When the Star Wars soundtrack hit record stores in 1977, the 8-track format had already begun its downward spiral into obscurity. The standard 2-track cassette had been introduced a few years earlier and seemed to catch the gale of public fancy, primarily due to its availability as a recordable medium rather than a strictly pre-recorded one. The 8-track format was slowly being removed from record store shelves and into the abyssmal realm of the record club catalog ("Check One: LP, Cassette, 8T"). For this reason, several variations of similar recordings exist, depending on which company held the reproduction rights at a given time. This characteristic also lends great scarcity to those tapes which were sold near the end of the viable 8-track era, around 1983-4. At this point, 8-tracks were available strictly through club catalogs which had just picked up the new CD format. By the late eighties, the 8-track found itself not only obsolete but the target of mockery and disdain among music collectors.
In the years since its demise, however, the 8-track has enjoyed an underground resurgence led by devoted fanatics who find a quirky aesthetic in the funky design of the cassettes and the components that play them. There is a strangely-pleasing discord felt when the timeless and eternal meets the outmoded and obsolete. In this case, it is the magnificent Star Wars score committed to the publicly-castigated 8-track format.
Of course, Star Wars-related recordings went far beyond the original score. Disco and moog were the names of the game in the late seventies, and Star Wars-inspired tunes were the favorite of many synth-pop artists. The bulk of Star Wars-related 8-tracks is stacked heavily upon the first film, when sci-fi disco was hip and Lucasfilm's licensing muscle was a bit more lax. By the time The Empire Strikes Back rolled around, however, only a small handful of titles were released, and Return of the Jedi followed with a mere whisper in the 8-track market. A final trilogy recording was released the same year as Jedi, ending the 8-track's six year affair with Star Wars.
The accompanying chart attempts to list all known Star Wars-related 8-tracks from the US and Canada, as well as the many cartridge variations. Although Europe for a time enjoyed the 8-track format, no Star Wars recordings are known to have been manufactured abroad. Although I'm sure this list is far from comprehensive, I hope it will at least give a sense of what's still out there, lurking in the dusty bins of old record shops and closet-shelved shoe boxes. At the very least, it will allow for a glimpse into a forgotten heyday, the final years of which occurred at the height of the Star Wars phenomenon.
Thanks to Duncan Jenkins for providing a couple of the pictures included on the accompanying chart.