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Cumtown when it was still around
Matt and Shane’s secret podcast before Shane got mega famous and stopped showing up to most shows
Lemon Party
some Radiolab
some This American Life
This is important
The very first Serial
I like crass comedy podcasts for the most part and ones that tell interesting stories; as well as good serialized true dramas like the first Serial but there’s so many that suck ass cuz they try to follow a formula instead of trying their own thing
First off, I love these comments more than a typical Reddit thread because back in the day they would create a list and leave it at that. Everyone here has stated either what it is or why they like it. Awesome.
Since most of my podcasts have already been listed, I’ll just mention one.
If Books Could Kill - two people reviewing books and typically ripping on them. These are non-fiction books and back in my day a lot of the books were these “intellectual” books that you just “had” to read. I hated a lot of them so this is a lot of confirmation bias for me :P
Yes I find that there’s a much better community feel here than reddit. It’s just a more positive place to be.
Recently commented in a similar post, so I’ll paste that comment:
Podcasts are my thing. I’ve got you covered.
Depends on what you’re into:
More or Less: Behind the Stats - analysis of some statistic from the news
The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos - what science says about how to be happy
The Audio Long Read - long form articles from the Guardian newspaper
You Are Not So Smart - cognitive science related. How we know things, our biases, how our thinking is flawed, etc.
Dan Snow’s History Hit - One of the few history podcasts I really like
Short History Of… - a short history of some specific thing
The Forum - expert panel discussion about some topic
Behind the Bastards - Very well known podcast focusing on some bastard personality
CrowdScience - in depth investigation of a listener science question
Radiolab - in depth investigation of a topic of their interest. Quite broad scope.
Unexpected Elements - a very varied mix of discussions around a science topic from the news
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford - Tim Harford is the podcast king for me. This show is a deep dive into something that went wrong in news or history, and an investigation of all the systemic failures around it. It tries to show how blame is hardly ever warranted on a single person and the systems are at fault.
The Martin Lewis Podcast - UK consumer advocate and saving guru
Show Me The Meaning! A Wisecrack podcast - a couple of philosophers talk about a movie
The Inquiry - a deep dive into a news story
Revisionist History - Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast about a range of different things
The Law Show - UK legal system issues
The Infinite Monkey Cage - comedy science panel show
The Supermassive Podcast - space related podcast
File on 4 investigates - detailed story from deep investigative journalism
Thinking Allowed - light philosophical ramblings
When It Hits the Fan - two public relations experts talk about PR issues from current events
Discovery - science related. Currently mostly doing shows about “a life scientific” I.e. talking to a scientist about their life
Overthink - philosophy made accessible
What It’s Like To Be… - a person from a particular occupation talks about their job
People Fixing the World - people from different parts of the world fixing some local problem in their community in a creative way
Hidden Brain - my absolute favourite. Cognitive science related. Explains how the brain works and how to use the understanding to male your own love better.
Within Reason
Your Parenting Mojo - evidence based parenting. Can be a very dry long-winded research presentation, but this has improved my parenting (and life) immensely
Sideways - different ideas and how to look at things differently
Darknet Diaries - stories from the dark underbelly of the internet
The Reith Lectures - once a year short lecture series, but well worth listening to the backlog
Evil Genius with Russell Kane - comedians discuss how some villains from history weren’t so bad and how some heroes from history were terrible people
Owls at Dawn - ramblings of a couple of philosophers
Sound of Gaming - excellent music show about music soundtracks from videogames
Playing god? - medical ethics discussion
30 Animals That Made Us Smarter - this series has ended but it is worth listening to the backlog
50 Things That Made the Modern Economy - this series has ended but it is worth listening to the backlog
A History of the World in 100 Objects - this series has ended but it is worth listening to the backlog
I would also recommend the podcast series made to accompany the Chernobyl and Last of Us TV series.
S Town - a nice fiction mini series drama story.
Do you ever not listen to podcasts? I can barely keep up to date with 2 or 3!
You can change playback speed in podcast apps. Start listening at x1.3 speed and build up from there. In a couple of weeks you’ll find x2 speed to be comfortably comprehensible (and normal speed will seem annoyingly slow). If you’re at x2 speed and skip show intros and end of show plugs, then you’re done with a 60 min episode in about 25 min.
Every episode isn’t of interest and I skip boring episodes.
