Found when helping a friend clean out a parent’s home after said parent had moved on (to snazzy new senior digs, not the Great Beyond):
Note to self: Time to go through boxes stashed on closet shelves, etc., and get rid of old Nirvana and Pearl Jam CDs, etc. All my shit’s on digital already, so those artifacts aren’t useful to me today and will only invite derisive laughter from closet purgers during the Malia Obama administration.
Open thread!
Gin & Tonic
You have a player in your truck, right?
Joseph Nobles
The Romantic Strings with the Romantic Voices
germy
/
Tom65
oh shit nononononononoooooo! Not this earworm again!
jon
Sasha Obama, of the New Democratic Left Reformed Party, will have beaten her sister Malia, Standard Democratic Liberty Constitution Libertad Party, and challenger Turnip Palin-McCain II, of the New Reformed Really Different This Time Grand Old Party.
Mike E
Cheech and Chong’s Wedding Album on 8-track…earache, my eye!
Pangloss
I like that in Program 4 the cheese goes Country.
Time for another visit to recall The Top 50 Most Annoying Songs of the 1970s.
Gravenstone
@Mike E: Not on 8-track, but that very album sits on a shelf in my sister’s old room at the family farm. Good stuff.
Keith P.
I seriously doubt old Pearl Jam and Nirvana CDs would garner the same laughter as that 8 track.
Betty Cracker
I’d rather shove chopsticks through my own eardrums than listen to that entire collection, but “Wichita Lineman” is a great song, IMO.
Ivan X
Please. I love the Obamas, but this dynastic trend doesn’t indicate signs of national health, to me, anyway. With that said, I’d vote for Malia in a heartbeat if she’s half as awesome as her folks are.
? Martin
We never had an 8 track but I know the pain of every one of those songs, trapped in the back seat of the car as a kid. Probably around 10 or 11. Mom then went through a Donna Summer phase after my parents divorced.
Mary G
Malia and Sasha have much too much sense to want that crappy job.
gogol's wife
This looks like something my husband would love.
tamiasmin
Do you have any evidence that Malia Obama wants to purge your closets?
Ivan X
Hey, FP’ers, you know what would be super useful for noobs and idiots like me who are all “elections, how do they work”? A primer post of “This is how to help Hillz and other Dems get elected. You can volunteer by doing x or y, here’s what’s helpful to know, here’s who to call, here’s who to donate money to”, etc. And sticky that, if such a thing exists here. I feel like I want to do my part, but feel surprisingly overwhelmed and confused about where to start and how best to contribute, especially since I have volunteered the last three presidential campaigns. Older and dumber, I guess.
FridayNext
I got my first 8-track at the local Drive-in flea market. All This and World War II. I had no idea what it was, but it was only a dime. Awesome soundtrack to a movie no one has seen. (But is currently on Youtube)
One of my favorite Xmas presents ever was a Panasonic Dynamite 8. It sounded like shit and was always breaking down. But it looked like those dynamite plungers from Road Runner! WOOHOO!
Elizabelle
I dunno. Am looking at that album cover art and just thinking … douche
Summer’s Eve douche.
dr. bloor
Great Googly Moogly, that friend’s parent is going to be furious when s/he realizes its not there to set the mood with some of the new neighbors, if you know what I mean and I think you do.
debit
The only thing I can really remember about 8 tracks is the satisfying kerchunk feeling when you pushed one into the player. Oh, and now I have “Feelings” stuck in my head. Awesome.
ETA: Did john ever update us on the tooth situation?
raven
@FridayNext: I had one in my 78 Buick.
Martha from Augusta
Oddly enough, “Big Ol’ Slice of Velveeta” is the name of my upcoming Midwestern cookbook.
Shana
@Ivan X: Start by searching for your local Democratic Committee. Mine, here in Northern Virginia, is the Fairfax County Democratic Committee. They’ll be able to tell you how to get involved. Their web site should also have info about options.
