In this incredibly fun mystery from Reply All which explores various facets of internet culture and how people interact with it, the two hosts, PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman, try to understand in this episode “how on God’s green Earth can you have a hit radio song that actually just gets vaporized from history?” We are introduced to Tyler Gillet, a man who suddenly remembers an old song he heard often from the radio in the 90’s. Despite his detailed recollection of the lyrics and the power of the seemingly all-knowing internet, Tyler cannot find any traces of this song’s existence except for another person’s post on a forum with some of the lyrics to the same song. When he tries to ask anyone else, it sparks no memory or recognition in people. In this podcast, PJ takes listeners to recording studios as they try to make a more accurate rendition of the song with a band and various interviews with giant label companies and music experts who are supposed to know every contemporary song that has ever existed to explore how a song simply vanishes.
Throughout the podcast, the dominating light-hearted nature of the hosts and the “roles” they play creates a casual yet engaging story. The deliberate choice of having two hosts, one of which was extremely involved and drove the story, while the other has absolutely no clue what was happening—much like the listener—made the story feel more involved. Rather than simply talking at listeners, the hosts engage the audience by making it feel as if they are retelling a wild story to a friend.
Right from the start, the hook of PJ talking about his OCD and the fact that although he might not exhibit “noticeable, visible compulsions,” but rather that he is “extremely obsessive” highlights the sense and magnitude of frustration when a person has something on the tip of their tongue that is almost but not quite there. PJ’s OCD introduces the podcast to certain aspects of human nature that has the ability to become immensely fascinated with ideas and also establishes the frustrations of not being able to know something, especially in the age where literally everything is searchable and documented on the internet. Later on, this grows to establish the overarching question throughout the podcast: how does a song completely vanish and how is one person able to remember so much of it so well while absolutely no one else recognizes it in the least bit?
As PJ takes the podcast through his journey to figure out what the missing song is, he continues to build on the story in multiple ways as he first interviews Tyler and summarizes the object of his mission. He weaves these more formal and “standard” podcast summaries and interviews that try to get listeners up to speed in an engaging way while including informal clips that also slow down the pace. Rather than creating a podcast that is fast-paced and completely polished throughout, the podcast also includes awkward clips of when PJ meets the band that he describes as a “gang of smiley dudes” for the first time or when he asks music critics and editors if they recognize the song which makes it feel more genuine and also helps to ground the podcast by including more emotions that emphasize the ridiculousness of not being able to find a song in this day and age. Additionally, the podcast tries to help synthesize the information and the various outlets PJ tries to pursue to find someone who might know this song by incorporating his narration of his own thought processes and theories of how Tyler might be remembering a song that seems not to exist.
Interrupting the narration and the involved retelling of this story from PJ’s perspective, Alex, the co-host, plays the part of the listener by asking questions and reacting to various parts of the story. His role in echoing important pieces of information and questioning the ridiculousness of some of the things brought up help to ground the story, much like how a person would be engaging with a friend’s retelling. Multiple times, he asks “how [Tyler] remembered the lyrics” of a song he hasn’t heard since junior high which helps to refresh the stories and bring it back from interview clips and information dumps and sets the listener back on track of the essential problem: what song is this? Additionally, by verifying facts and by asking for more details, Alex’s role as a host creates a natural segway into new topics and also helps maintain the pace of the story progression.
Overall, the overarching casual nature coupled with an effective format of one host talking to the other in a mix of interviews, narration, and commentary, creates an engaging whirlwind of a seemingly impossible mystery in this episode of Reply All .
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Hi Carrie!
I think that the genre of this podcast is really interesting in the fact that it dives into different aspects of internet culture that I have never even thought about before. From reading through your blog post, the first thing that stuck out to me was how similar the narrative choices of our podcasts were. Both of our podcasts have two narrators, one who tells the story, and the other who commentates. This makes the hosts seem more like your friend rather than two narrators explaining something to you as a listener which is what makes me want to listen to it. Another narrative choice that I think makes your podcast interesting and unique is that Alex continues to interject PJ’s narrative by asking him questions not for the purpose of knowing the answer, but more so to remind the listener of certain events or the purpose behind the story.
All of the narrative choices that you discussed seem to be really effective in making the podcast seem more like a friendship rather than some explanatory podcast. Even though PJ talks for the majority of the time because it’s his story, it doesn’t feel like Alex is being overshadowed because he is still giving commentary. Also, when we’re with our own friends telling a story, they will make brief comments throughout so it doesn’t seem weird that this podcast made that choice. I actually prefer podcasts like this because it feels a lot more intimate between you as a listener and the hosts because it feels a lot more relational like I said before. However, not every listener likes having one person tell the story. It is something that is really effective if it’s done well, but it can be hard to do. You have to make sure that the story is seamless even with all the interjections, and the commentary from the other person has to make sense or else it just seems like the other person is being overshadowed which can make the podcast feel uncomfortable to listen to.