Eight-Track Tapes: NOT The Cutting Edge of ‘70s Technology

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00:008-track tapes, not the cutting edge of 70s technology.

00:05If you truly wanted Frampton to come alive in your brother's 1974 El Camino,

00:10you were going to do it through the courtesy of an 8-track tape player.

00:14Vinyl records may have been great on the portable hi-fi, but not in a moving

00:18vehicle. 8-track tapes were designed

00:21specifically to take whatever abuse you could dish out

00:24and conveniently fit in a guerrilla-approved Samsonite suitcase.

00:28The main problem with 8-track tapes could be summed up in one nonsense word,

00:33kerchunk. Unlike vinyl albums, 8-tracks featured four channels that

00:38were not necessarily synced with the songs.

00:42When it was time to switch channels, Robert Plant would just stop singing

00:46about hedgerows, there would be a loud kerchunk, and dead

00:49air for at least 30 seconds before he'd buy that stairway.

00:53Meanwhile, you could hear all of the other tracks playing in reverse,

00:57like Testimony in a backward masking trial.

01:00A total lack of navigation also brought down the 8-track tape.

01:05If you wanted to boogie down to Disco Inferno, you'd have to punch through

01:09every channel until you got somewhere in the neighborhood.

01:14There was no fast forward or reverse, and if the tape lasted longer than the album,

01:19Channel 4 featured 20 minutes of pure nothing.

01:23Welcome to our nightmare.