C/D: Eight-track alternate sequencing?

FLEETWOOD MAC -- RUMOURS

Second Hand News
Oh Daddy
I Don't Want To Know
Dreams
Never Going Back Again
You Make Lovin Fun
Don't Stop
Go Your Own Way
Songbird
The Chain
Gold Dust Woman

I like this! Following up "Second Hand News" with the weakest song on the album is a bit of a downer, but then we get to all the hits (all in a row). Then it's "Songbird" and "The Chain", which are sound like the downbeat conclusion to an album and are much better placed there than buried in the middle.

but they weren't buried in the middle of the album. they were, if i'm not mistaken, the last song on side 1 and the first song on side 2 -- two of the most prominent spots on any LP. it's only on cd that they're buried in the middle.

exactly. because 8-tracks were meant to be played continuously (i'm pretty sure you couldn't rewind or fast-forward through them), so if there was a lot of dead space at the end of any given track, you'd have to sit through that dead space and wait till it got to the end of the tape and switched itself to the beginning of the next track.

http://www.8trackheaven.com/index2.html

my next-door neighbour used to bang on about eight-tracks all the time. i thought he was just a nutter ;)

Correct. I had Abbey Road on 8-track, and "Her Majesty" coming iun the middle of everything was hilarious.

Don't forget, though: Not only couldn't you rewind or fast-forward 8-tracks, but they didn't start at the beginning when you took them out and put them back in. So unless you played the album always and exactly all the way through, you lost all sense of which track was first.

I had a car with an 8-track until 1991. Abbey Road on 8-track was a funny cultural artifact, but Never Mind the Bollocks was even better.

That was always another neat thing about eight-tracks, landing in the middle of the song after skipping over. To my six-year old head, it was like the one album had four parallel worlds active all at once. All that time that you were listening to "Can't Get It Out of My Head" on side three, side two was throwing down over there with "Roll Over Beethoven". But this paragraph would be better suited for another thread.

AEROSMITH, TOYS IN THE ATTIC
1. Toys In The Attic
2. Walk This Way
3. Big Ten Inch Record
4. Adam's Apple
5. Sweet Emotion
6. No More No More
7. Round And Round
8. Uncle Salty
9. You See Me Crying

CLASSIC. It's a little weird with "Big Ten Inch Record" being the third song and "Uncle Salty" so far down on the list, but overall, I think that it works.

Kah-CHUNK.

1 Hanging On The Telephone
Heart Of Glass
I'm Gonna Love You Too

2 Picture This
Fade Away And Radiate
Pretty Baby

3 I Know But I Don't Know
11:59
Will Anything Happen?

4 One Way Or Another
Sunday Girl
Just Go Away

This is also great! The proper track listing drags a bit in the middle during the "Fade Away and Radiate" ... "Will Anything Happen" section. But the eight-track version puts the Big Hits at the beginning and the end ("Heart Of Glass" works MUCH better at the start than tossed randomly into the middle of side two) and mixes things up a little better in the middle.

program 1
Five More Years
Lady Stardust
Soul Love (Begin)

program 2
Soul Love (Conclusion)
Moonage Daydream
Rock'n'Roll Suicide

program 3
Starman
Star
Hang on to Yourself

program 4
Suffragette City
Ziggy Stardust
It Ain't Easy

T-REX - Electric Warrior

program 1
Planet Queen
Girl
Jeepster

program 2
Get it On
Lean Woman Blues
Life's a Gas

program 3
Monolith
Rip Off
Mambo Sun (begin)

program 4
Mambo Sun (concl)
Cosmic Dancer
The Motivator

David Bowie - LOW

program 1
Speed of Life
Be my Wife
Art Decade

program 2
Breaking Glass
What in the World
Subterraneans

program 3
Always Crashing in the Same Car
A New Career in a New Town
Warszawa (begin)

program 4
Warszawa (concl)
Sound and Vision
Weeping Wall

Honorable mentions:
THE CARS, which splits the big hit (Just What I Needed) over two programs. What were they thinking?

