UK, it didn’t really catch on too much to be honest. However, I found this quote from 8 track heaven:
“…It’s true that 8 tracks were only ever popular in North
America, i.e., that it’s the only place people ever really
liked them.
However, they were made in many other countries. There are tons of UK carts,
especially on the
Island and EMI labels, and these tend to be of higher
quality than US carts. Beatles and Pink Floyd carts,
especially, sound a lot better than the US releases….”
So there you go!