BTW, anyone else from NoVA who wants to provide healthy meals for staff and volunteers, let me know. I’m helping coordinate meal donations for the office, opening this evening, on Leesburg Pike.
kindness
You are so cute Betty. Here you are suggesting you would be embarrassed to have Nirvana in your CD collection. You should understand, those of us who are older than you had The Monkees, The Archies and a couple other embarrassing bands in our vinyl collections. Now those are actual embarrassments. Nirvana? You should be proud.
And as anyone who has ever taped or downloaded discs go, you know hard drives give out right? They can also develop holes in the middle of a data file making said file useless. You might want to keep those discs so you can re-download them later when you (at one point or another) will have to do so.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
Can’t knock Wichita Lineman.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@kindness: If having The Monkees in a record collection is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
Bobby Thomson
@Pangloss: have you never been mellow?
Woodrowfan
some good make-out songs in there. not many, but a few…
Betty Cracker
Oooo, Hillary Clinton quoted Maya Angelou in remarks on the Trump campaign turmoil today:
Well done, Madam Secretary!
Roger Moore
@kindness:
An even better plan is to have a plan to create regular backups of your data, so you won’t lose anything if/when bad things happen. This is especially important for somebody who lives in a place where there are lots of potentially computer destroying natural disasters. Ideally, you should have an off-site backup so you won’t be SOL if you house is destroyed.
Gelfling 545
My kids’ father passed on this spring and they were left to dismantle the household of a life-long “collector”. There were some excellent itmes from the days when he used to deal in antiques but, over his later years,his tastes became somewhat less reliable. The Salvation Army & St. Vincent dePaul Society got the dubious beneft of anything that wasn’t obviously fit only for the trash ( and in his town you have to pay per item to put out anything not in your trash receptacle.)I know they said they filled his SUV 3 times with loads of VHS tapes, to mention but one peculiar item. Since then I have been assiduously getting rid of as much as possible so that their final memory of me won’t be what a pain in the ass it was to get rid of my crap.
Miss Bianca
@Tom65: One of the absolute funniest things I ever saw in my life – and certainly the only funny thing or even memorable thing I ever saw in our high school talent show – was our senior class clown, decked out in a long “Charlie’s Aunt” style dress and huge pinwheel hat – passionately lip-synching that song. To a lightbulb.
Doug R
I don’t know if I were you I’d hold on to those classic c_d’s. You may be able to get a few Hillarys for them.
Woodrowfan
@FridayNext: “All This and World War II” is one of those great WTFs? of the 70s. set newsreel film of World War II to Beatles music performed by others. A not bad soundtrack but seriously, “He Comes the Sun” matched with video of the Japanese Emperor????!!!!!??? “Magical Mystery Tour” (by Ambrosia no less) and “the Fool On the Hill” matched with Nazi film of Hitler???????
DocSardonic
Some of those old songs don’t sound to bad run through a jsm1959 with a little slap back delay and a metric fuckton of distortion.
ET
My grandmother had a giant red Buick with a white top and an 8-Track player. I don’t remember if she had many 8-tracks but she did have Barry Manilow.
Miss Bianca
@kindness: To say nothing of The Royal Guardsmen!
@Woodrowfan: Whoa, this sounds like a seriously messed-up must see!
Ivan X
@Shana:
Thanks!
tinare
The Theme from Mahogany was my class’ prom song. Yep.
And I echo the others, Nirvana and Pearl Jam are no where near equivalent to the 8 track’s songs. If you had Spice Girls or Backstreet Boys CDs, that might approach it. Or a CD of the guys that did the Macarena, or something. You would likely not be mocking if you found their Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan or Beatles collections, now would you?
schrodinger's cat
@Miss Bianca: Shahrukh Khan sings the glories of Punjab in Veer Zaara.
BTW Punjab is the land of 5 rivers, the cradle of Indian civilization.
Elizabelle
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: and Galveston. Love me some vintage Glen Campbell. CD always in the car for road trips.
Woodrowfan
@Miss Bianca: it must be seen to be believed. available on Netflix. oye. right now I am looking at “I Am the Walrus” set to scenes from “Tora, Tora, Tora!”
