Discovering Podcasts: Part 3 — Cream of the Crop

I’m doing a multi-part series about podcasts. 2015 has seen an explosion and mainstream-ing of podcasts — a platform for audio storytelling, exploring, and learning. Check out Part 1 for an intro. Check out Part 2 for 30+ recommended episodes from my favorite podcast.

In the last post, I shared my favorite podcast of all-time, Radiolab. Now, let’s round out my top five podcasts. I’m an ENFP, so the order isn’t set in stone and likely to change from day to day. Looking back now that I’ve made this list, I see that it’s largely made of shows that are consistent, reliable, and thought-provoking. There are other podcastsI’ll share in future posts that are, in their own ways, more fascinating and at times more compelling. I’ll even share niche interest podcasts that I absolutely love. These four (plus Radiolab), however, are my drumbeat; the reliable few that serve as the core of my listening habits.

Note: be aware of potentially strong language and sensitive topics from some of these shows. They are usually pretty good about giving you a heads up at the beginning of each episode, but here’s another one just in case.

THIS AMERICAN LIFE

This American Life is the grandfather of podcasts. TAL began 20 years ago (the first episode was on November 17, 1995, under the title “Your Radio Playhouse”) as a groundbreaking, genre-shattering public radio show from WBEZ in Chicago, eventually clearing the path for today’s breakout shows. From their own website:

There’s a theme to each episode of This American Life, and a variety of stories on that theme. Most of the stories are journalism, with an occasional comedy routine or essay. There’s lots more to the show, but it’s sort of hard to describe.

TAL has a very distinct sound and feel, masterfully created by host and executive producer, Ira Glass. (Sidenote: in many interviews, he shares many insightful thoughts on storytelling, creativity, and persevering. Read about/listen to him in others places besides TAL here and here and here. And his now famous advice on the creative struggle is perfect.) If I’m totally honest, the show is more hit-and-miss for me than it use to be. But I can definitely point to specific episodes I still think about, months and years later. Along with Radiolab, this was one of my original wanderings into podcasts years ago. And because of it’s role in moving forward audio storytelling to a new generation, it makes my list.

Recommended episodes:

• Superpowers — “We answer the following questions about superpowers: Can superheroes be real people? (No.) Can real people become superheroes? (Maybe.) And which is better: flight or invisibility? (Depends who you ask.)”
• Switched at Birth — “On a summer day in 1951, two baby girls were born in a hospital in small-town Wisconsin. The infants were accidentally switched, and went home with the wrong families.”
• Notes On Camp — “Stories of summer camp. People who love camp say that non-camp people simply don’t understand what’s so amazing about camp.”
• 20 Acts in 60 minutes — “Instead of the usual ‘each week we choose a theme, and bring you 3 or 4 stories on that theme’ business, we throw all that away and bring you 20 stories — yes, 20 — in 60 minutes.”
• 129 Cars — “We spend a month at a Jeep dealership on Long Island as they try to make their monthly sales goal: 129 cars.”
• Be Careful Who You Pretend to Be — I’m only adding this one because it features stories about Conner Prairie, the outdoor living history museum (“interactive history park”) I worked at for four years. This story aired before I worked there.

TAL also has it’s own list of favorites on their website.

NOTE TO SELF

Note to Self is the WNYC show formerly known as New Tech City. I started listening to NTS after the name change, within the last six months. What I love about NTS is it’s relevance. In their own words:

Host Manoush Zomorodi talks with everyone from big name techies to elementary school teachers about the effects of technology on our lives, in a quest for the smart choices that will help you think and live better.

Even if you wouldn’t describe yourself as a technophile, early adopter, or a sucker for an Apple Keynote or Google I/O like I do, Note to Self has something for you. Let’s be honest: we are all adapting to lives filled with technology. What NTS does for me is shine light on the ways all this technology is impacting our lives, helping me to be more mindful in the way I use it, and recognize how it is impacting my kids. Host Manoush Zomorodi is a fantastic, relatable, and sincere host. The episodes are usually short-ish, so it’s easy to blitz through several episodes or skip to something that might seem more relevant to your lifestyle.

