Short Stuff: 8 Track Cartridges

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Short Stuff: 8 Track Cartridges" – Stuff You Should Know Release Date: July 9, 2025 | Host: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant | Produced by iHeartPodcasts

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Introduction to Short Stuff In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, hosts Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant delve into the nostalgic world of eight track cartridges. Titled "Short Stuff: 8 Track Cartridges," the episode explores the history, technology, and cultural impact of this once-popular music format.

Historical Development of Eight Tracks The conversation kicks off with Chuck Bryant providing context on the origins of eight track technology. He explains that while eight tracks are often associated with the 1970s, their development began much earlier.

Chuck Bryant (01:00): "April 11th is National Eight Track Tape Day, so we've missed that. But if you don't know what an eight track is, it preceded the cassette tape and we're gonna get into what this thing was."

Josh adds that the roots of eight track technology trace back to the 1940s, evolving from magnetic reel-to-reel tapes used during World War II.

Technical Aspects of Eight Track Cartridges Dave, a recurring contributor, provides a technical breakdown of how eight tracks functioned. The system utilized magnetic tape stored on a single reel, pulled across an audio head by a motor to play music continuously. Unlike cassette tapes, eight tracks operated on a continuous loop without the ability to rewind or fast forward, though users could skip ahead two songs at a time.

Dave (03:03): "So, yeah, so this whole thing, what differentiates it from cassette is that it was... it was an endless loop."

Chuck discusses the limitations of the format, including mechanical failures and the inability to easily navigate tracks.

Chuck Bryant (12:16): "As far as technology goes, they were perfectly encompassed by what they looked like. Clunky, giant, plasticky and just clunky, I guess."

Popularity and Use in Vehicles The hosts highlight how the Ford Motor Company's decision to include eight track players as an option in their 1966 model cars significantly boosted the format's popularity. This move allowed consumers to enjoy personalized music selections on the go, a novelty at the time.

Chuck Bryant (09:15): "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."

Josh reminisces about the cultural phenomenon of cruising with eight tracks, emphasizing their role in personalizing the driving experience.

Transition to Cassette Tapes and Decline of Eight Tracks Despite their initial success, eight tracks faced competition from cassette tapes introduced in 1965. Cassettes offered greater flexibility, such as the ability to record and manipulate tracks, leading to their eventual dominance in the market.

Dave (13:54): "So, yeah, so this whole thing... But Cassette tapes took over because you could fast forward, you could rewind..."

Chuck notes that while eight tracks were a revolution for mobile music consumption, their technological limitations couldn't keep pace with the advancements offered by cassettes.

Chuck Bryant (13:15): "They had a lot of downsides, but that didn't outweigh the initial upside of being able to take your music on the road."

Collectors and Legacy The episode concludes with a discussion on the legacy of eight tracks, highlighting collectors and rare cartridges. Chuck mentions Gary Heitzman, a prominent collector with a vast collection, and references limited-edition cartridges like the Frank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim release, which are highly valued due to their scarcity.

Chuck Bryant (15:03): "The largest collector now is a guy named Gary Heitzman, who apparently has close to 100,000 tapes."

Dave shares anecdotes about unique eight track players, such as the Panasonic Dynamite Plunger Portable player, underscoring the enduring fascination with this format among enthusiasts.

Dave (16:17): "So, yeah, there was one for sale on Etsy. Those are rad, man. Those are awesome."

Conclusion Josh and Chuck wrap up the episode by reflecting on the unique place eight tracks hold in the history of music technology. While no longer mainstream, eight tracks remain a cherished memory for many and a fascinating topic for audio enthusiasts and collectors.

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Notable Quotes:

• Chuck Bryant (01:00): "April 11th is National Eight Track Tape Day..."
• Dave (03:03): "So, yeah, so this whole thing, what differentiates it from cassette is that it was... it was an endless loop."
• Chuck Bryant (09:15): "The Ford Motor Company said, hey everybody, have you heard of these eight tracks?..."
• Dave (13:54): "So, yeah, so this whole thing... But Cassette tapes took over because you could fast forward, you could rewind..."
• Chuck Bryant (15:03): "The largest collector now is a guy named Gary Heitzman..."
• Dave (16:17): "So, yeah, there was one for sale on Etsy. Those are rad, man. Those are awesome."

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from the "Short Stuff: 8 Track Cartridges" episode, providing listeners with a thorough understanding of the topic without requiring them to listen to the full episode.

Transcript

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Dave]

Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. It's just us. Neither Jerry nor Dave is here. So it's Short Stuff, the bereft edition.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. I want to thank NPR, capture.com, a website called PS Audio, a website called Ever Present, and more for the research that went into the eight track cassette player, or eight track cartridge itself. April 11th is National Eight Track Tape Day, so we've missed that. But if you don't know what an eight track is, it preceded the cassette tape and we're gonna get into what this thing was.

[Dave]

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 was way older than that. Apparently as far back as the 40s, it was essentially coming into development. Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Which surprised me, you might be wondering, like, why did we need eight tracks at all? And it's because at the time, dear listener, especially younger dear listener, if you wanted to play the music that you wanted to hear, you could play it on your record player in your house. 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 mobile version, a way to take the music that you wanted on the road, either via your car or via these awesome portable players of which we had one of it was a Lloyds. We had a deck in our conversion van, of course, but 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.

[Dave]

You totally should. One of my friends in high school, Mitch. Not dirty Mitch with scabies, but different Mitch.

[Chuck Bryant]

That sounds good.

[Dave]

His grandmother had a huge white Lincoln Continental with the eight track deck in it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Dave]

And we got our hands on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack on eight track. And we just cruised around listening to that and that car. It was pretty boss.

