Forums » The Lounge » Read Thread

I like my podcasts. Recently, I've gotten into them in a big way again, mainly because I haven't been listening to music on my phone as I'm lazy and still haven't cashed in on that sweet student Spotify deal.

So here's a few I like and a little description of each one for anyone else who likes a good podcast:

Love+Radio: Hands down my favourite. This show presents stories from weird and wonderful people from all sorts of backgrounds, often to moving, surreal, or ridiculous consequence. The editing is superb, the music almost always fits perfectly, and the narrative is well spaced and engaging.

99% Invisible: Quite a famous show for good reason. Interesting stories on design and architecture, though often delves into interesting related historical context. The presenter has a cracking voice too.

The Blindboy Podcast: Blindboy from the Rubberbandits going off on one about anything week in, week out. He's usually very interesting and evidently creatively talented. I've been storming through this recently and it's quite addictive.

Distraction Pieces: Hosted by spoken word artist Scroobius Pip (along with unfortunate stutter), interviews with some really interesting actors, artists, writers etc.

Snap Judgement: Another story telling podcast with some good tunes in the background. Can be a bit hit and miss but there are some good episodes.

Radiolab: Interesting reports usually about science and medicine, though sometimes the explanations are dumbed down in a slightly patronising way.

Desert Island Discs: Bit of a classic I don't listen to much but very relaxing. The format of having to choose music gets topics of conversation I feel normal interviewing technique fails to and Kirsty Young has one of the best radio voices I've ever fucking heard.

Those are some of my favourites in a rough order. Feel free to discuss what podcasts you enjoy and why- I always like finding new content and I think it's a brilliant medium.

If you had to pick one, which would be your top choice? I've been listening to a few different ones this year and would like to expand my list. Currently, I listen to the Joe Rogan Experience, This Past Weekend with Theo Vonn, StarTalk Radio, and the Ben Shapiro show. The amount of diverse, successful, and interesting people on Rogan keeps it fresh and entertaining. His guests go from experts in nutrition to mathematicians to martial artists. The topic continuously changes and all the guests are highly skilled in their field. Theo Vonn is a comedian whose show is about joking around and being a better person. He has the most creative vulgarity I've ever witnessed so it's always a fun listen. I listen to StarTalk because I ran out of The Cosby Show episodes and Ben Shapiro to balance out the amount of CNN on my news feed.

As is usual for podcast threads I highly suggest Hello Internet before everyone else suggests it.

I like The No Sleep Podcast, it's pretty great with good voice actors doing some fun horror stories. Bill Burr's Monday Morning Podcast is pretty entertaining stuff to have in the background. Rebel Songs is good for some general punk music, I enjoy listening to that. Earburd Theater tends to be quite good, although I haven't got around to listening to it much.

We're Alive was a fun zombies audio thing that was excellent, and the older Cracked Podcasts were great to listen to and always funny and entertaining, though the new shit gets stale.

Oh, and Dan Carlin's Hardcore History is above all my favorite. The dude is fucking masterful at making history interesting and just bringing it into a more human and understandable view, plus he has a few cool concepts I don't think most people would know about, so even if you're a history buff there's a lot to learn. Axiom showed him to me, and I loved it, so you should all give it a try.

Have you listened to Dan Carlin's other podcast?

Didn't know he had another one. What is it?

Common Sense. It's about the current political landscape and events. Actually, I just looked it up and he may have scrapped it... there hasn't been a new release in a year. It did run over 300 episodes though.

Out of curiosity, what's his political views?

Leans more to the left side of the isle, although it doesn't seem like he pushes democratic policy on his listeners. I think he's more in the mindset of "do whatever the hell you want" as long as it doesn't hurt society or other people. At least that's the case when it comes to personal issues like orientation and trans debates. I couldn't tell you more than that, besides the fact that he's not a Trump fan, which doesn't say much because it's somewhat rare to find a fan of Trump outside the Midwest. Lol.