Who Charted
My ongoing quest to listen to more podcasts hosted by women has stalled a bit, what with having to divide my time between all the media I'm unnaturally obsessed with. But in the absence of any other podcasts on my radar (barring a fantastic live This Feels Terrible, which is a great showcase for Erin McGathy's razor-sharp crowd work), I thought I'd talk a bit about Who Charted. I'm still catching up with the show, about twenty episodes in, but it's been mostly enjoyable so far. Though rapper/comedian Howard Kremer is the host, "chart keeper" actor/comedian Kulap Vilaysack is an equally large presence, and she offers a different viewpoint from Kremer and many of the guests. The show is ostensibly centred on the current music and movie charts, but that's really just a clever way in for a pretty standard (yet very funny) chatshow podcast. The music and movie clips definitely give the guests a lot to talk about, even if most of that talk is pretty derisive, and understandably so. The "games," such as they are, are thin excuses to interview guests about their lives and backgrounds, but that too usually leads to good discussions. The show itself is nothing special, but the real draws are the two hosts.
Kremer especially is a breath of fresh air for the podcast scene, an easy-going comedian whose sensibility is so pitched and so specific I can barely describe it. The closest I've seen anyone come was "fratboy savant," which I saw on a discussion board once. Really, Kremer is quite a witty and quick comedian, and every once in a while he'll cut in with an absolutely perfect joke, the type that few other comedians would ever think of. But all that skill is hidden behind a somewhat sleazy, somewhat endearing New Jersey-type persona. It's hard to tell whether it's a front or not, but either way, it's actually quite a smart move - even other comedians are sometimes caught offguard when Kremer says something really inspired. The key is that everything he does seems so sincere: he'll read band trivia or a movie synopsis in a way that makes it seem as though he finds it the most interesting thing in the world. And he'll focus on the most innocuous parts of the discussion for his followup questions, making for an interview where guests can never fully get comfortable (in the best possible way). I've heard Kremer a few times as a guest on other shows, but he really shines when he has room to stretch out and get as weird as he likes.
Backing him up is Vilaysack, and though the two seem like their styles are too different to work well together, really they're the perfect match. Vilaysack's ostensible role is to keep things structured by announcing the next chart entries and categories, but in practice she mostly serves as a foil for Kremer. While Kremer is creepily sincere (seriously, it's so difficult to articulate exactly how he's entertaining despite it all), Vilaysack is just generally exuberant, and her enormous laugh is endlessly contagious. She's also one of the few people involved to mostly enjoy the pop songs discussed, which keeps the show from being overly negative. Without her, the show would lean too heavily on Kremer's strangeness, but together they make a weirdly perfect team, balancing each other's sensibilities surprisingly well. Twenty episodes in, the two haven't quite figured out what they want the show to be, but it's such good fun that it doesn't really matter. I fully expect the show to come into its own as I keep catching up with the older episodes, but like any good podcast, listening to that process is half the fun.