Roger Moore
@Miss Bianca:
Anyone who really likes movies cut together from stock footage- and who doesn’t- desperately needs to see Bruce Conner’s “A Movie“.
Poopyman
@ET:
Tied up and stashed in the trunk?
Betty Cracker
@kindness: I dunno — the first 60 seconds of The Monkee’s “Porpoise Song” was brilliant, IMO (unfortunately, the song went on for a few minutes more). Regarding backup, I’m one of the fools who puts her faith in The Cloud — several, even. One day Russian hackers will leave me plinking away sadly on my ukulele for entertainment.
Tripod
A number of quality songs on that eight track, if adult contemporary is your thing, but why did they do so many string arrangements of pop hits back in the day? Was Muzak just a way to screw name performers out of royalties?
Miss Bianca
@schrodinger’s cat: I think Indian music videos have spoiled me for any other kind.
Droppy
@Pangloss:
My siblings and I (all victims of 1970s top-40 radio) held a “Lamest Song of the 70s” contest: winner for us was #4 on this list (Having my Baby) – apologies for causing earthworm hell to fellow sufferers.
WereBear
@Pangloss: You are a fiend.
JGabriel
@Keith P.:
Exactly. Unlike Pearl Jam and Nirvana, I’m sure that 8 track garnered laughter and revulsion as soon as it was released.
kindness
@Betty Cracker: Hey I can handle the remarks for the Monkees as some of those songs are Pop goodness. The Archies though……I cringe. We (my brother sister and I) must have been about 5 to 9 years old when we bought those (45’s for the Archies, albums for the Monkees).
Roger Moore
@JGabriel:
You must be remembering a different 1990s than I am. Pearl Jam and Nirvana were popular, but the whole grunge scene garnered plenty of revulsion at the time. There’s a reason they started on alternative radio.
Betty Cracker
@kindness: The only Archies song I am aware of is “Sugar.” It’s not a good song, IMO, but lord knows there are far worse pop atrocities, including most of the songs on that 8-track pictured above.
schrodinger's cat
@Miss Bianca: I am glad you like them. Many a time I like the songs better than the movies themselves.
Gindy51
Whatever else you get rid of, make sure you ditch the porn collection. My pal had to go through her uncle’s house and it was basement to rafter stocked with porn in ever possible media venue you can think of… He just bought it and set it aside, most of it was never viewed… don’t ask how she knew, just don’t.
Also make sure any compromising photographs are destroyed. You don’t want to find your kids to find the nudie pictures you took with your spouse, that was my great find… barf.
Poopyman
@Droppy: Wasn’t there a punk rock version of “Having My Baby” sometime in the 80s?
J.
@Tom65: I feel your pain (and ear worm). :-/ Thanks for nothing, Betty.
gratuitous
A step ahead of the game in that we cleaned out the garage apartment a few months ago, and all the “music” went to Goodwill. Swap out “Ode to Billie Joe” on that 8-track for something by Bread and you’re set to go Velveeta-wise.
laura
Back in the 70’s I recall burning wires from my 8-track smoking up the green shag carpeting in my vw bug-in which my mom would give me $1.00 per day in gas money thus limiting my freedom of movement. But, man, did that Black Sabbath get played every same day in 1975!
I. Am. Ironman!
chopper
@Poopyman:
circle jerks did a medley including that one on “golden shower of hits”. song was called “jerks on ’45” IIRC.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Betty Cracker:
Agreed. “Rose Garden”* and “Ode to Billy Joe” are classics, too. Maybe a little too country-adjacent for some.
* Nice take by the author, Joe South.
FridayNext
@Woodrowfan:
I’ve never watched the whole thing all the way through. It’s awash in ethnic stereotypes from the era and strangely juxtaposed music and images. I like the idea that it exists more than I enjoyed the parts of the movie I have seen. It is a major WTF, and no decade did wtf movies better than the seventies.
But hey, at least it isn’t Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band!
