27
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Podcast recommendations thread
I've been wanting to tell the Tildes community about a favorite podcast of mine, The Film Reroll, an improv. comedy show which plays through your favorite movies as TTRPGs and totally ruins them (their words, I love the show and think the cast is amazing), and would love to hear about any podcasts y'all listen to that you might want to recommend to others!
Behind the Bastards is probably my favorite podcast. Basically, they talk about bad people. It started out with a lot of dictators and other very famous, very obviously bad people like Saddam, but as the show has gone on they’ve run out of dictators and now it’s kind of whoever. For example, scrolling through the last few months they’ve had episodes about P. Diddy, Oprah, Peter Thiel, as well as a bunch of people I’ve never heard of including the Zizians, Tony Alamo, and Bruno Bettelheim. The show in general features Robert Evans (usually) talking about the given bastard for the episode, usually starting at childhood and going through their life of bastardness, with a guest there, too.
And don't forget the spinoff by Margeret Killjoy: Cool People who did Cool Stuff (inspired by the "anti-bastard" christmas episodes).
There is a large crossover of BTB fans with Knowledge Fight, a podcast debunking and deconstructing Alex Jones, so if you like one you’ll probably like the other. Host Dan selects clips from the show and plays them to his buddy Jordan and they mutually rip it to shreds. It’s funny and infuriating and Dan has an academic ability to strike at the core of Jones’ hipocrisy and an incredible memory to provide the evidentiary base, while Jordan expresses the outrage we all feel toward Jones while also adding a lot of salient insights.
Short after vising Ireland, I listened to the series "That time Britain did a Genocide in Ireland" about the potato famine. It's a great complement. 100% recommend it.
A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs (https://500songs.com/) is my favourite podcast. It is nothing short of a magnum opus scale undertaking that has been moving chronologically through the history of English speaking popular music. Its focus is on rock, but in telling that story, it offers a much wider and more detailed look at a wider range of things that you might imagine from the title alone. Insanely well researched and presented.
Another music podcast that I quite liked was Wind of Change (https://crooked.com/podcast-series/wind-of-change/), whose tagline "Did the CIA write a power ballad that ended the Cold War?" pretty much tells you everything that you need to know about it. If you nostalgically remember the song and love mystery and spy stuff, it's worth a listen. A couple of other investigative podcasts in a slightly similar style would be Finding Drago (https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/finding-drago) which is about a mysterious author and The Polybius Conspiracy (https://www.radiotopia.fm/showcase/the-polybius-conspiracy) which is about the claim that a strange early-80s arcade machine was designed to manipulate its players. If you happen to like any of these and have recommendations for something similar, I'm all ears!
The Rest Is History (https://therestishistory.com/episodes/) is my favourite general history podcast. It strikes a perfect balance between interesting information and light hearted presentation. Not all of the topics interest me, but more often than not, topics that I didn't think would be interesting ended up being really fascinating. If you want a good starting point, their 8-part series on the fall of the Aztecs (episodes 384-391) was absolutely brilliant.
Another podcast that combines comedy and information, this one leaning more towards comedy, is No Such Thing As A Fish (https://www.nosuchthingasafish.com/). If you know the BBC panel show QI, it's quite similar in tone. Which is not surprising, given that the podcast is run by QI researchers.
History of Philosophy (https://historyofphilosophy.net/) is actually two podcasts. One concentrates on diving deep into the history of western philosophy, while the other has by now done almost 200 episodes on the history of classical philosophy in India, Africa and now more recently China. It's this latter podcast that I'm particularly fond of, as I'm less familiar with those traditions.
The Lazarus Heist: Investigations into North Korean hacking operations. Super interesting, highly recommend!
99% Invisible: About architecture and other design in our built environment. Very approachable for a layperson. I'm not at all an architect or designer and I find it super interesting.
Radiolab: I especially liked the period with Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. It's quite broad, with a focus on science, but all kinds of interesting topics. If you want to start then I recommend the episode "Patient Zero". It's my favourite and just objectively good, in my subjective opinion :D
American Scandal: From Watergate to Muhammed Ali to Theranos to the Challenger Disaster. A few episodes on each topic, partially dramatised.
British Scandal: Same as above but for the UK. Presented by two people in a more comedic tone than American Scandal. I appreciate both, the hosts of British Scandal are genuinely funny and have great banter.
Cautionary Tales: Stories about historical events where things went (terribly) wrong for some reason and the lessons we can learn from it.
Darknet Diaries: Describes itself as exploring "the dark side of the internet", with stories of hacking, data breaches, and cybercrime. But a lot of it also isn't that dark. Some of my favourite episodes involve pen testers telling their stories.
Intrigue: From the BBC, like 7 episodes half hour episodes per topic. Easiest to just look at what it's about and see if you like it.
Kill List: Crazy investigation into murder for hire on the internet.
Legacy: Two hosts who look at historical figures and discuss their lives and how we look at them today. Very interesting, about 4 hour long episodes per person.
More or Less: Behind the Stats: Investigations, some short and some long, about statistics in the news and in life. For example: "How did lock impact children?" (longer episode) or "Has the US sent $50 million worth of condoms in Gaza?" (shorter episode, the answer is no obviously but they investigate where this crazy claim came from).
