Stations playing records with skips or scratches

[bandit73]

How often did this happen on the stations in your town?

In the mid-'80s, I used to listen to a small, local AM top 40 station (in a fairly big Midwestern market) where records skipped all the time. Also, it sounded like most of their records were all scratched up. You knew a record was a big hit when it started getting the cue burn at the beginning, but they were often scratchy the rest of the time too. There was a few months when it actually sounded like they were using a really bad stylus that ruined their records. It also sounded like their record of "Suddenly" by Billy Ocean was cracked, and they played it that way for months.

The big stations in town very rarely played records that skipped or sounded scratchy. An exception is "Separate Lives", which always sounded scratchy near the beginning because the song started out so slow that it was drowned out by surface noise.

[jblues]

Jun 21, 2022 23:07:02 GMT -5 bandit73 said:

How often did this happen on the stations in your town?

In the mid-'80s, I used to listen to a small, local AM top 40 station (in a fairly big Midwestern market) where records skipped all the time. Also, it sounded like most of their records were all scratched up. You knew a record was a big hit when it started getting the cue burn at the beginning, but they were often scratchy the rest of the time too. There was a few months when it actually sounded like they were using a really bad stylus that ruined their records. It also sounded like their record of "Suddenly" by Billy Ocean was cracked, and they played it that way for months.

The big stations in town very rarely played records that skipped or sounded scratchy. An exception is "Separate Lives", which always sounded scratchy near the beginning because the song started out so slow that it was drowned out by surface noise.

With lossless/digital formats I doubt this happens anymore, but would like to hear stories where it did!!

[chrislc]

Jun 21, 2022 23:07:02 GMT -5 bandit73 said:

How often did this happen on the stations in your town?

In the mid-'80s, I used to listen to a small, local AM top 40 station (in a fairly big Midwestern market) where records skipped all the time. Also, it sounded like most of their records were all scratched up. You knew a record was a big hit when it started getting the cue burn at the beginning, but they were often scratchy the rest of the time too. There was a few months when it actually sounded like they were using a really bad stylus that ruined their records. It also sounded like their record of "Suddenly" by Billy Ocean was cracked, and they played it that way for months.

The big stations in town very rarely played records that skipped or sounded scratchy. An exception is "Separate Lives", which always sounded scratchy near the beginning because the song started out so slow that it was drowned out by surface noise.

A station in a fairly big market should have had carts and cart machines for it's music by the mid-'80s if not several years earlier.

But that's easy for me to say. I'm not writing the checks.

It must have been depressing working for that station. The FM station I was on in the MID '90s (!) used bad CD players from Radio Shack for months and months and the CDs would skip! A competing station ran promos making fun of that.

Playing a cracked version of Suddenly is no great loss IMO but a less-than-perfect copy of Separate Lives is grounds for loss of license.

[djjoe1960]

I have a funny story to tell about a skipping record from when I worked in radio.

When a DJ has to use the bathroom, long songs were the best but I got in trouble when I picked a long version of Sunshine on my Shoulders by John Denver, back when records were still the thing in 1980. I couldn't find any song in the control room longer than the 5 minute version to run to the restroom to do my thing--so I put it on. Unfortunately, the 45 got stuck about one minute into the song and stayed that way for nearly 3 minutes until I concluded my business and was able to return to the control room. The phones were ringing off the hook with people concerned that I was OK--I merely faded the song out and joking said that John was 'stuck in the sun too long' --choosing not to reveal why!