Trollhattan
Dear lord, I can imagine being trapped between floors in a ’70s mirrored elevator with that thing looping, and looping and looping and…. Welcome to my nightmare.
Pogonip
@Bobby Thomson: Have you never triiiiiiiieeeeed to find some comfort from insiiiiIIIIIIIiiiide you…
WereBear
I have seen some awful movies that made me cringe inside and outside, and I swear that abomination is still in my top five.
Pogonip
@kindness: I got my Archies album with box tops. Literally.
I remember reading an interview with Ron Dante in which he recalled the record company wanting him to dye his hair orange and go on tour. Oddly, he declined.
Audio
Nirvana and Pearl Jam will at least be looked at as the Cream or Jefferson Airplane of this era. It would be the “Now that’s what I call Music” series of CDs that will be embarrassing.
Mnemosyne
And here I am having a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. Though mine has cheddar on it.
Mike J
@Pogonip: I got my Box Tops album with archies. Weird.
Jim Parish
Anyone else remember the first episode of WKRP in Cincinnati, which featured a choral version of “Having My Baby”? (Or should I say, “Having Our Baby”?)
Mnemosyne
Just to horrify Omnes and DougJ, I will reveal here that one of my brothers had Elvis Costello’s “Armed Forces” on 8-track.
catclub
@Mnemosyne: I just read the Ruth Reichl grilled cheese sandwich recipe. Two key items:
chopped onions, mayo on the outside. also butter on the inside, multiple types of cheese, cheese on the outside as well.
I am guessing low cal mayo.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Martha from Augusta:
Are you taking preorders?
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
I got it from the commissary across the street, so it’s just bread, cheese, and butter cooked on a flat-top. Yum.
Gravenstone
@Droppy: Sirius satellite radio rebroadcasts select “America’s Top 40” episodes from the 70’s on Saturday mornings (Seventies on 7 is the channel). Usually it’s pretty good, but every once in a while they roll through a contemporary clunker where it’s “WTF was that?”. It’s even worse when I can actually remember the song in question.
Chip Daniels
I just, 6 weeks ago, threw out my old 8 tracks and player.
Weird thing is, the tapes were Ramones, Clash, Sex Pistols and Blondie.
Old enough for derisive laughter, but not enough cheese to be truly valuable for cultural anthropologists.
Jacel
The film by the same name that originated the song “You Light Up My Life” is a surprisingly enjoyable and quirky story. And the performance of the song in the film (which actually figures into the story) is a lot more upbeat and inspiring than the dirge-like rendition by Boone and others who emulated the hit song. See it when you have a chance.
NoraLenderbee
Instant flashback to junior high school.
Onkel Fritze
‘…get rid of old Nirvana and Pearl Jam CDs, etc. All my shit’s on digital already…’
That kind of thinking really curls up my toenails. Apart from the aforementioned problems with digital media (even if you have the discipline to make regular backups), if your stuff is in mp3, as it probably is, the quality is vastly inferior.
Plus if your stuff is from itunes or amazon or wherever, it might be stuck with some DRM-verificaton system. Just wait until one of these companies changes their buisiness model, gets hacked or goes belly-up and it might all be gone. NEVER put your trust in this crap to work flawlessly if you have other options.
cmorenc
@Pangloss:
Among the “artists” whose work is on that list is Bobby Goldsboro “Watching Scotty Grow” – and my (fortunately) hazy memory of him is that all of his “hits” were pure saccharine-schmaltzy pop of similar quality.
HOW-EVER, a really surprising bit of trivia is that it was Bobby Goldsboro who taught Keith Richards (of all people) some tricky guitar chords/licks It bobbles my mind picturing Bobby Goldsboro and Keith Richards hanging out together playing guitar, which Richards himself cited in his autobiography. After that surprise, I’m now ready just in case the next shoe to drop will be Mick Jagger revealing he learned some of his best rock&roll song-and-dance moves hanging out with Yanni.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: Nope, it’s a great tune.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@ET: Mine rocked a bronze Monte Carlo with Al Green in the deck. She was pushing 60 at the time.
