DEMONSTRATION--
NOT FOR SALE:
A Word on 8-Track Promo Carts

Cartridges and Text provided by David A. Pearlman

Music collectors are quite familiar with promotion-only CDs, vinyl LPs and cassettes. But did you know that a small number of promotion-only releases were also issued in the 8-track format?

Until the mid '70's, promotional albums were generally limited to regularly issued label samplers for use by DJs. (The best known of these is probably the set of monthly samplers that Capitol issued in the '60's, sometimes with oh-so-'60's alluring female adorned covers). The situation was VERY different from the late '70's and beyond, when promotional 12" singles and samplers (and later) cassette and CD singles became commonplace and were issued to all sorts of insiders, not just DJs. At any rate, in these quaint old school days, everyone had a record player, but only a limited fraction of people had 8-track players. Access to a particular track on an 8-track was cumbersome and slow, making them worthless for DJs and others who might receive promotional items. Not to mention the limited quality of an 8-track relative to vinyl. For all these reasons, promotional items were not issued in the 8-track format for the majority of time that 8-tracks reigned as the supreme alternate consumer tape format.

As mentioned, promotional 8-tracks did start to appear in the mid-to-late '70's. These promos were generally aimed not at radio stations (who obviously wouldn't play them) or reviewers, but rather at record stores. The idea was that the promo 8-tracks would be played to inspire customers to purchase the music promoted thereon. In those pre-CD days, a continuous loop format (meaning the 8-track could be inserted and could play over and over throughout the day) made some sense. This was especially true for "rack job" record departments in places like department stores and drugstores. Unlike hipper record stores, where the employees usually acted as in-house DJ spinning records, these "rack job" departments were typically unmanned and usually did not have a turntable set up for DJing. In principal, an 8-track setup could be installed and--voila!--instant infinite play in-store music. For this reason, most promotional 8-tracks feature pre-announcing and/or back-announcing of the tracks being played.

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