The Radiolab Sound

I’ve been glad to hear the Radiolab sound sneaking into more buttoned-down reporting on NPR recently (e.g. this story on raw milk from All Things Considered). Stories like this depart from the typical NPR (or PRI, or BBC) style, in which narration and actualities recorded in the field neatly alternate.

In the classical style, the anchor reads a lead-in that summarizes the piece, then the reporter introduces the first clip. The actuality plays, then the reporter returns as the story’s narrator, moving the piece along until the next clip. No example is necessary for this kind of thing, since it makes up the bulk of every public radio show both local and national (but this piece on cedar trees from Marketplace is perfectly representative).

The occasional features-style piece will open with a field recording before we hear the reporter’s narration: within a traditional show like ATC or Morning Edition, this style signals that the piece will not be hard news but instead a more meditative or atmospheric story, about elephants or bingo callers or reticent rural folk. (A very nice obit from today’s Morning Edition celebrates a gifted producer of this kind of recording.)

By contrast, the Radiolab style is marked by layered, complex editing that flouts the typical narration-clip-narration-clip alternation. The subjects interrupt the reporter–and each other. Sometimes they introduce or excuse themselves. We’ll hear the same anecdote told in different voices from different points of view–sometimes conflicting, as in the opening of the raw milk piece.

In the Radiolab style, non-verbal sounds recorded in the field are treated differently: rather than being set among quotes like pearls, sounds are interspersed with the narration and often manipulated or distorted. Sometimes sounds overwhelm the narration with their mute (or, rather, audible) force. Sometimes they appear unmotivated, or with uncertain provenance–have they been recreated in the studio? Have the effects been forged from some other sound, like (as in the case of this great piece from 2006) the subject’s own voice?

It’s all highly artificial and stylized, of course. The subjects aren’t literally interrupting each other in the interview situation (well, not usually in a Radiolab piece, although they might be doing just that in the raw milk piece). No, the interruptions and disjunctions and sound effects are all the result of scrupulous editing. But this style draws attention to its high artifice, reminding us that what we are hearing is the product of a gifted producer’s sensibility. The traditional public radio style, on the other hand, attempts to efface the evidence of its own construction by presenting the listener with a formula so familiar as to be inaudible.

As I said, it’s nice to hear this kind of style percolating into the more staid public radio programs, just like the style of This American Life before it. The introduction of a new sound might help shake up listeners (and radio journalists) a bit, remind them of the possibilities of sound, defamiliarize the familiar.

But like all recognizable styles, the Radiolab sound risks ossifying into a formula, or merely a set of readily adopted gestures. (It’s important to distinguish what I’m calling the Radiolab style from Radiolab itself: I submit that Radiolab is the most consistently moving show on public radio today, and Mr. Abumrad’s editing is always inventive and surprising. But in the hands of less creative producers, or those working on tight deadlines, style could easily stand in for substance.)