FridayNext
@WereBear:
I was little kid when I bought the soundtrack album. Not bad, really. Alice Cooper, Steve Martin, E,W,&F. Good stuff.
I couldn’t wait to see it in the theaters. I vaguely recall this being the first time I said “fuck” out loud. I was 11 or 12 and looked at a friend and shouted “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?”
At least that is how I remember it.
It is the worst movie that isn’t fun to watch because it’s bad. It couldn’t even be good at being bad. GOD IT’S AWFUL!
(But I still have a soft spot for some of the songs once I washed the images out of my brain)
Woodrowfan
@WereBear: I may have been one of the few who saw “Sgt Pepper” in the theater. Still not the worst movie I ever saw in a theater though.
Ridnik Chrome
@Jacel: IIRC, “You Light Up My Life” won a Grammy for Best Song of the Year in 1978. I remember sometime in the late Nineties I read an article in the Village Voice where some critic or another (Chuck Somebody, not Klosterman, though) seriously attempted to argue that it actually was the best record of its year (which it should be noted also saw the releases of “Road To Ruin”, “Parallel Lines” and “This Year’s Model”, among others). A Slate-pitch avant la lettre. That was about the time I stopped taking the Voice’s music critics seriously…
Steeplejack (phone)
@cmorenc:
Bobby Goldsboro had a few legitimate pop-rock hits before he went over to the schmaltz side with “Honey” in 1968. “Little Things” (1964) was a top 10 hit and something that Keith Richards might plausibly have noticed.
gogol's wife
@Steeplejack (phone):
Are we getting into gold slacks territory here?
I wish TCM would re-run that show. It would have been good counter-programming the week of the RNC.
gogol's wife
@Ridnik Chrome:
The guy who wrote it had a strange story. He died recently, and his Times obituary was bizarre reading.
Steeplejack (phone)
@gogol’s wife:
If it comes on again we’ll definitely have to live-blog it. That was hilarious.
steverinoCT
@laura:
I delivered papers in summer on a “motor route”– lots of papers delivered by car. The driver took me on so he could handle vacationing driver’s routes. It was the cassette era. He had one Black Sabbath tape, and one Bad Company. I kinda like “Rock and Roll Fantasy,” but grew to loath BS. I mentioned that to someone once, and began the riff from War Pigs. “If you hate it so much, how come you know it so well?” Ugh, don’t ask.
Although the song’s use in the movie Iron Man was cool.
gogol's wife
@gogol’s wife:
I guess it was his brother who died recently. Very sad/scary story of Joseph Brooks.
gogol's wife
@Steeplejack (phone):
Yes, I’d love that! We could really get into the nuances this time.
gogol's wife
@steverinoCT:
For me it was a cassette of Zappa’s Over-Nite Sensation that I heard throughout a 3-month camping trip in Eastern Europe.
steverinoCT
@Audio: I had one of those on cassette once. My niece buys the modern ones, and out of curiosity I looked up the song list as I remembered it. I had the very first one! With the pig talking to the rooster.
Bostondreams
@dr. bloor:
This being Florida, this actually could be accurate. The Villages is a notorious retirement community here, and oh my goodness the fun the seniors have!
ThresherK
I am fascinated by everyone’s recollection of the original recordings titled in the pix of that 8-track.
I cannot being to imagine the pain in subjecting folks to the Reader’s Digest Strings and Chorus renditions. Certainly there are some BJers here who remember the kind of twaddle that must be. That stuff made Mitch Miller records sound like Manhattan Transfer by comparison.
laura
@Chip Daniels: I would have taken ALL off your hands for a reasonable summer and shipping.
They do have value, musically, culturally and tech/electronics -wise.
Truegster
I treat my CD’s like Master Recordings – the digital format can get corrupted, maybe even the format you saved it on can become obsolete or not transferable to a new player. The CD’s are uncompressed and can be ripped to replace what was lost or written over.