WRAS
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| WRAS-FM | |
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| City of license | Atlanta, Georgia |
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| Broadcast area | Atlanta metropolitan area |
| Branding | Album 88 |
| Frequency | 88.5 MHz |
| Format | College Radio |
| ERP | 100,000 watts |
| Callsign meaning | Radio At Georgia State |
| Owner | Georgia State University |
| Website | www.wras.org |
WRAS FM ("Album 88") is a college radio station in Atlanta with a frequency of 88.5MHz, which has been in operation since 1971. It is owned by Georgia State University and its on-air staff are all GSU students, with the exception of those who broadcast the University's athletic events for the station (the Georgia State radio network). WRAS has the highest power (100,000 watts ERP) of any student-staffed radio station in the world.
The name "Album 88" dates back to the early 1980s. It refers to the "album based" rotation the station employs: stressing several cuts from each album rather than a single. The station is non-commercial, with the only breaks in between songs being song listings, public service announcements, promos for various WRAS shows, brief news segments, and community affairs shows.
The station has won awards from the Atlanta weekly Creative Loafing, the monthly Atlanta Magazine and the College Music Journal. The station has over 50 student volunteers who host rotation shifts as well as specialty shows (which fall outside of rotation). Many of the non-student envoys to the administration of the school also worked at the station in their college days.
Among the specialty shows at WRAS are: Nippon Music Champ (one of the few Japanese music shows in the southeast), The Georgia Music Show (dedicated exclusively to artists from Georgia), I Don't Care (punk), Soul Kitchen (funk), Houseworks (house music), Beatscape Lounge (ambient, electronica and nu jazz), Subterranean (drum and bass), Cowtipper's Delight (classic country and alternative country), Dot Dash (post-punk), Postscript (drone music and space rock), We're Not Gonna Take It (Heavy metal music), Tower of Song (psyche, prog, freakbeat), a large variety of hip hop including the long running shows Rhythm and Vibes (Atlanta's longest-running hip hop show) and Hush Hush (instrumental hip-hop), and much more.[1]
Though known mostly as a music station, the news department has surged in both popularity and professionalism in recent years. Along with top of the hour news updates, various members of the station produce episodes of the public affairs program "The Hub."
WRAS has played a crucial role in "breaking" a wide range of artists including R.E.M., Deerhunter and Outkast (the last of whom WRAS was the first to play on radio). The station featured more commercially-identifable rock in the 1970s and early 1980s; many of the platinum and gold records that hang in the station's office reflect this. Bob Geldof penned the Boomtown Rats hit song, "I Don't Like Mondays" in the WRAS office after reading a telex report of the schoolyard shooting on which the song is based.
On March 14, 2008, an F-2 tornado struck Atlanta's downtown core and led to the evacuation of students and employees from various areas of the Georgia State campus. WRAS was thus forced to suspend broadcast for nearly two days. (See 2008 Atlanta tornado outbreak)
[edit] Notes and references
[edit] External links
- WRAS Album 88 Website
- Query the FCC's FM station database for WRAS
- Radio Locator information on WRAS
- WRAS is at coordinates Coordinates:
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