I like scientific material, but a lot of it bores me, and I’m looking for some good comedy too, but most of it bores me as well. Anyway, I won’t get into my opinions, just dump your favorites here.
Here are things I’m subscribed to or listened to and would highly recommend:
The Longnow Foundation lectures
Are We Alone? SETI radio
PBS NOVA
Astronomy Cast
All the Ricky Gervais podcasts (no longer being done but the 30 or so episodes are the funniest thing ever)
I subscribe to over two dozen podcasts, ranging in length from the minute-long Onion Radio News to the hour-plus Filmspotting. But my top 3 is easy to pick:
Sound Opinions - music news, album reviews, in-studio performances, playlists, genre explorations, etc. The Chicago critics Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot have a bit of a Siskel & Ebert dynamic. Sound Opinions is far superior to any other pop/rock music podcast I’ve ever come across for three reasons: the variety of programming and music genres represented on the show; the critics really know their stuff; and, most importantly, lack of snobbiness. The hipper-than-thou, all-indie-is-automatically-better-than-all-pop sensibility is what drove me away from NPR’s rock podcast All Songs Considered. I don’t want to listen to critics who hate all music except a narrow stratum of what’s cool enough to be deemed acceptable today (but which may be passé in a week). Sound Opinions, on the other hand, has devoted shows to genres ranging from “Bubblegum” to “Heavy Metal,” and they show a pretty even hand in reviewing albums as well. I don’t always agree with some of their choices, but it’s always interesting and never condescending. I’ve discovered some good music as well.
The Bugle - “Audio Newspaper for a Visual World.” Weekly political humor from Andy Zaltzman in England and John Oliver (of The Daily Show) in the US. Addictive, absurd and very funny.
This American Life - essays, interviews and stories based around a weekly theme, ranging from the laugh-out-loud to slit-your-wrists, often in the same show. It’s probably the greatest radio show on nowadays.
Before I got my I-pod I had only a vague idea what a podcast was, now I can’t live without them. So much material, a lifetimes worth and at least for now free.
Pritzker Military Library
C-SPAN
Astronomy Cast
Point of Inquiry
Skeptics Guide to the Universe
Atheist Experience
Savage Love (a real hoot)
Skepticality
Count me as another HUGE fan of This American Life.
And if you like that, in the same vein Radio Lab produced by WNYC (I think) A recent podcast called
“Yellow Fluff and other curious encounters” I found incredibly moving. I had a “These are my people!!” moment.
A Way With Words- this a great podcast concerning the English language- usage, grammar, etymology, slang, if you like that kind of thing, this show can be a lot of fun.
Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo’s film reviews from BBC 5- this makes me bust a gut. It’s best when Mark Kermode is there, there are often guest hosts. He delivers satisfyingly scathing reviews, sometimes working himself up into a huge foamy rant.
Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me from NPR I also enjoy. It’s a current events quiz show. It’s pretty funny.
And don’t forget CarTalk. Who doesn’t like CarTalk?
I also enjoy Talk of the Nation, but that’s a little ‘drier’ than any of the above.
The World - popular NPR news show; I just don’t have time to listen to it when it’s actually on.
Worldview - from Chicago Public Radio. It’s not really a news show, usually they do in-depth analysis of a specific issue, which is sometimes a little bit off the wall. It has a tendency to lean a bit to the left.
Diane Rehm - good discussions of current events, sometimes the callers are annoying.
For entertainment:
Savage Love - I love Dan Savage.
The Bugle - hi-larious. John Oliver’s criticism of Andy Zaltsmann’s pronunciation of “Taft” in the newest episode had me laughing aloud - and I was walking down the street as I listened, so stranger people now think I’m crazy. I look forward to more of John Oliver’s stories of his weird dinner party with Bill Clinton and Natalie Portman, too.
This American Life - Always at least interesting, sometimes hilarious or enthralling.
Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me! - I wonder if there’s a way to get Carl Kassell’s voice on my cell phone voice mail.