Recommended episodes:

• This Is Your Brain on Online Shopping — “Manoush volunteered herself as a guinea pig in Etsy’s Usability Testing Lab for a story about online seduction — how designers create an immersive experience that makes you relaxed or happy or excited, and makes you feel like spending your time and money.”
• Bored and Brilliant: Boot Camp — “Earlier this year, tens of thousands of you took part in our Bored and Brilliant Project, a week of challenges that pushed us to rethink our relationship with our phones and jumpstart our creativity….We’ve adapted the idea into a short, condensed bootcamp version with three very do-able, modifiable challenges for those of you on a beach (or stuck at the office wishing you were on a beach).
• Should You Post Pictures of Your Kids Online — From the ‘Questions of Note’ series: “There is a child among us who will live to be 150 years old. When this kid celebrates his centennial and a half, how is he going to feel about the picture you just posted of today’s playground disaster?”
• This Is How Much the Internet Knows About You — “We found a service that takes the ‘personalization trend’ — think uncanny Facebook ads, targeted email campaigns, and that pair of shoes you Googled once that follows you from sidebar to sidebar — up a notch.”

REPLY ALL

“Reply All is a show about the internet, hosted by PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman. It features stories about how people shape the internet, and the internet shapes people.” It’s a simple description, but what really makes this show shine are the disarming and affable hosts, along with really good storytelling. Yes, the internet is always involved — but don’t underestimate how far and wide the reach of stories will go. The recurring feature “Yes Yes No” is a brilliant concept, a great and endlessly entertaining piece of the show. Note: occasional strong language warning.

Recommended Episodes:

• Blind Spot — “Hope is a photographer. One day her body begins to betray her. It starts with her eyes.”
• This Proves Everything + The Best Hold Music in the World — “In today’s episode, we talk to Keith about what life’s like when you’re on the wrong end of a widely-held conspiracy theory, and we talk to some of the fans who believe it.”
• Exit & Return—”Shulem Deen was a 22-year old and ultra-religious, a Hasidic Jewish person, when he bought a computer and signed up for America Online in 1996. Until then he’d never had a real conversation with someone outside his community. Sruthi Pinnamaneni tells the story of how the internet ruined his life and how it might save it.” Part I and Part II.
• @ISIS — “Rukmini Callimachi is a foreign correspondent for The New York Times covering Islamic extremism, including Al Qaeda and ISIS. She seems to have access that other reporters just don’t have. Part of the way she gets that access is by communicating with extremists online.”

SERIAL

SERIAL. A bona fide spin-off of This American Life, Serial is a concept podcast, self-defined to “follow a plot and characters wherever they take us. And we won’t know what happens at the end until we get there, not long before you get there with us. Each week we bring you the next chapter in the story, so it’s important to listen to the episodes in order, starting with Episode 1.”

When Serial launched in October of 2014, the concept was intriguing on it’s own. Could a podcast play out in something close to real time (the reporting, not necessarily the events in the story), telling a true story with respectable journalistic investigation, and produce a satisfying conclusion? We now know the answer is definitely yes. Like never before, people around the country were waiting with baited breathe to download the new episode each week, while others avoided social media until they could gather with their friends for listening parties after work. Listening. Parties. In 2014. Audio only. This…was crazy.

Season 1 chronicled the story of a high school murder case from 1999, where the ex-boyfriend ended up in prison on what some would call shaky evidence and a questionable defense by his attorney. Much debate swirled around how the podcast (which was being downloaded by millions of people) was impacting the lives of the very real people who already had to live through this tragedy once before, sixteen years ago. Now, it was all being played out again — with millions listening in, and even at times, invading their lives in person again. Read just a few of mainstream media pieces written during the original run of the show here and here and here.

And then…just yesterday, Serial posted an update on the actual trial, which is under review and could potentially end up in a retrial all these years later. Crazy.

What makes it unique among the podcasts in my top 5? Season 1 was a total of 12 episodes. Season 2 hasn’t even come out yet (but they say it will start before the end of 2015). So, it has a very short track record (all other podcasts in this list have 40+ episodes to date)— but Serial was undeniably a captivating and addictive listen. It moved the proverbial needle and changed the podcasting landscape, likely for good. Serial now has it’s own spinoff, “Undisclosed” (which is an entirely new podcast about the exact same story; I haven’t listened). And Discovery Channel now looks to be making a play at the murder-story-as-podcast strategy with a story of their own. Oh…and Serial is turning into a TV show, too!

I’m not going to lie — I can’t wait for Season 2 to come, but I’m not certain if they will be able to catch lightening in a bottle twice.

If somehow you’ve not heard Serial, you better get started.

Up next: opening the floodgates — a deluge of podcast recommendations and podcast player reviews.