
P.J. Vogt on Reply All’s “The Case of the Missing Hit” - tintinnabula
https://www.vulture.com/2020/03/reply-all-case-of-missing-hit-interview.html
======
slg
If you hadn't heard this podcast episode [1] and happen to be reading the
comments here before reading the article, I highly suggest you listen to it
before going any further. This episode is one of the best podcast episodes I
have ever heard and both the interview and a few of the comments here spoil
some of the twists and turns of the story.

Here is one of the opening paragraphs of the article to give you a little
spoiler free teaser:

>To recap: California filmmaker Tyler Gillett was hunting for a song that may
or may not exist. The quest started after a holiday party, when he started
singing a tune from memory to his wife. He swore it was a hit from the ’90s,
some aesthetic mix of U2 and Barenaked Ladies. His wife had never heard of it
before. Later, after hours falling down Google rabbit holes, he realizes the
song can’t be found on the internet, the infinite repository of information
where almost everything that’s ever existed can be found. It feels uncanny,
like he’s found a hole in the universe. But the song continues to settle into
his brain, an earworm that can’t be cured. Desperately seeking a solution, he
reaches out to the Reply All team.

[1] - [https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-
all/o2h8bx](https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/o2h8bx)

------
js2
>Q: Do you have a theory on what’s going on?

> A: Not really....

I wasn't familiar with Reply All and only listened to this episode after it
was mentioned in a comment here on HN about two weeks ago.

P.J. Vogt is selling himself short. It is a fantastic piece of investigation.
The story unfolds beautifully. I had a smile on my face the entire way
through. When they finally played the song at the end I grinned from ear to
ear in delight.

What the hell isn't to love about it?

~~~
morvita
Reply All is a group of very talented storytellers working at the intersection
of tech and society. I love everything they do and have been listening to PJ
and Alex since before Reply All (before starting Reply All, they had a podcast
called TL;DR that was a spinoff from WNYC's On the Media).

The stories they tell should be of interest to the HN crowd, I'd highly
recommend everyone give them a try.

~~~
bschne
I don't have the link right now but the one where they track down a scam
callcenter all the way to India is also pretty impressive

~~~
joegahona
There's a special place in hell for the people who work at those fake call
centers in India and take advantage of elderly people. They confused my
80-year-old dad, who is slowing down noticeably, about a year ago. Luckily he
gave them his debit-card number, and Wells Fargo was great about canceling the
charge, but it still involved a lot of time and anxiety. I hope whomever
scammed my dad gets scammed himself, when he's older.

I loved the Missing Hit episode of Reply All and need to make a point of
seeking out this podcast more. The only episodes I've heard, I've loved.
There's another good one that must be at least a year old now about scammy
products on Amazon.

------
ilamont
_Initially, we had the idea that if we didn’t learn anything else interesting
from this search, it could have been an opportunity to talk about the concept
of the Metaverse. Tyler was actually taking that concept somewhat seriously,
the idea that we had fallen in between two multiverses. We even reached out to
a quantum physicist from Caltech to talk about it._

Now _that_ would have been an episode to remember.

In all seriousness, it was a great episode. I wish they could have tracked
down the guitarist from Trinidad and Tobago who also remembered the song and
posted about it on an obscure guitar forum.

Lots of people are talking about songs from the analog/early digital era not
making it to the streaming world. This is a big issue for a lot of the music I
listen to, mostly indie stuff from the 80s and 90s, much of it from local
scenes. Even if it made it to CD, the likelihood of indie labels or rights
holders doing the required legal, bureaucratic, and technical steps to make
the recordings available on Spotify, Apple Music, or other streaming services
is slim.

I know one Boston-area band whose single major label album (from 1990) _is_ on
streaming services, but the earlier stuff from indie labels in the 1980s
(including their best-known material) didn't make it.

One of the band members is now a lawyer, and I asked him why I couldn't get
the band's songs from Apple Music. He indicated it would be a huge pain from
the perspective of getting former members who don't get along to sign the
paperwork, and questioned whether it would be worth it financially considering
the paltry payouts offered by streaming services to artists
([https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2019/oct/31/b...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2019/oct/31/best-
streaming-service-mp3-pays-artists)).

