The American Podcast Voice

Silby as someone without a great deal of exposure as to how this would intersect with what i would very very haltingly refer to as an american jewish idiom/accent i do think there is that aspect which is one of the possible routes to "accusations and investigations" i refer to in the op

What line could someone more informed draw btwn?

Id also say the same about vocal fry and to my v limited ear this being somewhat characteristic of a valley girl accent/styling that criticism of can easily veer into areas aligning with sexism, so again better judges that I would render us some service in dissecting if possible

I think ppl play up the vocal fry to sound young and it might be that simple

Young, yes, but to my ear anyway it has connotations of sort of unaffected “lol no one cares” tones and as a painfully sincere person this is not something I like in large doses.

Is the appeal sort of asmr-ish to people?

Like Ira Glass has a distinctive voice which is somewhat typically Ashkenazi Jewish in its nasal qualities and pitch. (Sometimes ppl with similar voices hosting podcasts get mail that their voice is “annoying” and they aren’t even doing the cadence thing.)

Ira Glass also is the host of US public radio’s most popular “feature piece” show; This American Life has been running over 20 years now, for hundreds of episodes, the alpha and omega of radio journalism and storytelling for a generation of little nerdlingers.

When one starts a journalistic or personal essayish radio show qua podcast one now has as ones lodestar this particular and previously distinctive voice and delivery, and one thinks “this is how to sound like I’m introducing a story or reporting it”, rather than experiment with one’s own diction, studying the qualities of one’s timbre, etc.

As a critical mass of TAL-come-lately podcasts starts to build, the social proof aspect of aping the voice becomes self-perpetuating.

Is the appeal sort of asmr-ish to people?

― scampless, rattled and puce (gyac), Sunday, 21 February 2021 16:40 (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Is this how the pennsylvanian dutch speak?

i just got the joke but the pa dutch accent is v interesting and so far opposite the podcast voice. i tried to watch an allison roman video that youtube recommended me yesterday and she has a different kind of bad podcast voice. extremely annoying. sorry for sexism. see also Origins of the faux-naif bloggy voice?

I feckin knew we had this already started, ty

yep, faux-naif otm

As Old Lunch's parody alludes to, for me, it's not so much a tone or timbre problem, it's the conviction that the best vehicle for the delivery of information is a relentlessly gormless airhead who previously knew absolutely nothing about the topic—in fact, had never even thought about it—and whose wide-eyed journey to the far exurbs of expertise is aggressively presented as universal as well as inspiring.

it's like the view from nowhere + the view from know nothing

it’s like.... don’t people who get into broadcasting learn not to do all these things early on?

Like Ira Glass has a distinctive voice which is somewhat typically Ashkenazi Jewish in its nasal qualities and pitch. (Sometimes ppl with similar voices hosting podcasts get mail that their voice is “annoying” and they aren’t even doing the cadence thing.)

idk it doesn't code Jewish to me as much as Northeastern American + educated. About 18 years ago, I was part of this project with a handful of other artist friends called "Neighborhood Public Radio" where we did a mix of art related programming, conversations with people in the neighborhoods in which we were broadcasting, and interrogating the NPR model/structure and its ties to capitalism and privatization of public resources ... basically arty intellectual leftist pirate radio with an internet presence. ... Anyway, the main guy whose project this was, was from the same neighborhood as Ira Glass, though was not Jewish, and damn, he did the best Ira Glass imitation. It was seriously impressive. This was 2003 ... anyway.

it’s like.... don’t people who get into broadcasting learn not to do all these things early on?

― brimstead, Sunday, February 21, 2021 10:34 AM (ten minutes ago)

I am going to sigh and then take a break so I am not triggered to rant and go on ... I worked in commercial radio in the 90s (this was prior to my conceptual art leftist radio days) ... the Ira Glass aesthetic and the sub-IRA podcast people make me gnash my teeth and cringe, much like the way that snobby classical music people will respond to pop singers or children's musical theater ... I can't say what's good or bad, just that it is painful for me to listen to.

It's harder than it looks to sound natural and non-stilted when reading from a script.

Does anyone have any positive contemporary examples of non - conversational format podcasts that avoid these pitfalls?