The Moth - almost always damned entertaining, sometimes fucking hilarious.
For history nerds:
12 Byzantine Rulers - the best history podcast EVER.
The History of Rome - I’m about 20 episodes in and quite enjoying it.
Thanks, some of these look pretty good. I like to listen to NPR on the radio, I’m not sure I want the podcast, but I’ll keep it in mind.
I subscribed to these:
Point of Inquiry
The Moth
Savage Love
Pritzker Military Library
Skepticality- oops, i’m already subscribed to it but havent listened to any episodes yet.
The Bugle - I’d seen it a week ago but it wouldnt download. Problems are fixed now and I have a bunch downloading as I type.
12 Byzantine Rulers - My favorite empire. I listened to this already. It was great but I’ve already read the book it’s based on and I swear some of it is copied word for word. It was still good, I just wish I had the book in audio format instead of this because it covers more.
A few unmentioned podcast that I have been listening to: The Non-Prophets (done by the same fellows that do The Atheist Experience) Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History, only updated once a month or so, but one of my favorite history podcasts. Stephen Fry’s Podgrams, quite infrequent in updating but always delightful. The Thomas Jefferson Hour, weekly show, half is a discussion with Jefferson, half is with the Jefferson scholar who portrays him. Great show for anyone interested in early American history.
The Escape Artists podcasts are pretty speculative fiction podcasts. Escape Pod is the best one, but Podcastle and Pseudopod are good, too.
I’ve been looking for more literary fiction podcasts, but all I’ve found is the New Yorker fiction podcast, which is only monthly.
Slate.com has a good daily podcast. Usually it’s just a reading of one of their articles, but twice a week it’s a cultural or political round table that’s pretty good. I think you can also subscribe to the round tables separately if you don’t want the articles.
They are simply brilliant, even without the visuals (the reason I say that is that both the Livio and Prothero podcasts are recordings of talks they gave at the museum which, obviously, had visuals unavailable to listener).
I also enjoy In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg. Not necessarily science related but very informative nonetheless.
I don’t mind Simmons’ writing (I might be in the minority), but I hate that damn podcast; why do I care about what his friend who’s working the carts at the neighborhood grocery store thinks about the Yankees?
On the other hand, Dan Patrick, formerly of ESPN and now with SI, has a daily three hour podcast that is uploaded in its entirety daily. Insightful and hilarious.
NPR: Science Friday is a brief one that covers the lastest science news stories.
Adam Carolla from Loveline and the Man Show had a west-coast radio show that was also available as a podcast. He just got cancelled 10 days ago as his station switched to all music. For the moment he’s doing a show out of his home called The Adam Carolla Podcast.
NPR’s Planet Money is explaining the financial crisis as it unfolds and makes me feel smarter every time I listen. They talk about what has been happening at the time of the podcast and do a good job of explaining the often complicated forces at work. And somehow they make this all entertaining.
BBC’s World Have Your Say usually has interesting topics and wide range of perspectives. Now if only they’d put up Africa Have Your Say. I’d be in heaven.
The Sound of Young America. A 30 minute (or so) interview show. The goofy title and theme song belie the fact that the host is a studied, hard-working interviewer. He books an eclectic mix of guests from all over pop culture. An sampling of recent guests: Ben Folds, The Kids in the Hall, Jenna Fischer, Jello Biafra, Jeffrey Tambor, the creators of the film Coraline.
As for comedy, the same host of TSoYA does a weekly podcast with a friend of his called Jordan, Jesse GO!. It’s probably typical of what you usually hear in comedy podcasts: two twentysomething white guys bullshitting around, but they’re very good at it. This is my favorite podcast of all (right behind The Bugle).
Also, I’ll second Sound Opinions. DeRogatis kind of rubs me the wrong way (why does he love Weezer so much?), and I usually fast forward through the interviews, but where those guys really shine is in unearthing obscure tracks from their vast knowledge of music history.