Podcasts are perfect to hear during housework, commute, when kids are running around in the park, gym, even during a shower or alongside simple video games. Combined with x2 speed, this means I can routinely get through about 3+ hours of episode time in a day (this is all time that I’m doing other tasks, so it’s not like I have to put time aside for podcast listening).
Here’s my top 10 and a suggestion for each
1-5. Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History
- if you can find it his old podcasts have some phenomenal 24hr behemoths! Id suggest from those; Blueprint for Armageddon, Wrath of the Kahns, Death Throes of the Republic
- otherwise Supernova in the Pacific is were to start
- Lions Led by Donkey’s
- Men Who State at Cats …
- Behind the bastards
- The War of the Eggs
- The Dollop - (history when you need a laugh)
- the NY to Paris Race
- Fall of Civilization podcast
- the inca
- The Unknown Soldiers podcast
- The Soviet Afghan War
I don’t listen to podcasts as much as I used to but these were the ones I liked
Darknet Diaries - Stories about viruses, hacks, penetration testing and similar stuff. Basically war stories from cyberspace explained in a way dummies like me can understand.
Hardcore History - Long form and in depth look at different eras in human history. The host likes to focus on the human stories and does a great job at keeping things interesting.
Time Suck - Comedian talks about history, true crime, cults, myths, legends and other interesting stories. A lighter take on some darker subjects
99 Percent Invisible - A podcast about design that people see or use all the time but rarely give a second thought. Trains, buildings, kids books, movie theaters, bikes and more
Since we share 2 out of 4 favorites I have to check out the design one! A book I really enjoyed at the time was The Design Of Everyday Things. It really opened my eyes to the level of attention to detail put on almost everything around us.
Nice I’ll check that too!
Oooooh hardcore history sounds right up my street! Gonna give time suck a go too
Search Engine with PJ Vogt is an excellent periodic deep dive into random questions from the internet. It’s always interesting and it always goes somewhere I didn’t expect. 10/10 would dive into attendance filtering philosophy at an underground Berlin club again.
The podcast scene is an absolute haven for incredible journalism, from the deeply humanist short pieces from This American Life to the deeply told longform series like Serial or Scene On Radio, to the focused single-target (and often single-season) shows like Hazard NJ, Empire City, Ghost of a Chance, or Homegrown OKC (or many many others).
There is, lastly, plenty of ground-breaking audio fiction, from genre-bending scripted dramas like Give me Away or The Electric Easy to medium-aware quasi-fourth-wall-breakers like Sherlock &Co. or The Lovecraft Investigations, to the comically weird absurdism of Death By Dying or Midnight Burger. Also Impact Winter and The Bookburners, my two absolute favorites.
Basically podcasts are shit and you should just give up now.
History of philosophy without any gaps: starting in 2010, and 465 episodes later, we’re finally in the early modernity and starting with Descartes. It’s also have a parallel podcast of History of [Aficana | Indian | Chinese] philosophy.
I don’t listen to many podcasts these days but right now I am listening start to finish to The Chinese Revolution Podcast (it is about the Chinese revolution if that wasn’t clear). The production is not great and there is sometimes bg music which I hate because it makes me tired, but the content is really good with complementary maps on substack etc.
My favorites over time have been:
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Martyr Made. Very in depth history. We are talking 10 episodes of 5 hours each in some cases. My favorite one was about the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the history of the region.
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Behind The Bastards. I do not like this pod anymore, it turned into a series of bad jokes imo. The first 150 or so episodes are grwat though. Some of the most interesting and bizarre bastards from history are covered and it is a lot of fun as well as informative.
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Darknet Diaries. Interesting stories from tech, but no need for in depth technical knowledge to listen.
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Hardcore History. Like Martyr Made but with focus on different things.
Honorary mention to Drunk Tank. RIP. Was my favorite podcast before it became super well produced and boring and everyone had a thousand scandals and shit… The early episodes were a lot of fun at the time, idk if they hold up tho.
Edit: I forgot this one which I actually listen to regularly because I watch the show on YouTube, but it is technically a podcast and the only podcast I still regularly listen to:
- A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein. Honestly amazing, they talk about problemativ people, movements or politics from a pop culture perspective. Anything from stay at home influencers to taylor swift stans to elon musk really. It’s really good tho. I don’t agree with every thing tvey say but the general analysis and overvies is always amazing.
Another one is:
- Tor’s Cabinet Of Curiousities. Odd stories, about anything. As long as it is an odd story it gets an episode. Extremely prolific dude, makes like two videos a week. You can listen like a podcast no problem basically 0 editing anyways.
