From 8 Track to Cassette and Possibly Going Obsolete

It might seem absurd to dedicate another post to the topic of Stereo 8 tapes considering that we are now, more than ever, completely submerged in digital technology. Why bother wasting words on archaic tapes when MP3s and other such formats have come to define our rapport with music?

I can think of many ways to answer that question but the reality is that the impulse to return to the topic of 8 track tapes came after I received a very intriguing present: a cassette adapter for 8 track players.

You might think of Stereo 8 tapes as being completely obsolete, yet somehow they are not nearly as irrelevant as cassettes. The former belong to a period for which we have developed a certain nostalgic attachment. 8 track tapes are associated with the tail end of post-war modern design in home furnishing and stereo equipment. Most importantly, they represent the first real possibility of transportability. In 1965, Ford Motor Company equipped a number of new vehicles with 8 track players, thereby liberating a generation of drivers from the airwaves. Portable players soon followed.

Records labels were quick to adopt the format. By the mid-1970s, building an extensive music library of 8 track cartridges seemed realistic. Audiophiles could even add quadraphonic tapes to their collection – from Sun Ra to Kraftwerk and to Lou Reed to name but a few.

Audio cassettes suffered a different fate. Although they first appeared in the mid-1960s, cassettes had to wait until the late 1970s to stand alongside vinyl records as a legitimate format. But it was already too late. The cassette lacked the appeal of novelty and simply served as a substitute for the 8 track cartridge. It is true that the audio cassette offered substantial improvements on its predecessor but its demise was apparent from the very beginning. Today, portable music is synonymous with MP3 players, not the walkmans that fill bins at flea markets and the Salvation Army.

The idea of a cassette adapter for 8 track players may, therefore, seem bewildering. I would like to describe the gift I received as doublement désuet.

But not everyone is willing to see 8 track tapes and cassettes as relics from the past. Both formats can count on a substantial number of supporters who continue to believe in what seems like the failed promises of easy-to-carry magnetic tapes. The independent film So Wrong They’re Right is a perfect example. So are tape revivalist labels such as Tape Tektoniks and Montreal’s Pasalymany Tapes.

I am not certain that I can gather enough enthusiasm to start piling more tapes on the already cluttered rear seat of my 1973 Dodge Dart. Adding carrying cases filled with cassettes is not an option, nor is reverting to an iPod player – poor AM radio reception does not allow for synchronization and I don’t see myself playing an iPod through a connecting pack hooked up to a cassette adapter that I would need to jam into my 8 track player.

Ultimately, I am not concerned with enlarging the music library I currently store on the rear seat and in the glove compartment. I have grown content with the uncertain sound of wobbling tapes coming from the back of the car. I like to think that is the way some music was meant to be heard. Yet I will hold on to the cassette adapter because of what it really offers: a means to remember what it felt like when you knew things were moving forward without really knowing how fast they were moving.

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