Short Stuff: 8 Track Cartridges | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm. Josh. There's Chuck. It's just us. Neither Jerry nor Dave is here. Um, so. it's short stuff, the barereft edition. That's right. Uh, I want to thank NPR, uh, capture.com, a website called PS. Audio, a website called Everpresent, and. more for the research that went into, uh, the eighttrack cassette player or. eight track cartridge. uh, itself. Uh, April 11th is National.

Atrack Tape Day. So, we've missed that. Yeah. Uh, but if you don't know what a eight. track is, it preceded uh the the. cassette tape. Um, and we're going to. get into what this thing was. Yeah. You usually wedge it in between LP. record albums and cassettes because. that's basically where it really popped. up. In the 70s is kind of where you. really associate eight tracks, but it it. was way older than that. Apparently, as. far back as the ' 40s, it was. essentially coming into development, right?

Yeah. Uh which surprised me. Um the you. might be wondering like why did we need. uh eight tracks at all? And it's because. at the time, Dear Listener, especially. younger Dear Listener, uh if you wanted. to play the music that you wanted to. hear, um you could play it on your your. record player in your house. Uh you. didn't have a record player in your car. You had a radio that played whatever the. heck they wanted. So all of a sudden, eight tracks came along as a a mobile. version, a way to take your the music. that you wanted on the road, either via.

your car or via these awesome portable. players, uh, of which we had one of. It. was a Lloyd's we had a a deck in our. conversion van, of course, but we al we. had just look up the white Lloyd's eight. track portable player, and that was the. very one. I found it online, and I might. even get one on eBay. It brought back so. many nostalgic memories. That's awesome, man. You totally should. One of my. friends in high school, Mitch, not dirty. Mitch with scabies, but the different. Mitch. That sounds good. His grandmother had a um huge white.

Lincoln Continental with a eight track. deck in it. Yeah, baby. And we got our hands on the Saturday. Night Fever soundtrack on eight track. and we just cruise around listening to. that in that car. It was pretty boss. Skipping forward two songs at a time. I. ish. Yeah. Yes. That's something I can't wait. to talk about. But just one a little. background on the the how this worked. It was built on ancient technology from. the 20s and 30s which was magnetic film. which became real the real film. And.

essentially that is that is tape that. has magnetized metal particles on it. And when sound is converted into an. electrical impulse, the tape writer. translates that into well it's an. electromagnet. it translates it into a. magnetic pulse that arranges these um. these pieces of magnetic metal into ones. and zeros and then the whole thing is. done backwards on the um on the other. end when you listen to it. This is the. basis of not just um eight tracks but.

cassette tapes but since eight tracks. came first this is what they were built. on over time and there were a few. inventions that kind of were stepping. stones that led to the eight track. Yeah. I mean the Germans were using it. in World War II. Allies got a hold of it. and eventually um it got to the music um. industry and they were like hey we got a. thing now that we we can play this stuff. on the road we think in a continuous. loop and the very first person to to. achieve the version that could go to. market was a guy named William Pow Lear.

uh the creator of the Learjet. Mhm. Um, previous to this, there were some. sort of housing and and internal guts. things that were worked out by various. people. A guy named George Eh in 1953. came up with the the NAB cartridge or. the uh fiddle fidilipac cartridge. Um, it's also called a cart. If you ever. heard of like on WK or Cincinnati or old. radio stations, they had carts, music. carts. Yeah. That's what that was. These were built. for radio stations.