The Missing Cryptoqueen: Investigation into Ruja Ignatova and her OneCoin cryptocurrency scam.
Uncharted with Hannah Fry: Stories about how data and mathematical patterns shape our world.
On the Darknet Diaries:
The first ~100 episodes were really interesting
the pen testing episodes of Darknet Diaries are the best! I can't stand how Jack chirps in to recap / summarize things, though... as if any of it is surprising.
Good list!
As a middle aged white dude, I believe it is my contractual obligation to mention Stuff You Should Know which is a podcast by two other middle aged white dudes who do shallow dives on disparate topics. They are fun and spread knowledge around.
Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend (daringtodayarentwe.png) is another that is often funny, but can also be surprisingly heartfelt and kind. Conan O'Brien hosts and brings on a friend, which is often a celebrity, but sometimes not.
I listened to SYSK for a bit, but after hearing a few inaccuracies on episodes about stuff I already know, I started to wonder if I was educating myself or getting an oversimplified view on things.
You are getting a simplified view of things. They do sometimes make retractions or update mistaken information, but in general I would give them about a 90% on factuality. They are pretty entertaining though.
As far as actual play D&D podcasts I really enjoyed the first season of The Adventure Zone, although I did not listen to the later seasons they did after the conclusion of Taako, Merle, and Magnus's adventures. I also liked Not Another D&D Podcast, Campaign 1, although I fell off part way through Campaign 2. I've listened to the podcast versions of Critical Role, but I find it hard to keep track of so many characters without seeing them on screen so I never actually finished.
I've found I enjoy more intentionally produced, written, and voice acted podcasts more than actual play podcasts. I love the DnD theme (sort of medieval high fantasy LOTR-esque or Skyrim-esque stories) but I haven't found many that scratch that itch. Instead, I've kind of gone down the mystery/horror genre to some extent.
Anyway, here ya go:
I know there are more, but I can't think of them at the moment.
I find my surroundings impact my listening a lot. 99% of the time I listen to them in the evenings or at night while I'm walking my dog on a trail out the back of our neighborhood, or sometimes on a lounge chair in the back yard. Being in the woods late in the day or at night has a big impact on making surreal, mystery, horror, supernatural type listening more impactful. I'd recommend it!
The second arc of Adventure Zone, Amnesty, is good. But it's very different from Balance. They use a different game system and it's set in modern day and about cryptids instead of usual DND stuff.
I think it's still great and worth a listen. After that though don't bother. They never were able to get back to that level and just continued going off the deep end of terrible weird shit. I stopped listening after a few more series cause I couldn't stand it anymore and they lost all the magic they had in Balance.
Balance is the best thing they ever did.
As someone who loved balance but fell off everything else pretty quickly k, the latest Dracula arc was really great!
Steeplechase was also good, Justin DM’d despite long having an aversion to it but I think he crushed it.
Eh, steeplechase was what made me stop listening to them altogether. I kept giving them the benefit of the doubt and they kept putting out stuff I didn't like, and that was the straw that broke the camels back for me.
I remember they were doing something like a reality show parody or something and I was just like wtf is this anymore, this isn't what I signed up for and never went back.
Building Up Resilience is an offshoot podcast from the guys that did Breaking Down: Collapse
Breaking Down: Collapse discusses the science behind the catabolic collapse of civilizations and they talk about everything from the Roman Empire to the Soviet Union. It actually has brought me a lot of comfort to know generally how it has worked in the past and how people have made it through. The basis is that collapse generally doesn’t happen over night, you lose access to the things you use daily very slowly - internet and electricity get spotty, gas food and medical supplies become more expensive. Finally, people become displaced when the war reaches them, they immigrate just like our ancestors have many times and we start over, we build a new society.
Building Up Resilience is about how to prepare yourself for things like losing access to electricity, water, internet, transportation, food, etc. They also dive into how to prepare yourself mentally and physically, how to be mentally strong, physically ready, and how important your community is in a time of need like a natural disaster. They don’t say it, but I think the idea is that you want to position yourself in a way so that you can help rebuild when the time comes.
The Quillette Podcast (https://quillette.com/tag/podcast/) is a moderate center-right political podcast
Sam Harris's Making Sense (https://www.samharris.org/podcasts) talks about meditation, the mind, politics (mostly centrist). His opposition to Trump has been thankfully consistent (as opposed to some other "centrist" podcasters) and his anti-Trump rants can be refreshingly cathartic.
Decoding the Gurus (https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/) -- two academics cover modern gurus. Politically center/left I think
Aunty Donna Podcast (https://podtail.com/podcast/aunty-donna-podcast/) is an improv podcast from the Australian comedy group Aunty Donna. Sometimes very funny, sometimes eh, like improv tends to be
This Developer's Life (https://thisdeveloperslife.com/) is the best software development -related podcast I've ever listened to. By a Microsoft developer Scott Hanselman. Philosophical more than technical, sort of. Styled after This American Life. Ran between 2010-2015 but still relevant due mostly not being about the technology.
