Writing vs speaking
Do you come across skilled writers with voices that just don’t work for radio? Maybe they sound annoying or can’t read their own writing in an authentic way. Who has your favorite and least favorite speaking voices of the contributors to the show? I like many (most?) people, do not like the sound of my own voice when recorded and played back to me.
Writing vs speaking
Do you come across skilled writers with voices that just don’t work for radio? Maybe they sound annoying or can’t read their own writing in an authentic way. Who has your favorite and least favorite speaking voices of the contributors to the show? I like many (most?) people, do not like the sound of my own voice when recorded and played back to me.
Vinyl album of 'This American Life' songs? (Fiona Apple, TMBG, Nikki Lane, Starlee Kine, etc.)
Have y'all ever discussed pressing up a vinyl album (maybe for a pledge drive to coincide with Record Store Day) of some of the ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE songs that have been written or recorded for the show? I'm thinking especially of Fiona Apple's cover of "Here We Have Idaho" (episode #800), Sarah Vowell and Marah doing "Christmas at Valley Forge" (#305), Sara Bareilles and Leslie Odom, Jr. doing "Seriously" (#599), Nikki Lane's cover of Iris Dement's "When My Morning Comes Around" (#774), They Might Be Giants doing "I'm Sick (of This American Life)" (#90), and especially Starlee Kine's back-to-back bangers: "The Three of Us" (#339) and her one-day-band cover of "Rocket Man" (223). P.S. - please also include a song or two from Alix Spiegel's college band Succubus because the clip we heard in Episode #799 is pure perfection. Thank you for considering this idea (and please let me write a liner note essay for it!) Will Hodge Music Journalist & creator/host of the "Unplugged Revisited" podcast
Changing of the guards
Sometimes when I can't sleep I listen to old episodes of TAL, especially episodes from the pre 9/11 era. There's something soothing in the fact that the format, and your voice, is mostly the same as it is today, while it is speaking to me from a world that I imagine felt less troubled. How do you see that the world has changed over the 30 years you've been doing the show, and what impact has it had on they stories you tell and how you tell them? What is a story that you could tell back then, that wouldn't work now? And vice versa?