I was just listening to Afropop 360 and Georges Collinet does not have this problem

tbf to the thread premise I should probably name an American

British and French accents are absolutely cheating

It's harder than it looks to sound natural and non-stilted when reading from a script.

it amazes me that people who suck at this, don't realize they suck at this, and how many of them there are. Some people have problems with it due to things like dyslexia and other learning disabilities or even just, refusing to wear glasses when they need them. And you can practice a lot and get good at it. But it is something that actually comes easily to some people, and is not a rare skill.

this podcast issue just reminds me of that thread from years ago that roxy started about her relative that was starting a cupcake business who made ridiculously awkward looking cupcakes.

Lol. I think it's more subtle than that! Like, I'm very good and fluid at reading things out loud, I could blind read an audiobook no problem. But to read a podcast intro where I'm supposed to sound off-the-cuff and like myself is a horrible experience. It's like telling someone 'act natural' - I think that skill is a bit more rare? Idk.

I have a pretty high tolerance for these things, but one example that drives me crazy is popular food podcast Gastropod. It's clearly tightly scripted, but it's also supposed to sound like two people having a jokey conversation in a way that drives me insane at times.

there are three podcasts: this american life/ college radio show with roommates who want to bonk / money box

I had to stop listening to that Cocaine & Rhinestones podcast out loud because, while it's not NPR voice, the guy has a very specific up-down cadence that was driving my partner crazy.

I really do think it's tough balancing act to pull off for a podcast that is mostly one person reading a script.

oh yeah i only made it through one

It's like telling someone 'act natural' - I think that skill is a bit more rare? Idk.

it's not like being able to memorize Pi to like 100 decimal places or anything ... idk ... maybe the people who have that skill don't do podcasts?

I realized just now that I would consider listening to a podcast by Bob Odenkirk. Just Bob Odenkirk. He has a very good voice.

have often been told i should podcast. but i hate podcasts

act natural is hard its impossible to get extras to look like they're not suffering effects of smoke inhalation if you ask them to walk on camera

everyone's like this is how i walk

Podcasts keep me sane on weekdays while I'm working. A few are definitely in the This American Life/Ira Glass mold (like Radiolab and Freakonomics), but there are really a lot of different approaches out there regardless of the material covered. So I don't think there really is an "American Podcast Voice" tbh.

no its the only voice

yr too deep in this im sorry

"I had to stop listening to that Cocaine & Rhinestones podcast...the guy has a very specific up-down cadence"

He definitely settled into a more natural delivery by the end of the first season, but that was 2017 and he's since built up a rep on twitter as a smug son of a bitch and getting through the second season, whenever it appears, may be more of a chore if he leans into it.

Smugness is for sure an indicator here

it's the conviction that the best vehicle for the delivery of information is a relentlessly gormless airhead who previously knew absolutely nothing about the topic—in fact, had never even thought about it—and whose wide-eyed journey to the far exurbs of expertise is aggressively presented as universal as well as inspiring.

― rob, Sunday, February 21, 2021 5:32 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I vehemently object to this! Although maybe doing it well is u&k as compared to doing it badly.

I very much appreciate someone learning about something along with me as opposed to two all-knowing ppl chatting just to each other like the listener isn't there. I want to like Rev Left and Citations Needed but they can get really into it and my mind wanders and I fall asleep. (Good for napping though.)

Whereas the hosts of You're Wrong About do an excellent job imo. Fave podcast of all.

I do have a hard time with vocal fry. I try not to be a jerk about it but I prefer more mellifluous voices. Someone posted video of movie-goers being interviewed about a Batman movie in the late 1980s, and I didn't remember this but ppl spoke very differently than I think they would now! (The Twitter account seems suspended now or I'd link it here.) Everyone's voices were a lot higher and changed pitch more. It was fascinating to listen to a time I lived through and hadn't noticed the difference. Someone pointed out that ppl wouldn't have been used to hearing themselves at that time, which was interesting.

But to read a podcast intro where I'm supposed to sound off-the-cuff and like myself is a horrible experience.

I've cold-called and phone-banked a lot. I've got this down. Same script, make it seem natural every time.

