If you're like me, you have no idea how to answer that question.  Or a lot of others--Abbey Road? No Idea. The Stranger? Nope--can't help you. Curtis Mayfield's Back to The World?  Darn it.

This is a disease that there is no cure for…it's called, "I grew up on the 8-track tape."  I was watching the live performance Styx was doing of "Pieces of Eight" (BTW the Dennis DeYoung replacement is spot-on), and they made a big deal out of "flipping" the record.  The video wall behind them has an album being turned over, and the crowd is starting to go wild…because they know a huge song is about to start.  Well, I don't know what song it is because there's no "Side two" for me, just a click somewhere during Aku Aku I think.

So Blue Collar Man kicks in and I'm thinking, "Crap, I really missed something here by being an 8-track guy." Other than the fidelity.  I missed out on the obvious anticipation of 'Side two, song one,' the crunch time of any good rock record. If the first side ends with a bang, side two must be setting the mood for climax number 2, no?

'The Stranger' starts side 2 with Vienna, a slow number which I thought at first killed my theory.  But the album ends with Everybody Has A Dream which is also thoughtful--so maybe The Stranger said all it's kick-ass stuff on side one?

'Abbey Road' has Here Comes The Sun to start Side 2.  It's a Harrison composition, but by the time the Beatles recorded this, they had already punched out for their career, so I can't rely on this for my research.  And since I didn't have that many 8-tracks before I switched to albums, I'm feeling like this may be a losing cause...

Curtis Mayfield 'Back to the World' was another of my first 8's.  But that was such a funky trip written in a musical language I could barely understand, I couldn't tell you when one song ended and another started. Click…here's Future Song…click Right on For The Darkness.  All I could tell from that album was that Viet Nam was bad, but the U.S. was worse for the black man.

So where does this leave me?  Same place for you mp3-ers.  No continuity…a life with a giant hole.  Damn you 8-tracks!

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