I picked up today’s offering at least 25 years ago. I don’t remember where I was, but I got three albums from the same company. These were promo albums, sent to schools to promote a product aimed at increasing the reading ability of 11-18 year olds who were lagging behind, and who were reading at perhaps the 2nd or 3rd grade level. The records, as you will hear, would have been accompanied by a filmstrip and an quiz sheet. The album also came with an advertising booklet and a mail-in form, all of which I’ve included in the files, below.
The albums start with a teaser about the story soon to come, and today’s word list. This is followed by excerpts from that story, each one of which contains one of today’s words. The next frame would contain that key word, along with three similar words, and the student would be asked to select the correct word. Then there is a story about today’s subject, followed by more questions.
I enjoy the announcer’s clear, precise style of speaking on all of the tracks, but my clear favorite of the half-dozen tracks on the albums I found was “Popcorn and a Coke, Please”, and various things the announcer said quickly found their way into the various sound-manipulation cassette tapes I was making at the time. I was particularly a fan of the way he says such words as “Thrust” (one of the wrong answers) and “Salt” (one of the key words).
The subject of the b-side is particularly interesting in light of global warming, having been recorded many years before the term came into use.
The stories themselves, which take up the second half of each 18-minute track, are less interesting to me than the word reviews and tests in the first halves - those first half segments are likely to be like a diamond mine for those who enjoy playing with sound.
1.) Acoustifone - Popcorn AND a Coke, Please (MP3)
2.) Acoustifone – So, Let’s Melt the North Pole (MP3)
Album Cover (JPG) – Record Label Side A (JPG) - Record Label Side B (JPG) – Booklet Cover (JPG) – Booklet Page 2 (JPG) – Booklet Page 3 (JPG) – Booklet Page 4 (JPG) – Booklet Page 5 (JPG) – Booklet Back Cover (JPG) – Mailer (JPG)
returned with gratitude
Posted by: jleideck | January 12, 2013 at 09:06 PM