Remember the good old 8-track tapes? I had a bunch. Remember Columbia House? The young ‘uns out there might not remember those guys. What a scheme, what a setup!
The way it worked was that you would get an offer in the mail or see one in a publication. Maybe there would be a blow-in card. For a ridiculously low introductory price, say 1¢, you would get maybe a dozen records. You had to specify your preferred genre for future offers.
A box of records would arrive in the mail, and then for a certain period of time you would received a monthly box with another record in it until you fulfilled your obligation. Each month’s offer would be announced ahead of time, and you could skip it if you wanted to. But, because you had signed up for X-number of records, you could not get out of the deal until you had all of them.
At least, that’s the way I remember it.
One thing, the price of all the subsequent records was list, no discount. It was pretty hard to get a big bunch of intro records and then come out ahead when all the others were list price.
Eventually, Columbia House offered 8-track tapes and cassettes. They came to distributed CDs, too. I had 8-tracks because my car (1968 Opel Kadette Rallye) had an add-on under-dash 8-track player. I even had a SoundDesign 8-track player for my home stereo system. These machines not only became obsolete, but they broke down, too. I suspect there’s a few still out there, somewhere, in the hands of hard-core collectors.
8-track tapes were based on the technology used in the radio station tape cartridges, also known as “carts”. Both are endless tapes. In the case of the 8-tracks, there’s a metal tape tab that causes the machine to switch tracks. A solenoid is activated when the metal tape closes an electrical circuit. The playback head moves so that the next stereo tracks play. You’d be listening to your music and then there’d be a clunk and the track would change. On good tapes the changes would be between songs. There would usually be a big blank period, and then a clunk, followed by a new song. On cheap tapes the track would change in the middle of a song.
Well, my old 8-track tapes went the way of the dodo. Actually, they went to the Salvation Army in Philadelphia. But, what of my music? Well, that’s the way of the world when formats go obsolete.
The good news is that there’s a fantastic record and CD shop in town and a visit there turns up all the old stuff that I can’t easily find. The Last Vestige on Quail Street is like a treasure trove of good stuff. All you have to do is go hunting in the bins
My latest find is Blood, Sweat & Tears Greatest Hits, as you can see by the photo. I had that on 8-track, and it sounded great in the Opel. Yes, I picked it up on CD. And, no, I am not worried about the CD going the way of the 8-track.