Crime is everywhere. On average, everyday 46 people are murdered, 372 people are raped and 875 robberies occur in these United States. The podcast Criminal highlights these crimes, and gives the listener a deeper understanding of what goes through the criminal procedure. In each episode, the host, Phoebe Judge, highlights an aspect of crime, occasionally taking a closer look at crimes that most listeners likely had not considered before. Unlike some other podcasts, Criminal focuses on a new crime every episode, and often brings in experts and occasionally even criminals to help tell the story. For example, the very first episode of the podcast, which aired all the way back on January 28th, 2014, focuses on the notion of animals, wild or domestic, being criminals. I was at first taken aback by the seemingly ridiculous notion of holding animals on trial and sentencing them akin to humans. While not all episodes follow such a wild topic, each episode is definitely just as fascinating.
Each episode begins with Judge posing an interesting question, or simply introducing the topic of the episode, after a few ads of course. After a brief introduction on the subject, we break down into the deeper information. This allows for a much better flow of info, as well as creating a powerful hook, reeling the listeners in. Once we get into this meatier section of the podcast, a similar formula is used in each episode. Judge will pose questions to guests on the show, and after hearing the responses, listeners can notice a clear cut from the interview section to a voice clip by Judge giving more information to assist the listeners in following the narrative. To me, this is the most crucial part of the podcast. Judge, whose voice gives a very friendly and knowledgeable vibe, is extremely clear and concise, giving just the perfect amount of information to move the podcast along and keep listeners engaged, while not boring the listeners with useless unimportant info.
One more overlooked aspect that I believe adds tremendous amounts of depth and color to the narrative in each episode is the background music. Episode 4, which focuses on the death of a man in Wyoming, shows this technique in a chilling way. In this episode, Judge discusses with the coroner that was tasked with the dissection of body, and after some brief discourse, Judge begins giving more background details about Kathleen Vernon, the coroner assigned to the case. As she summarizes Vernon’s background, Judge begins talking about Vernon’s fascination with death, which began at a young age. Throughout the episode so far, the background music has been largely very high, with lots of sustained long notes, what I would best describe as “pings”. Once Judge mentions this dark topic, we can hear an introduction of a low, almost rumbling bass that is moving much more than the higher “pings”. Although it is not very loud, it drastically shifts the mood of the episode very quickly. With this fuller orchestration behind the voices, the listeners notice a shift once again into a new section, keeping engagement throughout the episode. (Word Count 519)
I find this podcast interesting as well, I almost chose this one for my analysis discussion also. I really find the first episode to be interesting. It presents a weird thought of an animal being a criminal or being put on trial. When I think of crime, I typically relate it to an emotion or a possible motive other than just instinct. It would seem difficult to relate a motive for an animal to have to commit something considered to be a crime by humans. How would we be able to judge why an animal does something other than by instinct as we understand it? Could we consider animals to have an emotional motive or reasoning behind their actions? I like it when podcasts present a crime and then get into the deeper details of how and why, as well as information and details about the person who committed the crime or who is suspected of committing the crime. It really gets your attention and hooks the audience, as you put it, into the story when the crime is presented first because it gives a kind of shock value to the story. Its nice when the podcasts don’t ever burden the story with superfluous information. I agree that background music adds a level of depth to a recorded story. The music chosen for an intro or to play during the presentation of certain information can add a feeling to it which the listener can relate to an emotion. It can set the entire tone of an instance in the story. I have seen examples of this where the artist presented a scene with a background track which elicited a certain response form people whether negative or positive but then switch the background track and it changed the feeling of the entire scene for new viewers.