The podcast Crimetown creates a consistent identity despite covering and following tangential stories through repeated stylistic decisions. Starting with the soundtrack, the podcast employs stylistically similar and even the same songs across different episodes. Crimetown features a theme song called “Run to Your Mama” by Goat. It’s a bit difficult to articulate through text, but the song has an atmosphere that reminds me of the intro to an 80’s crime movie. In addition to this main theme, it has several other minor tracks for both background music and transitions that set the mood for the next scene. This ranges from somber, to energetic, to even a little bit mysterious.
The two hosts often play off of each other and the interviewed, finishing each other’s sentences and providing context for what the primary sources are saying. One might play the role of a more “omniscient” narrator while the other is the one actually asking the interview questions. Zac says at one point “It starts all the way back when Bobby was a little kid growing up in Oakland Beach, a seedy shore town just south of Providence.” to which Marc, the other host follows up with “What was your first memory of your dad?” targeted towards the person they are interviewing.
The structure of the interviews in the podcast also features a common pattern, with usually the interviewed giving a remarkable, shocking, or intriguing response and then being properly introduced by the hosts. For instance, in the intro the host Zac says, “Morning” and “How you doing?” which is curtly responded to by Bobby, a former Wiseguy with just “terrible.” Then Zac goes on to introduce Bobby and explain why his day was considered terrible. In the introduction of the people being interviewed, the hosts often give a quick physical description that helps the listener form their own image about the person and the scene in general. For instance with Bobby he describes him as being “built like a pit bull: short, wide, and muscular.” The hosts do this for the other people being interviewed as well.
The narrative structure of the podcast usually follows a non-chronological route, often starting with where the subjects of the story are now and then going into their past. This creates a question for the listeners who want to figure out how these former or current mob members ended up where they are now. In the introduction the host Zac reads out “But like Bobby, Jerry has a past very different than the life he leads today. See, for many, many years, Bobby and Jerry were both enforcers in Raymond Patriarca’s vast empire of crime.” The listener then wants to know how these people went from mob enforcers to D&D dungeon masters and owners of a moving company.
The structure of the story across Crimetown episodes often weaves multiple storylines and perspectives together, showing how they cross. Marc describes that both Bobby and Jerry were, “both at the ACI. And it’s here that they meet the man who will change their lives forever.” This creates a cohesion both between the different parts of the episodes and the different episodes themselves. This is the moment when all the moving pieces click together and the picture is seen. Bobby and Jerry both meet Raymond Patriarca, the mob boss who ties all these disparate stories together. At the conclusion of the story they bring it back to Buddy Cianci, the subject of the previous episode, making it full circle.
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Hi Jonah!
Crimetown seems like a really interesting podcast and Zac and Marc seem like the perfect hosts for the show. From reading your blog post, I can tell that the narrative structure of your podcast is really similar to mine. For example, you mentioned that the two hosts often play off of each other throughout the episodes where one person is narrating and the other person asks questions. My podcast is essentially the same where one of the hosts is telling the story, while the other commentates on it. I feel like this is a really effective way to incorporate multiple hosts, because you don’t necessarily feel like one host is dominating the other and you are able to get to know each of the hosts better as a listener. Another narrative structure that our podcasts share in common is the fact that they both describe the subject’s physical description. In your podcast, Zac and Marc detail the physical description of the interviewee, while my podcast details the physical description of the people involved in the criminal case they are discussing. Doing this gives us as listeners a better perspective on what to imagine while they talk, because obviously in podcasts it’s impossible to show what the person looks like.
The narrative choices you discussed seem like they make the podcast more organized and enjoyable to listen to. Following a non-chronological route is definitely risky because you don’t want to confuse the listener during the podcast, but it seems like Zac and Marc handle this really well where they treat it as a foreshadowing and a way to hook the reader in. Their narrative choices seem to be really effective which is why the episodes follow a similar pattern, and it explains why my podcast shares a lot of similarities. You also mentioned how Crimetown often weaves storylines across different episodes together and while this helps the listener put pieces together on their own, it could also deter people away from the podcast because they might feel like they can’t follow it. Especially if someone were to listen to a random episode, they might be so confused that they don’t continue listening so this narrative structure could potentially be harmful but it seems to work well for Crimetown.
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I listened to this podcast a couple years ago and really enjoyed it — a nice walk down memory lane! (Matt)