{"id":653,"date":"2020-10-18T16:31:21","date_gmt":"2020-10-18T23:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/?p=653"},"modified":"2020-10-18T16:31:22","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T23:31:22","slug":"reply-all-the-case-of-the-missing-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/2020\/10\/18\/reply-all-the-case-of-the-missing-hit\/","title":{"rendered":"Reply All: “The Case of the Missing Hit”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In this incredibly fun mystery from Reply All<\/em> 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 \u201chow on God\u2019s green Earth can you have a hit radio song that actually just gets vaporized from history?\u201d We are introduced to Tyler Gillet, a man who suddenly remembers an old song he heard often from the radio in the 90\u2019s. Despite his detailed recollection of the lyrics and the power of the seemingly all-knowing internet, Tyler cannot find any traces of this song\u2019s existence except for another person\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the podcast, the dominating light-hearted nature of the hosts and the \u201croles\u201d 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\u2014much like the listener\u2014made the story feel more involved. Rather than simply talking at<\/em> listeners, the hosts engage the audience by making it feel as if they are retelling a wild story to a friend.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right from the start, the hook of PJ talking about his OCD and the fact that although he might not exhibit \u201cnoticeable, visible compulsions,\u201d but rather that he is \u201cextremely obsessive\u201d 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\u2019s 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?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u201cstandard\u201d 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 \u201cgang of smiley dudes\u201d 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interrupting the narration and the involved retelling of this story from PJ\u2019s perspective, Alex, the co-host,\u00a0plays 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\u2019s retelling. Multiple times, he asks \u201chow [Tyler] remembered the lyrics\u201d of a song he hasn\u2019t 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\u2019s role as a host creates a natural segway into new topics and also helps maintain the pace of the story progression.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/em> .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Word Count: 808 words
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-engl-182"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":654,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions\/654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mattpoland.net\/sherlockpod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}