[Chuck Bryant]

Skipping forward two songs at a time. Ish.

[Dave]

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 reel to reel film. And essentially 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. These pieces of magnetic metal into ones and zeros. And then the whole thing is done backwards on the. On the other end when you listen to it. This is the basis of not just 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, the Germans were using it in World War II. The Allieds got ahold of it, and eventually it got to the music industry. And they were like, hey, we got a thing now that we can play this stuff on the road, we think in a continuous loop. And the very first person to achieve the version that could go to market was a guy named William Powell Lear, the creator of the Learjet. Previous to this, there were some sort of housing and internal guts, things that were worked out by various people. A guy named George Ish in 1953, came up with the Nab cartridge or the Fidillipak cartridge. 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.

[Dave]

Yeah, it was short for cartridge slang, I guess you'd call it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Dave]

So that was followed up by the Muntz stereo pack. And it was created by Earl Madman Muntz. And he directly influenced the development of the eight track because William Powell Lear 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 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 Lear 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And invent a jet.

[Dave]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I should point out too quickly and this can't be a coincidence, but Earl Madman Mundt was the creator of that cart. If you're a Coen Brothers fan and a fan of the movie Barton Fink, you will know that John Goodman's character name is Carl Madman Mundt.

[Dave]

Oh, really?

[Chuck Bryant]

And there's no way that's a coincidence.

[Dave]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know the correlation. Or if it was just they got they thought it sounded cool or something. Who knows?

[Dave]

What a strange homage if it was though.

[Chuck Bryant]

Agreed. Should we take a break?

[Dave]

Yes, Chuck, Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. We'll be right back with more on the bygone era of the eight track right after this.

[Chuck]

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[Dave]

So all of this was being developed in the 50s, I think as early as the 40s technically. But the eight track really came into its own in the mid-60s. 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 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. They were pretty cheap. They were two to three bucks. The most expensive on record was the Beatles Greatest hits released in 1970. That was almost five bucks, $4.97, which would be.

[Dave]

That's the nice price.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, the nice price. That'd be more than $40 today. So that was, you know, that was an expensive eight track for sure. It hit its popularity in the mid-70s. And I guess we should talk a little bit about how these things Played, you know, you've got the magnetic tape that you described inside on a single reel, 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 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. Which was 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 pop forward the two songs roughly.

[Dave]

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 get out there. All right, so, yeah, so this. This whole thing, what differentiates it from cassette 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?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And the point is you didn't have to flip it. 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.

[Dave]

Okay, so that was kind of one of the downsides. Another big downside is that 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 one track could fit one in three quarters of a song, that three quarters of a song would fade out, there'd be a click, and then when the next track started, it would fade back in. And people hated that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Of course they did. That's very clunky.

[Dave]

Understandably so. But that level 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, it was interesting. 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, 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 car was famous for eating the tapes. They had a lot of downsides, but that didn't outweigh the initial upside of being able to take your music on the road.

[Dave]

No, for sure. I mean, that was a big deal. I never was like, this 8 track sucks when we were listening to Saturday Night Fever. So, I mean, it couldn't have been that bad. But I think for people who are really into music, it was probably very annoying.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Well, the irony is that 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. 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.

[Dave]

Yeah, do your own StoryCorps at home. Yeah, yeah. So people were like, I can start taping songs off the radio with these things. And essentially it just kind of avalanche from there. Cassettes took over because you could fast forward, you could rewind, and even though you had to flip the cassette, the worst thing you could possibly have to do in the world. They were way cheaper than 8 tracks too, just to produce and to purchase. So cassettes pretty quickly took over. And interestingly, this is also happening at the same time with video. VHS tapes were overtaking Betamax and laserdisc at the same time too.

[Chuck Bryant]

What were you about to say? The worst thing you would have to do.

[Dave]

That was an addendum to having to flip a cassette tape.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, okay. I thought you were going to say if the tape unspooled some, you would have to put a pencil or use your pinky finger to rewind the tape and draw that magnetic tape back into the cassette.

[Dave]

I always had to use a pinky because I never had a pencil because I wasn't a nerd.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I had one in my front pocket, my breast pocket. So.

[Dave]

Hey, what else you got? Anything else?

[Chuck Bryant]

Just a couple of tidbits. There was a museum for a little while. There was an enthusiast named Bucks Burnett in Dallas, Texas, that had a museum because he collected them. And it seems like it was open for a handful of years. The largest collector now is a guy named Gary Heitzman, who apparently has close to 100,000 tapes. He may have more than that because that was 2019. And there's actually a very valuable one. Frank Sinatra. It's called Sinatra Jobim, Frank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim, which I bet is a great record because they did a limited pressing. Of course, it's scarcity that makes something valuable. And they only did 3,500 copies of that one. And if you have one of those, you can get a few grand for it, apparently.

[Dave]

Why not? What are you going to do? You're not going to do anything to look at it? You might as well sell it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, get one of those Lloyd's players and put that strap over your shoulder and go. Go down the street rocking it.

[Dave]

I found another player too, that I would actually like. It was made by Panasonic. It was called the Dynamite Plunger Portable eight 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm looking it up because I got to see what you're talking about.

[Dave]

So, yeah, there was one for sale on Etsy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, those are rad, man. Those are awesome.

[Dave]

If I got into eight tracks, I would definitely buy one of those. But I'm not into eight tracks, so I'm not going to.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, 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.

[Dave]

Well, I guess since we started walking down memory lane, we just walked away from the short stuff, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I guess that means it's out.

[Chuck]

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