Yeah. That was short for cartridge. slang, I guess you'd call it. Yeah. So, uh, that was followed up by the. Muntz stereo pack. Um, and it was. created by Earl Madman Muntz, and he. directly influenced the development of. the Atra because William Powell Lero was. riding around in Madman Muntz's car when. he was playing one of the stereo pack. cartridges for him. But the thing that. really kind of separated uh Muntz from. everybody else is he's the first one to. go directly to the record companies and. say like, "Hey, let me license your. music and put them on this new format.

and let's start getting it out there.". And like I said, William Powell Leer was. like, "This is a great idea. I'm going. to build on this and create a longer. playing version of it and I'm going to. call it the eight track.". Yeah. And invent a jet. Yeah. Uh, I should point out too. quickly, uh, and this can't be a. coincidence, but Earl Madman Muntz, uh, was the creator of that cart. If you're. a Cohen brothers fan and a fan of the. movie Bartonf, you will know that John. Goodman's character name is Carl Madman.

Munt. Oh, really? And there's no way that's a coincidence. No, I don't know the correlation or if it. was just they got they thought it. sounded cool or something. Who knows? What a strange homage if it was, though. Agreed. Uh, should we take a break? Yes, Chuck. Yes. All right, we'll be. right back with more on the bygone era. of the A track right after this. [Music].

So all of this was being developed in. the 50s, I think as early as the 40s. technically, but the ATR really came. into its own in the mid60s. And the.

reason why is because the Ford Motor. Company said, "Hey everybody, have you. heard of these eight tracks?" Well, we're going to start putting eight track. players in our 1966 model cars as a. high-end option. And as more and more. cars started um featuring eight track. players, eight track cartridges just. became dominant as the form of how you. listen to music outside of your home in. a way that you controlled unlike radio. Yeah, for sure. Um they were pretty. cheap. Uh they were two to three bucks.

Uh the most expensive on record uh was. the Beatles greatest hits released in. 1970. Uh that was almost five bucks. $4.97 which would be. the nice price. Yeah, the nice price. That'd be more. than $40 today. Um so that was you know. that was an expensive eight track for. sure. Uh it hit its popularity in the. mid70s. Um and I guess we should talk a little. bit about how these things uh played. Um, you know, you've got the the. magnetic tape that you described inside. on a single reel.

Uh, and there was a little motor that. pulled the tape across the audio head to. make it make the sound. But you're probably, if you don't know. what these are, you're probably like, "What what is the eight tracks? What. does that even mean?" Each tape had. eight tracks and a sensing strip that. told a solenoid coil like, "Hey, a. program is over." Uh, which was, you. know, roughly two songs and now it's. time to switch over to the next track. So, when I said you could skip ahead two. songs at a time, if you hit the button, it would it would pop forward the two.

two songs roughly. So, weirdly, I want to say just one. thing because I don't want us to get. emails. I saw in one place that it. actually had four tracks, but there were. two of each of the four tracks. So, they. were in stereo, so two times four was. eight. I only saw that in one place. everywhere else kind of described it as. eight different tracks like you just. did, but I just wanted to put it out. there. All right. So, um yeah. So, this this whole thing, what differentiates it from cassette, um. is that it was it played continuously.

It was an endless loop, right? So, I. guess if you pressed play, it would play. the whole album over and over again. until you press stop. Is that correct? Yeah. And and the point is you didn't. have to flip it. Um, the downside of. that is you couldn't rewind it or fast. forward it except for skipping two songs. ahead, but you couldn't go back two. songs as far as I know. Okay, so that was kind of one of the. downsides. Another big downside is that. um these tracks were not like they just.

took an album and they cut it up into. four equal amounts of time or eight. equal amounts of time I should say. Right? So if a us if one track could fit. one and 3/4 of a song, that. threequarters of a song would fade out. There would be a click and then when the. next track started, it would fade back. in. And people hated that. Of course they did. That's very clunky. Understandably so. But that love of. clunkiness really kind of gets across. the just the kind of attention to detail.

that was given to eight tracks. They, as. far as technology goes, they were. perfectly encompassed by what they. looked like. Clunky, giant, plasticky, and just clunky, I guess. Yeah. I mean, it was it was interesting. They they deserved to be popular for a. while because it was such a revolution. and to be able to listen to what you. wanted to outside of your home. But the. other limitations, uh, you know, not.