~~~
vxNsr
> _Trinidad and Tobago_

I know this just something that happens but the same week I listened to this
episode I watched the Seinfeld episode that they mention this place.

Couldn’t figure out why it sounded so familiar when I watched the episode
until you mentioned it here.

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pascalxus
I've listened to a number of Reply All Podcast stories and I must say, most of
it, is really good stuff: I highly recommend it. Many of them seem to be like
investigative journalism, but they do it on internet/social media related
stuff.

~~~
e40
Reply All is one of my top 3 pods. I can't remember when I was underwhelmed.

Others: Heavyweight. Stuff You Should Know. Radiolab. Criminal.

~~~
wyxuan
Clearly you haven't listened to the goo episode

~~~
djannzjkzxn
I found that one pretty compelling to listen to, although it didn’t have the
significance of their investigative pieces.

------
S_A_P
I need to listen to this podcast. Funny thing is that there is a guitar riff
in the song that I would randomly have in my head and knew it was from
something. But when I heard it in context of the song it was both familiar and
foreign. Definitely heard the song in the 90s as a high school/college
student. But I guess I am finally getting old enough now that memories are
starting to fade.

------
dopamean
I'm so glad to see this posted here. I've been listening to Reply All since
the first episode and have developed a real fondness for the two hosts. They
are incredibly talented storytellers with a great sense of humor. My absolute
favorite of theirs was when they flew to India to track down a phone scammer.
It was incredible.

------
acomjean
A lot of stuff gets lost to time. My friends Dad had a huge record collection
of Jazz. When CDs came out he started replacing them. He still had hundreds of
records, and lamented "a lot of these aren't going to be re-issued". I'm
assuming that there is a lot of music out there lost to time.

~~~
ndespres
Certainly there is. In 2008 there was a fire that destroyed many of the master
tapes for old recordings, this will no doubt prevent new releases or remasters
of many old albums. [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/magazine/universal-
fire-m...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/magazine/universal-fire-master-
recordings.html)

~~~
acomjean
Interesting. what should be saved. Whats weird though is that all that music
was sitting in a private archive. What are the chances someone would go
through them.. The public can't discover them. So there they sit.

Part 6.

A skeptic might argue that this is as it should be. In the 140-odd years since
Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, countless recordings have been made
under the auspices of record companies. To conserve anything close to all
those recordings has proved impossible; it may not even be desirable. The
caretaking of canonical material, the Bings and Billies and Nirvanas, must
naturally take priority. To ask that the same level of attention be lavished
on all music, including stuff that holds interest only for obscurantists, is
to demand a preservation standard that prevails in no other area of culture.
If the sole vestiges of thousands of old recordings are a few stray 45s lining
the shelves of collectors — perhaps that’s not a cultural tragedy, perhaps
that’s a commercial-art ecosystem functioning properly.

Perhaps. But history holds a counterargument. Many recordings were ignored for
decades, only to be rediscovered and enshrined as Imperishable Art. The Velvet
Underground were a commercial bust in the late 1960s and early ’70s but have
proved to be one of the most influential groups in history. Then there’s Nick
Drake, the English singer-songwriter who recorded three LPs of dreamy jazz-
inflected folk between 1969 and 1972, before his death at age 26. During
Drake’s lifetime, his albums sold modestly. A cult fan base developed
following the release of a box set; in 1999, Drake’s song “Pink Moon” appeared
in a Volkswagen commercial, and sales went through the roof. All three of
Drake’s LPs were included in Rolling Stone magazine’s 2005 tally of the 500
Greatest Albums of All Time.

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pengaru
I want to like this show, but it far too often devolves into the hosts
giggling uncontrollably like a couple of schoolgirls.

It lacks the professionalism and respect for the listener's time and attention
I've come to expect after listening to shows like This American Life for
years.

~~~
Judgmentality
I feel like the show would be boring without their casual laughter. It gives
the show personality and keeps it from being stale. To each his own.

~~~
pengaru
I'm not complaining about the general light-heartedness and casual laughter.

There are full on prolonged laughing fits about stuff the audience isn't even
aware of. Like we're eavesdropping on kids experiencing a sugar high and
giggling over an inside joke.

That becomes obnoxious real quick.

~~~
deanCommie
I've never been confused by what the hosts are laughing about listening to
this show.

Maybe you have trouble with non-visual social cues?