What is driving me nuts is the e/i vowel shift, where ppl say "pin" in place of "pen."

separate but related my bf hates how everyone in youtube instruction videos says "you're going to want to go ahead and..." all the time

Just one person speaking/reading is a really hard sell imo. I want to like American Hysteria and Vikings Are Gay! so, so much but I always end up tuning them out eventually.

The person who does Noble Blood has a good melodic voice.

What is driving me nuts is the e/i vowel shift, where ppl say "pin" in place of "pen."

― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Sunday, 21 February 2021 19:59 (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is violence

I've been told it's a Pacific Northwest thing.

Rabia Chaudry did a mini series called The Hidden Djinn last year and I couldn't really listen to it and work at the same time because it's so dense with information, but I'm definitely going to come back to it because she has one of the most amazingly rich voices I've ever heard.

xp when we moved two hours away and my accent subsequently changed such that pronunciation of "pen" now took 33% of the length of time, i can assure you twasnt neither to nor from the PNW

I don't know anything about that, but PNWers do it and it's starting to grate on me. Also it's revealing that I listen to a lot of PNW-populated podcasts so ymmv.

I vehemently object to this! Although maybe doing it well is u&k as compared to doing it badly.

In retrospect it kind of sounds like I'm saying something close to "learning is bad" which I def don't want to say. OTOH, my partner listened to a bit of You're Wrong About and specifically warned me not to try it due to my antipathy to this hosting style, so we might just disagree vehemently on this :)

two all-knowing ppl chatting just to each other

I hate this too though, so another possibility is that I have very narrow podcast tastes. I have never successfully gotten into any unscripted ones.

Running from COPS is probably the best limited-run podcast I've ever listened to. I liked his previous one on Y2K as well.

I deffo do like a density of information being presented, as in YWA and also Behind the Bastards, which are both heavily researched. Listening to ppl just bullshit w each other is not for me.

two all-knowing ppl chatting just to each other

Why see you're doing it wrong, you need to listen to ours, where there are three. Er wait.

Ugh that Gondorian NW accent

What is driving me nuts is the e/i vowel shift, where ppl say "pin" in place of "pen."

― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Sunday, 21 February 2021 19:59 (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is violence

I had to stop listening to that Cocaine & Rhinestones podcast out loud because, while it's not NPR voice, the guy has a very specific up-down cadence that was driving my partner crazy

I meant io's callout

And i mean she has heard my mean little co mayo vowel ffs, she knew who she was aiming at

Smugness is for sure an indicator here

^^^
Less the voice/sound for me than the tone of how the speaker thinks they are about to blow my mind.

Polished glass eh

the years of having to record voice over for radio spots where the time duration had to be between 28-30 seconds or 56-60 seconds and the script was dictated by the people in sales such that sometimes we really were having to do the equivalent of rattling off all the potential side effects in as tightly enunciated a fashion as possible

basically, having to sing Bach and other German composers in choir was really good practice for radio voice over stuff

Like the terms and conditions at the end of a financials radio ad, basically?

A skill in itself

yes ... or car sales

Auctioneer-style rapid monotone should be the new voice of the 21st century. Flat, transactional, and traveling at the speed of information, not intonation

TH:

Narrator of a big budget investigative podcast pic.twitter.com/I25zlGzYSI
— cancela lansbury (@gossipbabies) September 26, 2019

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Sunday, February 21, 2021 7:24 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i knew what was coming and am still in tears laughing at this

flatness ... damn ... that was actually one of my problems in doing radio, because I was in New England and regionally there is a much flatter tonality to those accents than I have/had, so I was never the "most requested" person because I didn't sound like a native.

The chevy chase/dan ackroyd default pace

i actually used to edit dan ackroyd's voice overs for this series of radio promos the company I worked for produced. ... there was one month where he had a serious cold or allergies or something and it was really laborious

like, I don't know whether it's more unpleasant to have to listen to your own isolated slurpy mouth noises and sniffles while editing them all out ... or someone else's. The podcast people who leave in their slurpy mouth noises and sniffles and can't be bothered to edit them out ... this is like reason #1 I avoid podcasts.

