Growing Up with 8-Track Tapes: I Remember the Magic and the Mess of a Forgotten Era

Randomly, April 11th is National Eight Track Tape Day. Now, if you were to walk out onto the street and ask any random teenager, 20-year-old, or even 30-year-old what an eight track tape is, chances are they're going to look at you like you're insane. I, on the other hand, am a child of the 70s. Because that was the 'golden era' of the format, I know exactly what an 8-track tape is and I have some hilariously fond memories of playing them.

Growing up, my mom had a Chevy Maverick. It was equipped with an 8-track player. If you're reading this and you were born after 1990, consider it the prehistoric version of Apple CarPlay. Got it? Back in the day, it was THE way to play portable music in your car.

What I remember most about that 8-track player in my mom's car is that it wasn't calibrated exactly right. To get it to play, we'd have to prop the tape up in the deck with a matchbook. We'd put the tape in the deck and then slide a thin book of matches on the underside of it to level it out. Hey, it worked!

The History of Simple Things- a fascinating YouTube channel- recently took a deep dive into the history of 8-Track Tapes: The Music Format That Ruled the 70s.

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The 8-Track Tape had a pretty long life until it was ushered out of style and practicality in the mid to late 80s with the advent of the much more compact cassette tape and the compact disc (CD).

Though I couldn't tell you a single album I had on 8-Track (but, I'm pretty sure I had a pretty decent collection of disco), I may still have a few tapes in storage in the attic at my mom's house. For fun, to celebrate National Eight Track Tape Day, I did a quick search on Ebay and found a ton of vintage tapes up for grabs. Luckily, there are some old players up for grabs too.