rewinding, stuff like that. Apparently, the internal components would fail a lot. of times, like the cassette itself. was very sturdy and long-lasting, but. the little motor and stuff that would. fail. Your your car was famous for. eating the tapes. Um, they had a lot of downsides, but. that didn't outweigh the up the initial. upside of being able to take your music. on the road. No, for sure. That I mean that was a big. deal. Like I I never was like this eight. track sucks when we were listening to. Sarah Fever. So, I mean it couldn't have. been that bad. But I think for people.

who are like really into music, it was. probably very annoying. Yeah. Well, the irony is is that uh the. cassette tape was introduced in 1965. kind of. either kind of squarely in the middle of. or just before eight tracks were at. their zenith of popularity. Uh but they weren't marketed like bands. weren't releasing music on cassettes at. first. It was just like, "Hey, here's a. cassette and you can record yourself at. home and interview your parents about. what life was like in World War II.".

Yeah. Do your own story core at home. Yeah. Uh Yeah. So, people were like, "I can. start taping songs off the radio with. these things." And essentially, it just. kind of avalanched from there. Cassettes. took over. um because you could fast. forward, you could rewind, and even. though you had to flip the cassette, the. worst thing that you could possibly have. to do in the world, uh they were way. cheaper than eight tracks, too, just to. produce and to purchase. So, uh. cassettes pretty quickly took over. And. interestingly, this is also happening at.

the same time with uh video. VHS tapes. were overtaking Betamax and Laser Disc. at the same time, too. What were you about to say? The worst. thing you would have to do. um that was an addendum to having to. flip a cassette tape. Oh, okay. I thought you were going to. say uh if if the tape unspooled some, you would have to put a pencil. or use your pinky finger uh to to rewind. the tape and draw that magnetic tape. back into the cassette. I always had to use a a pinky because I. never had a pencil because I wasn't a. nerd.

Well, I had one in my front pocket, my. breast pocket. Nice. What else you got? Anything else? Uh, just a couple of tidbits. There was. a museum for a little while. There was a. enthusiast named Bucks Bernett in. Dallas, Texas that had a a museum that. because he collected them and it seems. like it was open for a handful of years. Uh, the largest collector now is a guy. named Gary Heightsman who apparently has. close to 100,000 tapes. He may have more. than that because that was 2019. Yeah.

Uh, and the most There's actually a very. valuable one, um, Frank Sinatra. Um, it's called Sinatra Joobam. Uh, Frank. Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Job Beam, which I bet is a great record. Yeah. Uh, they because they did a limited. pressing, of course. It's scarcity that. makes something valuable. And they only. did 3500 copies of that one. And if you. have one of those, you can get a few. grand for it apparently. Why not? What are you going to do? You're not. going to do anything but look at it. You. might as well sell it. Yeah. Get one of those Lloyd's players. and put that strap over your shoulder.

and go go down the street rocking it. I. found another player too that I would. actually like. It was made by Panasonic. It was called the dynamite plunger. portable at a track player. And the. reason why is because it had like a like. the handle was like on a rod coming off. of it. And then it had like a well the. thing that you gripped and it looked. like kind of a dynamite plunger. It was. neat. Came in yellow and all sorts of. great colors. I'm looking it up because I got to see. what you're talking about. So yeah, there was one for sale on Etsy. You those. Yeah, those are rad, man. Those are.

awesome. If I got into eight tracks, I would I. would definitely buy one of those, but. I'm not into eight tracks, so I'm not. going to. Yeah. I mean, it there's no reason to. like people are into vinyl still because. the fidelity is so great. There's really. no reason to buy eight tracks now, unless you just want a little walk down. memory lane of a sort of a cruddier. version of everything else. Right. Right. Uh well, I guess since we. started walking down memory lane, we. just walked away from the short stuff, right? Yeah. I guess that means it's out.

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