In the worst news to hit the Atlanta music scene in a while, it was announced today that Georgia Public Broadcasting will be taking over Georgia State's Album 88 airtime every day from 5:00 am to 7:00 pm with a talk-and-news format.
Album 88 (WRAS) is one of the last of the truly independent, commercial-free college music radio stations. More importantly, at least to me, they play the kind of music that I like, an adventurous and eclectic blend of indie rock, electronica, funk, punk, and folk, with just the right amount of hip-hop thrown into the mix. And they play it better than anyone else I know. The student d.j.s are frequently terrible, but the good news is they don't talk all that much and tend to play five, six, seven or more songs in a row, uninterrupted, before simply announcing who just played what and launching into the next block of music.
There are better, more influential radio stations across the country, I'm sure (KEXP Seattle, KCRW Santa Barbara, KUT Austin, and WNYC), but while those other stations do an admittedly great job of promoting new bands, sponsoring shows, and providing webcasts, I've listened to their live streams and will hold Album 88 up to any of them on a day-to-day basis.
I've been listening to this station since the early 80s, when they were the standard bearer for New Wave music. I first heard bands from Simple Minds to Yaz, from Flock of Seagulls to Frankie Goes To Hollywood on Album 88. I first heard Run DMC there. I first heard The Art of Noise there. Together with shows at the long defunct 688, this is where I learned punk and New Wave, and I won numerous "caller number five" free tickets to shows here in Atlanta back in the day. On Saturday mornings, they have a show called Reeling In The Years where they revisit their playlists from the 1970s, before I moved to Atlanta, and I can tell they did a great job of covering the "underground" music of that era before I got on board with the station.
To this day, they're my morning wake-up music - my alarm's programmed to 88.5 ("left on the dial, right on the music"). I will miss waking up every day to something that I've never heard before.
This has also lead me to wonder what role radio has left in this wired, digital age. How does it measure up to iPods and Spotify, MP3s and web streams? To be honest, I rarely listen to the radio in my car anymore, and almost never listen to it at home except in the mornings as I get up. But I still hate to see one of the last forums for high-quality, independent music disappear from the air, especially for more talk, bloviation, and somatic NPR pablum.
As you know, I'm a contributing member of WABE. I listen to NPR all the time. But, what they're doing at GSU is all wrong. University is about pushing boundaries, exploration and weird stuff, not ratings and the almighty $$$. GSU's administration is pulling a similar number on Cinefest, the student run movie theater on campus. Some things shouldn't be judged on how many people listen or watch, but on the fact that they are offering something that no-one else is offering. Not only that, no-one consulted me and they've had enough student fees out of me the last four years for my voice to count. Bastards.
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