Podcasts I Like

For some reason, someone decided to follow my music recommendations on GrooveShark.com. I guess if someone is going to listen to my music I might as well make some podcast recommendations too. I'll rank them in order of my personal enjoyment.


On The Media: NPR's show about all aspects of media. They have a variety of interesting stories and a unique angle on events large and small.

PTI: Sports podcast starring Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon. Their chemistry is great. Provides a light, often amusing listen while I work out.

Stuff You Should Know: Josh and Chuck have great chemistry. Their sense of humor is right up my alley. The topic of each show is all sorts of random but almost always entertaining.

History of Rome: Mike Duncan is an amateur historian with a deep interest in the Roman Empire, which I find fascinating. I loved the earlier podcasts. The newer ones are good too but I wish he would diverge a little from following the succession of empires and talk about some other cultural and societal things occurring in the empire.

This American Life: The great show hosted by Ira Glass. Definitely the best podcast on the list. Awesome stories told in an awesome way. My only knock on it is sometimes the tone gets a little sanctimonious or smarmy and bugs the hell out of me.

After those five is a big drop in enjoyment for me but I still find time to listen to the following podcasts.

BS Report with Bill Simmons: I save these for the work day. Variety of guests and often pretty funny. Usually not too serious and I rarely learn anything but it takes my mind off of work.

Hardcore History with Dan Carlin: I loved his series on the eastern front of WWII and liked his series on the fall of the Roman republic. His cadence may not be for everyone but I eventually warmed up to it. Episodes are sporadic but enjoyable. I love how he will pause and then consider a moment or trend in history in a deep fashion. For example, it is one thing to say then the Romans executed 10,000 slaves that revolted. It's another thing to pause and force the audience to consider what that means practically and logistically.

Freakonomics: I have high hopes for this podcast. I feel like it is getting better and could become great. Some interesting topics and neat view points. I'd like them to have more Levitt on. Something about it is just slightly off and keeping me from putting it in the upper tier. For example the last episode was called Mouse in the Salad or something similar. They then spent 7 minutes (about 1/4 of the show) setting up an incident where--wait for it--Dubner was in a restaurant where someone else had a mouse in the salad. Shocking.

The Economist: I like their week ahead show and download some other random topics I might find interesting. I like the tone of the hosts and find much of the conversation intellectually stimulating.

NPR Sunday Puzzle: A neat listen. The types of puzzles are not really my favorite but I enjoy playing along.

Judge John Hodgman: This podcast can range from unbelievably funny to just so so. I like Hodgman's dry humor but it may not be for everyone.

The Sports Poscast with Joe Posnanski: A new entry. Frankly it's not very good now but I like Joe's blog and have high hopes that he can improve. He gets some high quality guests and is an entertaining guy so the foundation is there for a great podcast.

The rest are podcasts I have listened to at some point and will listen to from time to time.

Radiolab: I loved this show at first but have since soured on it. They dawdle a bit too much for me, have some clunker segments in between decent segments and I'm not sure how much I trust the accuracy of the info they give me. Not that I think they are inaccurate or lying I just think they do not nuance the info enough.

In Our Time with Melvin Bragg: A great podcast which probably should be higher on the list. Personally I just find that there are too many guests and the tensions between the guests bug me.

The Classic Tales Podcast: Worth a listen. I used to really enjoy this as I like classic literature. The narrator is hit and miss with his voices, but overall strong. Check out The Yellow Wallpaper and Three Short Stories by Oscar Wilde.

The Moth: Very entertaining stand up stories from a variety of people. I just don't trust that the veracity of the tales. Still entertaining though.

Stuff You Missed in History Class/TechStuff: Kind of meh. I find the TechStuff's host's puns great but not really worth the download.