Record player
Photograph by Tony J. Case.
Despite being shoved out of the music-format spotlight, vinyl has never left the stage. It’s a great performer. If you take care of your vinyl LPs, keeping them out of the sunlight and using a gentle stylus, they will probably outlive you by at least a musical generation. But that’s not all that makes them special. They come in heavy-duty jackets that have beautiful pictures and pithy words. They even look fantastic framed on the wall.
But you know the story. When the compact disc came along in the mid-‘80s, it was embraced as the perfect format, saving the world from analog fuzziness and space-hogging record crates. But vinyl records have something the CD – not to mention the invisible music available on the Internet – will never have. They’re tactile. You can touch the music; slide your finger along the groove. You can even see the audible flaws, narrowing down the cause of a sound blemish to a single scratch. CDs, by contrast, remain a mystery. When something goes wrong, you don’t see the problem. I’ll take a skipping, scratchy record over a stuttering compact disc any day.
Not only do records refuse to die off, some labels specialize in vinyl, making it the center of their business-model universe.
Radio Heartbeat wears its vinyl on its sleeve. The label has not only rescued abandoned pop and punk music but put it back where it belongs: in the grooves.
A band called Radio City made some amazing recordings in the late ‘70s – but somehow they were overlooked; and, in the great tradition of other unsung heroes, broke up before having a chance to make an impression. Radio Heartbeat has assembled the group’s recordings on Radio City, the band’s self-titled second chance. I’ve heard enough jangly pop to keep me in arpeggios for a lifetime. Once you get past Cheap Trick and a few other seminal combos, most power-pop is played strictly on the B-string. There’s nothing wrong with that; but it’s also the reason pop hasn’t properly changed the world. Thankfully, Radio City is a nice surprise. If you deconstruct their sound – the pretty guitars, the sweet harmonies, the edgy, love-obsessed lyrics – you have the raw ingredients for a pleasant but mediocre pop combo. But it’s the way the band combines those ingredients that makes them beat to a different drum. There’s a bonus dose of energy, some extra care in the vocal department, and the would-be lyrical clichés are given a fresh coat of paint. Radio City may not change your world – but it will make it spin at a heavenly 33 and 1/3. A real find.
Radio Heartbeat does more than just unearth – it replants. The Quick were, depending on how you view them, a harbinger of New Wave-era power-pop or a Sparks-ignited glitter band. Mondo Deco is their only full-length record, and it was first released, rather appropriately, just over 33 and 1/3 years ago. Radio Heartbeat has reissued Mondo Deco in a version that’s so faithful in its packaging that you can hardly tell it from the original. Replete with liner notes, perfect sound and even a reproduction of the dust jacket, this is the edition you want in lieu of tracking down a used copy of the original. The self-titled 1975 release by Milk’n’Cookies, who were essentially the East Coast counterpart of the Quick (or Sparks), is a little more interesting than Mondo Deco, probably because the production is less polished and more inventive. Not only that – it’s been lovingly repackaged in a two-LP, gatefold edition with bonus tracks and a poster. If the original Milk’n’Cookies was a tasty snack, this cool reissue is a power-pop dessert tray.
There are several other Radio Heartbeat releases (not all of them pop) and many more to come. For details, visit radioheartbeat.net or visit local retailers such as Apop, who stock the label’s records – most of which, ironically, are also available on compact disc.
Today’s lesson? Spinning endlessly into the psyche of music culture, vinyl is sometimes better the second time around.
Jordan Oakes is a local journalist who has written for publications such as St. Louis Magazine and the Christian Science Monitor. He has strong opinions that begin to atrophy if he doesn't exercise his right to express them. Tune in every Wednesday for another installment of Mediatribe - and if you missed last week's post, click here.
