Crimetown
Podcasts are the new music.
There have been three revolutions in music, the Beatles/British Invasion, MTV and Napster, and for the past fifteen years we’ve been living in a moribund world…quick, name a new sound!
But we’ve all been too focused on technology to notice.
But when was the last time you bought a new piece of gear? And the artificial scarcity of the Snap Spectacles doesn’t count… Those are toys, Xmas gifts, but remember the mania over the iPod?
It’s happening now in podcasts.
Remember… The iPod didn’t burgeon until it went Windows, people thought it was an overpriced curio, despite owners testifying about it. Same deal with podcasts, there are those who are clued in and those who don’t care, but they soon will.
The standard podcast is about to be eclipsed. You know, the man with the microphone interviewing someone promoting something. The same way AM pop was eclipsed by FM rock. There’s a maturity happening in the podcast world, and it all began with “Serial.”
A narrative that hooked the populace. Never underestimate story, it’s what we all hunger for. Which is why we go on Netflix binges and television is triumphant, in a disconnected world, where we’re at loose ends emotionally, despite being interconnected with our devices, we’re in search of humanity, we want that personal touch, and that’s what podcasts provide.
“Serial” was “Sgt. Pepper.” An even better analogy is “Myst,” the computer game that broke that vertical wide open. They showed the POSSIBILITIES!
It’s no longer sufficient to have a mic only, you need production. Which is how Malcolm Gladwell broke through. His podcast series, “Revisionist History,” was seamless, a tour-de-force, despite being the ramblings of a self-anointed nobody.
Yes kids, that paradigm is dying. We’re looking to scientists, originators, who’ve spent their entire lives dedicated to the subject of study. Gladwell just comes up with theories and searches for stories to prove them. Gladwell gets collegiate financial aid SO wrong in “Revisionist History” that I may never trust him again. Then again, he writes so much better than Clayton Christensen, whose latest book, “Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice,” is a must-read, if you can get through it. Christensen has been analyzing innovation for decades, he’s gone in search of how best to disrupt yourself, and I’d trust an academic over a self-promoting wanker every day of the week.
But Gladwell’s podcast is another step in the journey. Funny how you can get instantly noticed in podcasting and sustain, whereas no record has ubiquity, despite acolytes of hits saying it’s otherwise. Music has become too niche. We’re looking for those who can speak to everybody, who can make us feel part of a tribe. And I’m betting at least half of the country has no interest in the Spotify Top 50.
But my purpose here is not to delineate the failings of the music business, or to point out Gladwell’s flaws, but to hip you to this new podcast “Crimetown.”
It’s number one on the charts.
And the podcasting chart means something. It’s not like SoundScan, where albums come and go in a month, if they last that long. You can scroll through the podcast chart and take the temperature of what people are listening to, and what they’re listening to most right now is “Crimetown,” an expose on the Mob in Providence, Rhode Island.
Now “Crimetown” is not hosted by wannabes down the street, held together with duct tape and chewing gum, rather it’s steered by Marc Smerling, the guy from “Capturing The Friedmans,” possibly the best true crime documentary in history, and Zac Stuart-Pontier, who was part of the team on “The Jinx,” last year’s HBO true crime caper that spread like wildfire and put its protagonist, Robert Durst, in jail.
Did you know that Providence was a hotbed of Mafiosi?
Lisa’s dad keeps telling me this, but I haven’t believed him. Bridgeport was pretty Mobbed-up, they used to dump bodies on the fairway of the country club.
But “Crimetown” makes a good case that Providence was part of a Mob triumvirate along with Chicago and New York and then it goes deeper, it sets the scene.
It’s theatre of the mind. You can PICTURE IT!
Funny how we’ve gotten here. Radio is line readers, its dramas long disappeared, but now, in the most visual era extant, it’s all about listening!
There are two hills in Providence, one with the Mob, the other with Brown University, and there’s City Hall in between, by the river. And Raymond Patriarca controlled it all.
They tried to put him in jail for murder, but he skated.
But the more you listen to the stories about Patriarca, the more you recognize people in today’s world. The ones who do favors for everybody, but are not afraid of doing what’s untoward. Some things never change, despite digitization, people are people and some exercise power and some pay fealty…
And that’s how Jerry gets involved, he meets the big shots in prison and then he goes deeper.
One bad move and your life is ruined. We live in an era of redemption stories, but the truth is you make your own bed and not only do you sleep in it, you frequently die in it.
Killing, protection, loan-sharking, they were in it all.
But “Crimetown” is less about the activities than the people. How do you end up where you do?
Maybe your dad broke your nose when you were two. Maybe you stepped in to protect a brother. Maybe you were just running for mayor and…
That’s the main through-thread in “Crimetown,” Buddy Cianci, the mayor who went to jail and then became mayor again.
You think the techies can eviscerate crime? They’re some of the worst offenders!
And after listening to episodes you can go online and see pictures, learn more, the new tools are enhancing the underlying podcasts.
And it’s all built on quality and word of mouth.
It won’t be that way forever, we’re still in the podcast wild west, but for now…
It’s like it was in the sixties in music, the late nineties in techs, there are podcasts that are wowing us, whenever you get together with someone they ask what you are listening to. There’s an underlying excitement that not only thrills you, but makes you feel proud you’re a member of the club, the same way you did when you were listening to FM radio and your classmates were not.
Forget Steven Dubner and his pontifications on economics. Steven Levitt is the economist, Dubner is just a writer!
That’s right, there are a lot of poseurs in the podcast world, who leverage fame in other pursuits to gain traction.
But they’re not gonna last.
Because the professionals are invading. Not only Smerling and Stuart-Pontier, but Gimlet Media, the company bankrolling them.
But the beneficiary is the listener.
“Crimetown” is like “The Godfather” but it’s real. It’s about bad people doing bad things and good people doing bad things and as one of the characters opines, “If you are going to be bad, be good at it!”
There’s too much production. And the story is not as riveting as “Serial,” but…
“Crimetown” is a harbinger of what’s to come.
We embrace the new, that which is not fully-formed. That’s one of the main reasons the young flocked to Snapchat, to see it evolve on their watch.
Podcasts are evolving on our watch right now.
P.S. If you’re out of the loop… The iPhone comes with the Podcasts app built in. It’s purple, you’ll find it. After opening the app click on “Top Charts” at the bottom. You’ll see “Crimetown” is number one. I also recommend number 17, “Undone,” which sometimes gets it wrong but illustrates the possibilities. And if you just like stories, check out #27, “The Moth.” And if you’re interested in interviews, subscribe to David Axelrod’s “Axe Files,” he’s been there and done that and therefore the conversation is at a higher level. (And now I’m gonna be inundated with readers’ favorites, but that just demonstrates the mania.)
P.P.S. We all come from somewhere. Crime is not limited to Providence. The reason we enjoy these true crime stories is a double whammy of wondering what truly is going on where we live and the notion that one false move…might lead us where we don’t want to be.
P.P.P.S. Episode four just went live today! This is the serialization that worked for network television before it inserted too many reruns and lost our interest and was usurped by cable. And, like Netflix, if you come to the party late, you can just binge on ’em all.
