Remembering an 8-track world
On National Eight-Track Day, let's have a moment of silence for those affable pioneers of mobile music
Today is National Eight-Track Tape Day, a pause on the calendar for those of us old enough to remember the audio format from the 1960s and ‘70s that seemed to come and go without ever really arriving.
Eight-tracks never fully replaced vinyl records, and they soon were nudged aside by cassette tapes, which gave way to CDs, which gave way to satellite radio, podcasts, Spotify … and the beat goes on.
Stiil, we owe a debt of gratitude to 8-tracks and their affable place in music history. They were pioneers, of sorts, transitioning our personal music collections to mobile platforms. We were no longer slaves to transistor radios or at the mercy of whatever song was being played on the car stereo.
We’ve been listening “on the go” ever since.