That’s all some ppl are listening for

hahahahah

Misophonia crew turn elsewhere this is the wet mouth sound hour starring Slurpy Ted and Debbie Drool

this week on the wet mouth sound hour .... balls .... gargling ... what does it sound like when balls are _actually_ gargled?

Supercut of all the sniffles edited out that season as a subscriber only treat

My partner does a podcast and spends a LOT of time editing each episode afterward to ensure sniffs/clicks/pops/esses/ums are all smoothed out. It baffles me when people leave that shit in or put up a show that sounds like it was recorded on a boombox from 1982.

Americans love B's show, for some reason they go nuts for drawly australian accents and copious swears.

currently imagining a gimlet/npr podcast hosted by a sports radio knucklehead like mike francesa

lol

I edit a lot of the ums and awkward silences out of my podcast interviews, but not all of them — sometimes you want to preserve someone's thought-to-speech rhythm rather than doing the whole "get on with it" process. The thing I've realized by listening to almost 100 hours of myself talking to people is that I put a little extra sibilance in my esses, and I can't really get rid of it. I hope it's not too annoying, or at least less annoying than my conversational space-fillers ("yeah...yeah"), which I'm also editing out more often now.

I put a little extra sibilance in my esses, and I can't really get rid of it.

you actually can, and can make the edit sound natural, but it's a bit more time consuming and challenging than getting rid of slurps and sniffles, and maybe a little more challenging than a popped plosive, though, I can see why you would just leave it.

The solution I find is to place the mic directly inside the mouth, which is why they call the mouth nature's windscreen

I am so relieved to find this thread and to discover everyone else hates the faux-naif thing as much as I do.

Subgenres such as 'recap an entire tv series' can fit under one or more of these categories

Nothing annoys me more about this type of podcast than when guests come on who have never seen the show except for the one episode they will be recapping and they don't get it or ask a load of stupid questions. This was why I eventually stopped listening to the Gilmore Guys podcast. Well, that and the live episodes. I get that you have to make money, and having live episodes is a good way to do that, but do they have to be over an hour long? And not funny?

the only good podcast live episode was Hollywood Handbook at Comicon

I'm less bothered by the "faux-naif thing" than by the "faux off-the-cuff thing", where the presenters' banter is supposed to sound loose and extemporised and yet somehow comes across over-polished and pre-scripted

The "relentlessly gormless airhead who previously knew absolutely nothing" shtick is played out but I think it (originally) came from a good place, as a reaction to the smuggy punditry of the time

it can still be done well imo. like jad abumrad.

Live podcast episodes are a scourge

Idk, they're fun to GO to but not to listen to, is how I break it down to an extent.

I went to a few live tapings of Radio Dispatch, which doesn't happen anymore bc Molly got married & had kids and John now reports from idk where, but it would be a pretty small group and you could go out for drinks afterward with whoever was going, which was cool.

oh shit, i didn’t realize the american podcast voice was canceled https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/business/media/pj-vogt-reply-all.html

I tend to associate American podcast voice with varying degrees of mumbly California shift vowels and uptalk, though I guess there’s some vocal fry too for variety. My uncharitable cultural take is that it’s Americans with university educations who think of their way of speaking and world view as normal and correct. There’s a sort of presumption of “good” politics, that the past was a horrifying place but you and I, dear listener, are beyond that now. “Accent? I don’t even own an accent.”

Also, it has very little to do with what I hear on terrestrial American radio! It’s basically confined to some public radio shows and I guess college radio. Sports radio, right wing politics shouting, morning zoo, regular commercial music DJs, straight news programming—almost none of this is American podcast voice.

yeah, but there is the fact that some podcasts are actually public radio shows, or are hosted by people who have done public radio, or follow the public radio style, which is now the middle-brow professionally casual podcast style. Most podcasters don't actually employ this style afaict.

There possibly are a dozen or so podcasts that are not already radio shows, or produced by former public radio professionals, that model their voice on TAL/NPR. There are hundreds of thousands of American podcasts that don't; not using such a voice is a distinguishing factor of podcasts, rather than the reverse.

okay

The bar is open

Disagree that that is a distinguishing characteristic

Not taxonomically, sure. But measuring by weight.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/02/25/arts/podcast-voice-sound.html?action=click&module=Editors%20Picks&pgtype=Homepage