The Rest is History is pretty good as well. I’m going to try out Martyr Made.
You might try Behind the Bastards again, I did enjoy the 4-part Zizz series. But the damn ads are getting out of control. I either have to find a way to cut them and repackage the podcast or I’m going to drop it. Anything on Iheart is shit now.
I only listened to the cultural revolution episode of Rest Is History and it was pretty fun, I liked the guest a lot, the hosts didn’t say much tho. Will check out again next time I zone in on some history. Currently just digging through Chinese 19th and 20th century.
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Do yourself a favour and find and listen to all the back episodes of Heavyweight
I was crushed when they announced that Spotify cancelled the show but a recent update says they have found a new home and they’re working on a new season.
No other show has made me feel so many feelings so strongly.
I just googled. Is it quite sad? It sounds like it might be
Sometimes. It’s usually about helping people get closure on things that happened quite a long time back, usually by helping them connect with someone they lost contact with or helping them do something they have been meaning to do. But to be very clear, this is not a show about helping people deal with long-held traumas or PTSD or things like that.
There are some really heart-warming tales and the narrative style is filled with humour.
Some of my favourite episodes:
- Ep 2 is about the host’s friend who claims he lent a budding music artist some CDs and that person used some of their music to make an album and didn’t credit them. And now the host’s friend wants their CDs back. Oh, and that music artist and his album? Moby - Play (and Moby actually features on this episode)
- Ep 12 is about a guy who got hit by a car and that changed his life. Now he wants to connect with that driver and thank him. The episode covers how these 2 people’s lives changed after the accident and when they finally meet after so long, how that meeting goes.
- Ep 45 is about a woman who mistakenly taped a Billy Ray Cyrus concert over a recording of her father’s tv interview after getting injured in Vietnam. The showrunners try to help find another recording of it.
- Ep 52 is a sad one. It’s about the passing of the host’s once best friend and chronicles their childhood and how they drifted apart and got close again just before the friend passed, etc.
In many episodes, they don’t succeed in what they originally set out to do, but the endings are usually very good regardless.
Sounds great thanks 😊
The big two for me are
- “Behind The Bastards” - lots of episodes and it covers some really interesting stuff. They did a whole bunch on the ideological fathers of the current US administration which makes the current situation really well.
- “Mystery Quest” - an TTRPG podcast run by AngoryTom from the Yogscast. I can’t stand a few of the people he often gets on (Yogscast regulars I don’t enjoy), but his DM style is so fun it’s easy to lose a few hours to.
I like park after dark by the trailer park boys. Just three guys bullshitting about dumb stuff they found on the internet for half an hour. My mom and I would watch them each week.
- Reply all (I miss it dearly)
- Casefile (esoecially the episodes on Silk Road and the zodiac killer are amazing)
- Dan carlins hardcore history (particularly the ones about World War One or imperial Japan in world war 2)
Reply All was my favourite podcast and I miss it so much.
PJ Vogt started Search Engine and Alex Goldman recently started Hyperfixed which are both pretty good but neither come close to having the humour and chemistry of Reply All, not quite the interesting content.
Search Engine, for now, is s the better of the two, having done its feet since it started much earlier then Hyperfixed.
I loved casefile and used to listen to it all the time. Episode 54 haunts me to this day. I still cannot listen to Elton John’s “Daniel” because of that case. I was out walking in public and when it got to Daniel’s funeral, that little detail, that they played that song, absolutely wrecked me. I was ugly crying in public.
Also liked Dan Carlin! He’s so calming to listen to. Should probably start listening to his podcast again sometime.
The world war 2 japan one was so good, I can’t get the same itch scratched from most others tho… But it was really, really good.
PJ Vogt’s new podcast is called Search Engine and is a good substitute for Reply All.
Check out Hyperfixed by one of the former Reply All-hosts, and maybe also Hard Fork, which scratches a similar itch for me at least.
I like comedy podcasts, so Distractible is my #1
I enjoy the Rest Is Politics podcast (the original UK version) for a civilised, nuanced discussion by two highly experienced and eloquent political frenemies about current events.
Oh I listen to The Rest is History, the original podcast from the same company. It was going to be one of my answers to the question. Reqlly great stuff.
I quite enjoy The Rest Is Entertainment for Richard Osman’s take on all things media related. Marina Hyde is okay too, but she has some poor takes on a lot of things…
