2016 in Podcasts

Was 2016 the year of the podcast? Or was that 2015? Honestly, I’ve lost track. Still, I’ve listened to a lot of podcasts this year, many of which are wonderful and enrich my life on a daily basis. Here are some of my thoughts!

Podcasts I started listening to:

Alice Isn’t Dead – Everything I hoped for out of a new Night Vale podcast. Creepy, vivid, and gorgeous. Jasika Nicole’s narration is impeccable and the story is great. Can’t wait for season two!

My Dad Wrote a Porno – Hands down the funniest thing I have listened to this year. I have had to stop listening in public since it so frequently makes me break down with laughter. It can get a bit repetitive, especially into season two, but I tend to space the episodes out over quite a while to mitigate the effect, and there’s nothing funnier.  

Homecoming – When Gimlet announced their new fall lineup, I was skeptical of all of their offerings, but waded in all the same. Homecoming was the biggest surprise of all of them, and may even be my favourite. The story is fascinating, and would probably benefit from a second listen to catch the layers of hints and foreshadowing. I’ve been enjoying it more and more as the season carries on.

Undone – Undone was the only one of Gimlet’s new shows that even piqued my interest, and it followed through on the promise. It’s an interesting look at pieces of (recent) history I had largely never heard of before, and it’s been really educational on all manner of topics.

Podcasts I stopped listening to:

Lore – sorry Aaron Mahnke, I just couldn’t handle your delivery anymore.

Sampler – It turns out I don’t like audio samples as much as self-contained stories, and I already listen to so many podcasts that I had often already heard at least one of the clips being featured. It took me a long time to stop, since I really liked Brittany Luse and enjoyed the themes of each episode, but eventually I had to leave it behind.

Within the Wires – I really couldn't get into this, and I think one of its problems was that it was a little too good at the “relaxation tape” presentation, so I would tune it out and lose focus on the story that was actually happening. I’m sure there was a good story hidden in there, but every time I finished an episode I found myself asking “what just happened?”, and not in the Night Vale kind of way.

The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air) – I’m not sure if this one counts as a podcast I stopped listening to, so much as a podcast I never really signed up for but listened to while it was being pushed to the Night Vale feed. Still, I tried the first three episodes and never wanted more. The story was too disjointed and jerky, not to mention confusing.

Crimetown – the second Gimlet media podcast I dropped; this one just never really caught my attention.

Perennial Delights: Pop Culture Happy Hour, Judge John Hodgman, Daft Souls, the Bugle, Reply All

Week after week, these shows are great little bits of entertainment to liven up my life. I have trouble saying much about any of them beyond “they’re soooooo good you should try them you really should” so there’s not much I can put here.

A Loose Ranking:

1.       Pop Culture Happy Hour

2.       Reply All

3.       Judge John Hodgman

4.       Daft Souls

5.       My Dad Wrote a Porno

6.       Planet Money

7.       The Bugle

8.       The Allusionist

9.       How I Built This

10.   99PI

11.   The Sporkful

12.   Startup

13.   Hidden Brain

14.   Radiolab

15.   Invisibilia

16.   Undone

17.   Welcome to Night Vale

18.   Homecoming

19.   Alice Isn’t Dead

20.   Song Exploder

21.   All Songs Considered

22.   Code Switch

23.   Bad with Money

24.   Dead Pilots Society

25.   Savage Lovecast

26.   Stuff you Missed in History Class

27.   Memory Palace

28.   You Must Remember This

29.   Matt & Doree’s Eggcellent Adventure

30.   Shut Up & Sit Down

31.   No Such Thing as a Fish

32.   Sawbones

33.   Serial

34.   Criminal

35.   Serious Eats

36.   Nerdist

37.   Freakonomics Radio

38.   Love & Radio

39.   Surprisingly Awesome

40.   Heavyweight

41.   Science VS

Not Ranked on Account of Not Producing New Episodes:

Getting on with James Urbaniak

The Indoor Kids

Mystery Show

Books on the Nightstand

Thrilling Adventure Hour

TLDR

Not Ranked on Account of Being Too New (to me) to Have an Opinion:

Backlisted

The Adventure Zone

Not Ranked on Account of Being Language-Enrichment Podcasts:

Radio ambulante

Aujourd’hui l’histoire

Not Ranked on Account of Being (mostly) Serious News & Media Podcasts:

Canadaland

Canadaland Commons