My vote for terrible NPR (or NPR-affiliated) voice goes to Todd Mundt.
Thanks to my public radio station for shitcanning his show.
Really? I find Todd’s voice pleasant enough. I just wish Chicago’s NPR station didn’t start repeating on Chesterton, IN’s station because that’s the same frequency as DeKalb, IL’s station so I have trouble keeping Todd’s show in tune.
Well, the show content was esoteric at times, and his voice sounded too feminine.
It was replaced with “The BBC News Hour”.
Programming geniuses, they are.
I like Garrison Keilor’ s voice, it fits with the nature of PHC and the tone of The Writer’s Almanac, especially when he read poems. In fact, when I used to try to write poetry, I would read back what I wrote in my head with Keilor’s voice to see if it sounded right to me. That’s probably why I stopped, because so much of it sucked even when I imagined him reading it.
And directed at myself in my earlier post: It’s “whose” you stupid bastard, not “who’s”!
I love This American Life and I think Ira Glass’s voice is perfect for the role. It’s not too honey-perfect, not grating, and not a flat monotone. It’s an average person’s voice that sounds interested and, sometimes, humorous.
Of course, I’m usually too interested in what he has to say to be listening to how he’s saying it.
I’m with widdershins on this one. It’s not the voice, it’s his inflections, and his pauses.
But it’s a great show, and I don’t care!
Oh dear. I love Garrison Keillor’s voice. If I’m ever insane and raving, I want someone to play me recordings of G.K. because his quiet soothing voice will calm me right down…
My sentiments exactly. I wonder why it is? Keillor just sounds like such a smug bastard to me, whereas Glass and Vowell are like my normal smartass cynical sly friends.
Daniel
I love This American Life. I don’t mind Ira’s voice at all. As others have said, it’s not your typical Top 40 jiveass voice and that’s what I like.
I also enjoy Micheal Feldman’s show and I wish the asshats here in Chicago would run it live and in full rather than taped and abbreviated.
That’s my mini-rant.
Love Ira.
Love his voice.
Love the program.
Want to have his babies.
The End
Am I, then, not the only one to have Ira as my wallpaper?
(“Who’s that,” ask workplace drones; “My boyfriend,” speaks the kattymitts.)
Which makes me wonder why she’s got a frickin’ radio show. Waiting for her to get a sentence out drives me so goddamn nuts that I have to change the channel. It’s especially annoying when there are two or three guests on and you don’t realize it’s the DR Show, so you get tricked into listening to a discussion between them, not realizing that the entire conversation is going to grind to a halt while the host slowly interjects something like, “could y ou e labo rate on that … J ohn?” I don’t mean to be insensitive to her plight, but I just can’t take it.
And for the record:
Ira Glass: good voice
Sarah Vowell: annoying voice, but I’ve come to associate it with damn funny stuff so I like it now
YES. I have, on previous occassions, referred to Garrison Keilor as “a smarmy fuckhead.”
When I was in college, I used to listen to NPR when I was getting ready in the morning, and I always shuddered a little when Writer’s Almanac came on. I liked the content of the show, but, god, Keilor’s voice! He always sounded sleepy and constipated, like somebody cornered him in the bathroom first thing in the morning and said, “read this.”
DanielWithrow, could it be a generational thing regarding the voices of Keillor, Glass, and Vowell? I don’t know your age but if Glass and Vowell sound to you like your “normal smartass cynical sly friends” then perhaps you are able to relate to them more as contemporaries.
Clack! Clack! Clack! :sounds of widdershins beating dead horse’s bones:
I remember who else Ira Glass reminds me of when he speaks. Does anyone else remember the Ernie Kovacs character Percy Dovetonsils? The similarities are spooky.
Thanks, man, now I feel like an absolute shithead. I thought she was about 95 until I saw her picture outside the NPR studio I work at. Did she have it when she got the show?
Ah, but his pauses make that aspect of the show! If anyone can lecture on the use of dead silence in radio, it’s him. Most people in the biz are terrified of dead air, or so I hear, but Ira is confident enough to let the pauses speak for themselves.
Those pauses command my attention like nothing else on the airwaves.
Yes, good show, horrible voice and way of speaking.
There is a woman on that show occasionally who has an even worse voice, so I’m assuming she is the Sarah Vowell woman of which you speak. Does she sound like a little girl with a congested sinuses?
I’ve always thought of the show as attempting to send an inspirational message that anyone can do anything, no matter what your abilities. You know, being ugly is no barrier to becoming a model, being retarded is no barrier to being a rocket scientist, having an unbearable voice is no barrier to being on the radio. I think they take it too far.
Yeah, that’s Sarah Vowell.
Diane Rehm has good days and bad and she sounds like completely different people.
I’m glad NPR puts people on the air for what they have to say and not the melodious manner in which they say it, but it’s nothing new. Paul Harvey and Walter Winchell had seriously annoying voices, too. And nobody would hire (inducing vomiting) Rush Limbaugh for his voice.
I never thought Todd Mundt sounded “feminine.” I picked up that he was gay long before I read his biography but that means little since I thought Ira was, too. Of all the people discussed in this thread Mundt’s the only one with anything like a classic radio voice.
Yes, but if you have the occasion to meet him in person, you can add “Pompous ass” to “smarmy fuckhead”. It’s all part of his schtick I guess. GK’s voice causes involuntary radio button hitting spasms in my arm.
Ira Glass sounds exactly like a buddy I grew up with. I love his show, cause it seems so conversational, not polished, not flashy, not in-your-face.
I was wondering if the difference were generational too – although I know my edging-on-fifty uncle adores Ira Glass, and I’d guess that he despises Garrison Keillor.
Part of it is that Keillor’s show is so safe: he has the same exact jokes every week (World ends, ketchup makes you feel better; detective encounters flaccid puns; unconvincing animal noises; harmless people are slightly strange in his hometown; Norwegians play the blues). And he seems so pleased with himself for his gentle, not particularly funny humor. It comes across as insincere, pompous, and lazy. And Keillor’s voice, slow, sleepy, lilting, just expands on that impression.
This American Life, however, just feels ballsy. The stories are strange and sometimes painful and sometimes hilarious (Squirrel Cop – haw haw haw!) And Glass’s voice sounds thoughtful, intellectual, honest to me.
The weird thing is, I know that that’s an artifice. When he pauses, stretches sentences out to make it sound as if he’s looking for just the correct word to say next, it’s baloney: he’s got a script, he knows what he’s going to say. Nevertheless, it conveys very well the impression of someone really struggling with an issue, someone kind of impressed by the coolness of the story but not wanting to be all razzle-dazzle about it.
Sarah Vowell, now: yeah, she sounds like a kid. But she’s such a damn smartass, and she’s got the sort of self-deprecating humor that I adore. One episode involved her joking about the childlike quality of her voice and how angry it made her, and it completely took away any dislike I could possibly have for her voice.
Daniel