And Finally: TARKUS (obviously a challenge). The follwing is exactly as it appears on the tape, including spelling errors, non-numerical program order etc.

program 1
Eruption
Stones of Years
Iconoclast
Mass (part 1)

program 3
Aquatarkus (part 2)
Jeremy Ednrer
Bitches Crystal
The Only Way - Hymm (part 1)

program 2
Mass (part 2)
Manticore
Attlefield
Aquaktarkus (part 1)

program 4
The Only Way - Hymm (part 2)
Infinite Space
A Time and Place
Are You Ready Eddy

(sic. all the way)

http://www.8trackheaven.com/Images/mmm.gif

this is fascinating. i can feel an obsession starting here. fuck.

DUD. You can't have "Workin' For MCA" as the album finisher, especially when the true finale should always be "Call Me the Breeze". I do think that maybe "Sweet Home Alabama" works as the fourth track instead of as the lead-off, but WHAT THE FUCK is going on with Tracks 1 & 7 and Tracks 5 & 9?

PAVEMENT, CROOKED RAIN, CROOKED RAIN
Program 1
1. Elevate Me Later 2:51
2. Stop Breathin 4:27
3. Cut Your Hair 3:06

Program 2
4. Silence Kit 3:00
5. Unfair 2:33
6. Range Life 4:54

Program 3
7. Gold Soundz 2:39
8. 5 - 4 = Unity 2:09
9. Heaven is a Truck 2:30
10. Hit the Plane Down 3:36

Program 4
11. Newark Wilder 3:53
12. Fillmore Jive 6:38

TOSS-UP. On the one hand, starting the album with "Elevate Me Later" is a bit weird, but with continued listens, I'm sure that I could get used to it. In a way, it's not a bad starter song. "Silence Kid" still gets to start off something at least, sharing the same side as "Range Life", which is moved up a little.

On the other hand, Program 3 could get a little long with the most number of songs on one side. And, those songs are arguably the weakest songs on the album. (I don't neccesarily agree with this, but I do admit that the last three songs could wear someone down without "Range Life" in there to break up the dirge a bit.) "Newark Wilder" seguing into "Fillmore Jive", as good as those songs are, could induce unconsciousness before the end of the album occurs.

Kah-CHUNK.

(I tried to make each side as close in time to the others as possible, within thirty seconds. I tried to keep the songs in their original order as much as possible.)

Scraping Foetus off the Wheel - HOLE

Program 1
Clothes Hoist [3:25]
Lust For Death [3:38]
Satan Place [3:22]

Program 2
I'll Meet You In Poland Baby [4:50]
White Knuckles [4:31]

Program 3
Street Of Shame [3:28]
Hot Horse [3:31]
Cold Day In Hell (begin)[3:28]

Program 4
Cold Day in Hell (concl) [2:00)
Water Torture [3:50]
Sick Man [4:15]

To my six-year old head, it was like the one album had four parallel worlds active all at once. All that time that you were listening to "Can't Get It Out of My Head" on side three, side two was throwing down over there with "Roll Over Beethoven".

i love that. 8-tracks as tangible demonstration of quantum physics.

Correct, fcc. (Your handle so apt here.)

I think I've made that joke 60 times in the nine years since that first post.

It's boggling my mind that a poster way upthread had an 8-track in their car until 1991. Also didn't remember that 8-tracks were even still a format when Parallel Lines was released.

Not the same thing, but we were still using cart decks at the radio station as late as 1999-2000 for weather, traffic, commercials, etc.

Yeah, I learned using carts too. Was cool when I returned to community radio around 2000 to find computer automation.

I think I've made that joke 60 times in the nine years since that first post.

i think 56 of those times were on billy joel threads.

pretty sure my college station used carts until 2005 or so, I forget exactly when we transitioned

/I think I've made that joke 60 times in the nine years since that first post./

i think 56 of those times were on billy joel threads.

Thinking of Liberty Devitto, I mean.

i will guarantee you that liberty devitto had a good collection of 8-tracks back in the day.