Sunday, January 18, 2009

radio notes: the best segment on THIS AMERICAN LIFE

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1277 at about 11 minutes in, is a segment in this "Numbers" episoode about poll-driven art. These folks devised some paintings and more importantly here two songs after the reults of several international polls. The popular-aspect song is a generic r&bish tune...the unpopular-aspect song is a wonderful mess, with an operatic soprano rapping, a children's choir singing about holidays such as Labor Day, bagpipes, tuba, banjo, etc.

On a show usually dedicated to people pretending that insane behavior is unsurprising, often delivered by people whose voices are so nasal as to help Ira Glass feel his own is relatively normal, this is a delightful segment, particularly in the snatches played from the anti-hit.

2 comments:

C. Margery Kempe said...

I almost couldn't see the content for the snark, but I did actually hear the music part of that show (as a Lynda Barry fan, I'm not too fond of Ira Glass) which was hilarious. As Homer Simpson would say, "This is why democracy doesn't work!"

Todd Mason said...

Any series as fulsomely overpraised as THIS AMERICAN LIFE is overdue for considerable snark.