In January of 1978, my friends and I started getting out on weekends to spend time together. We would occasionally go to the movies, go bowling or visit an arcade. Most of the time, we would ride the streets of our little town in search of girls to talk with. During this time, an 8-track tape player standard equipment in any of the cars where we regularly spent time. While my musical tastes were always a bit more eclectic than my friends, there were a handful of mainstream rock albums that I really loved that became our soundtrack for that time in our lives. These were albums that I completely loved but had no desire to own a copy because I got to hear them enough when we were out on the town. As I entered college, I would finally break down and pick up copies of these albums. By that time, vinyl would become my preferred music format. Some of these would later become staples of my CD collection. All of them are on my iPod right now.
The following list includes the most important of these recordings. I’ve also included a few notes relating to each title. I have also noted the differences in the song order from the album to the 8-track tape. I’ve also noted where some of the songs were split between two tracks. Only people who listened to music on 8-track can appreciate memories of a song fading out in the middle, the loud ka-chunk of the player and the song fading back in.
