There are numerous pop culture podcasts that can be accessed on various streaming platforms and websites all over the internet. The almost weekly New York Times podcast titled Popcast, shares music news and insights through conversation and discussion. Popcast is a music review show that uses the New York Times platform and loyal readers, to give air to some of the worlds least important breaking news. Popcast topics include new album reviews/ first impressions, new singles, artist deaths, collaborations and live show reviews.
The New York Times podcast is a nice break from some of what can be considered some of the New York Times heavy hitting journalism and breaking news stories. Even though music news is still news, it carries a different weight. Even though, pop music can be seen as superficial, Popcast gives pop music the air it needs to be scratched deeper and dissected.
The titled of the podcast itself, Popcast, gives a direct explanation of the theme/ topic of the podcast.
It is essentially a podcast about pop music. It plays off of the word “podcast”, which Popcast is. It is lighthearted and fun, much like how pop music is perceived to be. However, the podcast itself dives deep into topics that are not service level. This can be seen in the episode, “Should They Stay or Should They Go? Pop Stars and Retirement”, the idea that music is specifically connected to ones youth is discussed into detail. The title Popcast, is slightly misleading. The idea that pop music is superficial is played into with the title choice, but is disproved once the host begins to talk.
![](https://paperap.com/wp-content/themes/theme/img-rh/star.svg")
4.7 (348)
“ Amazing as always, gave her a week to finish a big assignment and came through way ahead of time. ”
Popcast is hosted by Jon Caramanica. Jon Carmanica is a pop music critique for the New York Times. Besides hosting the podcast, he also contributes to the New York Times through writing articles about other entertainment industry news via the New York Times digital site. (New York Times, Jon Caramanica) It is Jon Caramanica’s broad knowledge and ability to recall facts, music industry insight and commentary on topical issues, the creates the foundation for Popcast. He has easy relationships with his guests, who are often industry acquaintances.
Popcast is a discussion based podcast that hosts a variety of panelists to fit the topic of choice for each episode. The host, Jon Caramanica, asks the panel about each of their thoughts on the topic at hand. The way that this podcast is organized allows for controlled chaos. Each panelist comes to the microphone with their ideas and opinions and Caramanica asks specific questions to uncover the topic or question on hand. This allows different voices to be heard and jokes to be made on the topic of the episode. Even though listening to music can be one of the most independent activities, it can also be one of the most interactive and collaborative. The existence of Popcast is an example of that exact ideology. Because of the podcasts connection to the New York Times, each episode has a corresponding website page that reminds listeners on the content of the episode and who the episode was featuring as a guest.
Besides the podcast being panel/ discussion based, each episode is around an hour long with advertisements placed throughout each segment. The advertisements are almost always specific for the promotion of other New York Times programing that the listener could be listening to after they finish their current episode. An example of this, can be seen in the episode titled, “Should They Stay or Should They Go? Pop Stars and Retirement”, there is an advisement about 15 minutes in for a NYT Cooking Podcast. This is incredibly interesting because the producers of Popcast, assume that the listener would also be interested in other content produced by the New York Times. It is also assumed that someone interested in music business might also be interested in another program by the New York Times.
This decision could be for many reasons, by advertising more content, it could market other programing to other New York Times listeners or introduce new content to potential new listeners. This tactic works for both audiences the New York Times want to reach. These include expanding loyalty among current listeners and capturing the current listener of Popcast that might not be interested in other programing by the New York Times. It should also be noted, that in an episode from August 10th 2018, titled “ The Shrinking Space Between Band T-Shirts and High Fashion.”, there is an advertisement for Lincoln Cars in the first 15 seconds of the podcast, before the host has the ability to introduced himself. The could be because of the listener, they assume is listening. This feeds into who they think is consuming content created by the New York Times.
In each episode, the host Jon Caramonica is joined by another voice either from the New York Times or a music industry professional. In the episode titled, “ Pop’s Category Killers, From Live Nation to Spotify, Under the Microscope,” the guest is Ben Sisario. Ben Sisario is a music business journalist from the New York Times who has a lot of knowledge regarding the topics on hand. It is also important to note that like the New York Times, Popcast is at its essence, a news podcast.
The podcasts producers and writers ability to bring in the best guests that offer the most interesting discussion brings legitimacy to the topics at hand, even when the topics might seem trivial or uninteresting. An example of this can be found in an episode titled, “ Charlie Puth and Shawn Mendes- Would be Pop Kings.” The episode brings in Wesley Morris, a critic at The New York Times and Jia Tolentino who is a writer for The New Yorker. (Charlie Puth and Shawn Mendes, Would-Be Pop Kings.) The variety of music critics and personalities that make appearances on various episodes of the show highlights the podcasts ability to draw voices from different angles of the music industry, to round out the hosts opinions. This could be due to Jon Caramonicas background and experience at various music journalism organizations and ability to bring in guests from similar areas to want to be guests on a show to discuss a topical event in the music industry.
In the most recent episode, Jon Caramonica was joined by Jon Pareles from the New York Times. They discuss pop stars/ bands and retirement and when artists should end the anniversary tours and stop putting out new records. The tone of this episode is full of humor while also providing an in depth look at a question that haunts older musicians and bands. Throughout the various episodes, they put sound clips of songs by artists they are discussing in the podcast, which adds to the overall immersion into the theme which is the music business.
Popcast allows music fans and people interested in the music business/industry, a break from listening to their favorite music, to listen to some of the most important voices in music business journalism . The New York Times deciding to place a host who is incredibly knowledgeable to lead the podcast, shows their dedication to music journalism and shows the podcasts complexity. On the surface, pop music might not be something that should not need to be dissected or discussed. However, through the production, organization and selection of guests, the New York Times provides pop music the platform it deserves through periodical episodes of Popcast.
New York Times: Popcast. (2022, Apr 27). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/new-york-times-popcast/
