Released 11/12/2013
College Radio Day // The Album Volume Two is an eclectic mixture of music recorded at college radio stations and artists collaborating in support of the College Radio Fund. This double album is a mix CD of great songs that have hardly any fluidity, yet all stand together in support of maintaining college radio. Although each song is its own entity, there is definitively more of a folk rock feel to the album as a whole without many pop driven songs. I may be a little biased, seeing as I work at a college radio station myself, but college radio is a diamond in the syndicated rough of the radio dial that gives support to underground artists that would otherwise have no airplay and this album is a stand to protect and raise awareness of it.
College Radio Day // The Album Volume Two is released under College Radio Day Records, a label that grew out of the annual College Radio Day event. College Radio Day, which over 700 college stations in 43 countries participated in this year, has been growing annually with both President Obama and Vice President Biden giving federal recognition of the importance of the event.
As the second volume, College Radio Day // The Album Volume Two, has a lot of expectations to live up to, but they take those in stride and have created an album worth many repeat listens. With previously unreleased tracks from bands like My Morning Jacket, Wilco, Lucius, San Cisco, Jukebox the Ghost and Passenger along with in studios submitted by radio stations around the country, College Radio Day // The Album Volume Two has many gems to uncover. The in-studio recordings submitted by college radio stations like KXLU, WPSC, WIUX and WSCS feature not only well-established bands but also some of the outstanding bands in the local scene surround their campuses. This small taste of the local music scene around the country gives a homespun feel to the second disc of the album.
College radio is an integral part of the music media landscape and many of the well-known established bands of our era owe their big break to the underground college stations that played their album. Nels Cline, the guitarist of the Grammy Award winning band Wilco, who donated a track to this album, states “It is college radio where I heard almost all of the music that fueled my creativity… It is one of life’s great pleasures and, for me, indispensable.” College Radio Day // The Album Volume Two, is released digitally and also listeners can buy limited edition physical copies on Nov. 12, and proceeds will raise funds for college radio stations in need of financial aid.
By: Sarah Thompson
Reach Sarah at salothom@indiana.edu
