The medium is the message this week, as Classic Ross Amico tosses his hat into the ring for WPRB’s All-Vinyl Week. That’s right, WPRB is playing wall-to-wall, honest-to-goodness records until Sunday night. No CD players. No laptops. No iPhones. It’s radio the way it used to be, back when I started in 1986. Back then, if I wanted to play a CD, I had to bring my own player (a component; there was no such thing as a portable) and go around to the back of the board and hook it up myself.
There’s still something magical about holding an album in my hands. And the smell… the smell! To this day, I am propelled back through the decades whenever I happen to catch a whiff of whatever kind of paper they used for the original “Star Wars” two-LP set.
Those were the days, the days when I’d spend hours in my bedroom, flat on my back, every aspect of the packaging seared into my brain as I listened repeatedly to the music. Album covers were a work of art then. The covers were like canvases, large enough for the images to have an impact, and for the listener to be able to take in all the detail. Frequently there was enough tantalizing information on the back cover to keep one engaged and salivating until one got home from the record store.
The arrangement of the tracks was an art in itself, a fading one in danger of extinction in this day of digital downloads. There was so much care lavished on every aspect of an LP release. It had much more resonance for me, personally, to buy a record then, than it does for me to walk home with a stack of used CDs now. And when one listened, one tended to really listen. It was an active pursuit, not just background.
Having grown up in the era that I did, marked by the twilight of the LP, I possess a certain longing to listen to the radio in the middle of the night, and sense the presence of stylus in groove, the soft whir, the occasional pop. There was something very human and reassuring in those things.
Now, on the unfortunately rare occasions when I do play an LP, comparative listening with its compact disc remastering(s) almost always reflects poorly on the later incarnations. I don’t really consider myself an audiophile, but to me the depth and inherent warmth of an LP recording are immediately evident.
Finally, with every change in format, something is lost. Even in this age of previously undreamt of access to a seemingly unfathomable wealth of recordings, there is still much which, sadly, is simply no longer available. Combing through the WPRB library last week, I was happily taken by surprise again and again by albums that have never been reissued. There is a veritable Aladdin’s Cave awaiting rediscovery.
Augmented by a few gems from my own collection – the odd Louisville First Edition, major performers playing works by neglected contemporary composers – tomorrow’s show should be a fascinating journey on many levels. There will be plenty of snap, crackle and pop, from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com, as we’ll be giving you the needle, on Classic Ross Amico.
