Kate Sullivan managed to articulate all of my feelings about the "fighters of foo" within the first 2 minutes of the show! She describes singing as "vocal stylings". I get all of the oblique pop references! I'm sold! I want to be a friend of Kate’s.
On a calmer note, let me state that very, very rarely is youth culture presently so intelligently and entertainingly without appearing pompous. Leave this out of your evening cultural programming and save it for late Sunday mornings when the college crowd is nursing their hangovers with coffee and day old beer. Lester Bangs would approve.

BBC is ripe ripe ripe for parody and the football scores are a low hanging fruit. I think the biggest shortcoming of this piece is its brevity.

Public radio in general needs a bit more of a sense of humor about itself. It has its own goofy mannerisms that threaten to become affectations or blindspots. laughing at them is a good way to keep people trying new things.

Good luck

Full Disclosure: my kids and I are Dan Zanes fans. The former Del Fuegos rocker is filling an important niche in making cool family music. Like Pixar movies, it appeals as much to us discerning grownups as the kids. Zanes has enlisted some of his famous pals like Sheryl Crow, Lou Reed and Deborah Harry to sing along with him but he doesn't really need to. The fun and the surprise come from Zanes himself and the dancehall rapper Rankin' Dan (aka "Father Goose") and kids and musicians from his Brooklyn neighborhood. My kids and I enjoyed the Behind the Music aspect to the Well-Rounded Interview. It's a good conversation; the host doesn't step on Zanes; there's music throughout which is woven in fairly seamlessly; it doesn't feel long at 20 odd minutes. We all learned something about the journey of a rock musician-turned dad who wouldn't settle for mass market kids music.
Stations would be doing a service for kids and parents suffering from Raffi-itis (or worse) to run this some weekend.

Thank you. This was a little treat. We'll take it for our next fundraiser. This kind of work could easily be integrated into live pitching. It's better when we beat people to it, and make fun of ourselves. - J.A.

Last year, the music industry released more than 3,800 CDs--and that was a down year. This fact drives home the point that there is a constant flow of new albums and artists. This makes the premise of most music criticism and reporting very simple, regardless of media: demonstrate why this artist and their music is above the fray. In other words, why should a listener care? Most music "journalism" (term used loosely) acts as a filtering system, helping listeners/readers/viewers figure out what's interesting to them and what isn't. That's the long and short of it.

Radio is in a unique position compared to print media because radio can mix its reporting, interviewing, and criticism with the actual music.

This piece focuses on a New York group called the Burnside Project, combining interview segments with musical excerpts. While the group does have some interesting musical moments, this 25-minute piece forces the listener to do too much of the work. The producer lays out all the points, yet the listener is left to connect them on their own.

After a 1:27 spoken introduction, the interview begins. Music is woven in on occasion, then the piece ends with a previously unreleased recording. Unfortunately, the piece does not have much of an internal structure, the interview seems loose and goes on and on without much of an idea what or why this discussion is important. For example, about midway through the show there is an extended discussion about the band’s writing process. The singer summarizes his efforts by saying "Sometimes I write pages and pages of lyrics." Never is it really explained why this is significant or important. No context is given to the discussion. This happens over and over again during the piece.

At 25 minutes, the piece is too long and needs some editorial guidance to bring out it’s best points. Cutting it down by half, ideally by three-quarters, would better serve the artist and the best segments of the interview material. Further, there are some minor issues with host diction and production (the interview segments have some occasional light distortion). However, the producer’s enthusiasm and passion for music journalism is palatable. With time and more experience, he should grow into an impressive talent with much to offer.

This piece, at this length, would be difficult to place on most public stations. An edited, much shorter version, may be more useful to AAA stations and college stations which focus on contemporary music and approach it with a broad palate and wide musical view.

A friendly fun exposure to the sea shanty -learning and laughing are alwyas a good combo. Some of the recording in the bar is a little distracting as is the homemade "key" the group sings in at times.

There are plenty of other moments however where you are drawn to upright attention; a couple of singers and speakers that are gold.

I think the piece would be easier to place if it were cut back to about 5 mins (notes to producer) - I think it would buff up the gold that lies within.

Curious title - and a good premise for a piece - a singles rotating 8minute date scene (like musical dates...) great ambient sound so we get to feel like we're hovering over the scene - very effective, made me feel squirmy. The speaker is quite forthcoming so I ended up feeling the narrator was a little too present at times, telling us what the guy feels, or probably feels. (further notes to producer) Regardless, it would make a good spot within a series about being single, the dating service industry. I was rooting for the guy..

This piece is a very intimate with a conversational tone that, due to the subject matter, when coming from a radio speaker can be rather shocking and almost discomforting. Yet the speaker, Katie, gives is utterly honest with her story and this is the most lingering effect of the piece. You have to listen, because it feels that someone is talking to you and not into a microphone.
The piece does not have the legs to stand on its own, but if placed in the appropriate surroundings, perhaps a longer piece highlighting teenage pregnancy and looking for a more dramatic and personal edge behind the statistics to help drive a point home or to take a discussion into the realm of the personal, if showcased appropriately this is an excellent piece.
Heed the advice about the last few seconds.

This is a wonderful piece of reporting, combining the silliness of people remembering jingles, the vintage jingles themselves, the psychology of jingle-writing, and the status of jingles in advertising today. It is tightly edited and Paul's narration is snappy.

The very best of this kind of first-person radio.
The first piece, the audio journal of a young pastor in Chicago, is the strongest. I was transported into the church and into Susan Johnson's world. In a beautiful patchwork of sounds, voices, music and reflection we can hear a young woman straining to hear the call of God as she goes about the disparate activities of ministering to an urban community. Jay Allison's Life Stories Collection are a rare radio treat. They could air as an extended series at any time.