In 1983 or so I got a good deal on a 1976 Monte Carlo with a built in 8 track. Whenever I listen to A Remark You Made on the Heavy Weather album it takes me back to a specific wintery late night, driving through the slush along side a steel mill with all its smoke and steam and lights and smells, with Weather Report providing the sound track. It was about 2:00 a.m. It was…perfect.
Welcome to Hell, here's your 8-Track
Neil Postman once said,
"Anyone who has studied the history of technology knows that technological change is always a Faustian bargain: Technology giveth and technology taketh away, and not always in equal measure. A new technology sometimes creates more than it destroys. Sometimes, it destroys more than it creates. But it is never one-sided."
I'm pretty sure that we know that the 8-track was more bad than good.
Question for audiophiles here who might know -- was there anything good about 8-track technology that was lost when it went extinct? And what was that good, audio-wise, specifically?