Randy Feltface's Destruction Manual (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m00236xp) -- a scripted story recorded in front of a live audience where a purple doll talks about speeding up the destruction of the world
Starship Mudskipper (https://rss.com/podcasts/the-snakes-paw/909689/) -- a douglas adamsy scifi story in a starship in the far future
There was thread a while ago about podcasts by those who are experts in their fields, and it had some good recommendations, so definitely check those out in addition to all the ones here!
I'll post the same comment I left there, since I really love the three podcasts that I mentioned:
I listen to science podcasts mainly but not exclusively. I'm posting very short descriptions which don't do these justice but it's what I have capacity for at the moment.
Somewhat in this vein, Oh No, Ross and Carrie was my favorite podcast, which has sadly come to an end, but the catalog remains. Two science minded people trying out pseudoscience, religions, and cults to see what they’re actually like. They joined both Mormonism and Scientology! But there’s over a decade of great content.
I liked Magic Tavern but I liked Improvised Star Trek (also ended) even more. Featuring Matt Young (Usidore) from Magic Tavern, plus many Tavern guests. Far less produced and I think hardly anyone listened, but great fun for Trek fans and tons of great bits that still plague my speech to this day.
My current favorite podcast is Search Engine. It's hosted by PJ Vogt who used to be on Reply All, which I never listened to. I don't know how I stumbled on it, but it's a great little show where they try to answer one question every episode.
Kill James Bond. Abigail Thorne (aka Philosophy Tube, also an actor in Stuff You've Heard Of) and friends discuss each Bond movie in chronological order. Has made me laugh out loud on multiple occasions. Yes, "Bond is awful" is fish in a barrel stuff but the presenters are clearly good friends and smart people, having fun.
Let's Learn Everything. Good friends and smart people having fun, again. Each of the three presenters covers a different topic in well-researched detail, the gimmick is that the other presenters don't know what the topic is until time of recording. So far topics such as "bees" (fuck me, bees are so much more amazing than I thought they were) and "what is the median size thing?" have stood out for me. Some might find the presentation style a little... enthusiastic. I can't listen to too many of these back to back, but the enthusiasm does seem genuine and the topics are interesting and that makes it work, for me at least.
Answer Me This - first launched in 2007, this venerable podcast has been off-air for the last few years before a surprise return a couple of months ago. Cozy, friendly, but well-informed and entertaining, it's the original "interesting facts and listener questions" podcast. Good friends and smart people, having fun. I'm noticing a pattern in the things I like..
Oh, James Bond movies are a guilty pleasure of mine and I'm actually going through the 60's ones right now since I've never seen them (I mostly have just seen 80's and newer ones), maybe I'll have to check out Kill James Bond.
Content Warning: They utterly destroy every movie they review.
gotta sub to the Meidas Touch podcast purely for the episode titles. I rarely listen, but the sensational titles are fun.
It's relatively niche (Magic: the Gathering, specifically the Commander format), but it's the only podcast I listen to: The Howling Salt Mine.
A group of friends who collect stories of salty (in the vein of, "upset when something doesn't go your way in a game") interactions at Magic tables across the world, read them out, and comment on them.
My description doesn't do it justice at all. The hosts are really fun to listen to, the stories are funny, and I get lots of deckbuilding ideas and strategy tips from it. If you're into Commander at all, it's really worth a listen.
Rick Rubin's podcast Tetragrammaton is great.
https://www.youtube.com/@tetragrammaton_now
Nerd Poker - Favorite D&D campaign podcast. It's Brian Posehn and some friends playing reasonably decent D&D, probably usually pretty high. Season 3 (Cloddenheim) is a good place to start.
Dispel Magic - Favorite D&D discussion podcast. They take magic spells and creatures and extend the logic into a society that has sort of reached an industrial age of magic, e.g. factories of wizards producing Magic Mouth-imbued items to create audiobooks, etc. It's a fun podcast. They aren't always RAW, exactly, but I've nabbed a few ideas from them
Philosophize This - Favorite philosophy podcast. Goes through the history of Western thought in an approachable way. He made a pivot a year, maybe two, ago, where he started getting a bit more contemporary and introduced me to some philosophers I've been enjoying since (Susan Sontag, Byung Chul Han, others). The podcasts are short, go very fast, but leave me with an impression.
Runners up - Dungeon Masters of None (D&D), Very Bad Wizards (philosophy)
Very Bad Wizards is probably my #1 most-anticipated-new-episodes podcast right now, but I have a lot of interests that align with the hosts (all things Lynchian, Star Trek comes up a lot, a disdain for generative AI, weird fiction, the list goes on). Their Patreon bonus episodes are pretty great too (did an episode-by-episode breakdown of Deadwood, followed by the same for Severence, and next going to do a series on film noir).
Oh, hey, you're me.
Also critical analyses of Sam Harris and DFW, important in balancing out my parasocial bonds.
Here's one of my favorites that hasn't been mentioned yet: That's Absurd Please Elaborate is hosted by a couple pretty funny science communicators (and sometimes guests) where they each pick an absurd question, either posed by the other host or more often listener submissions, and then do a crazy amount of research to answer them in the most detailed and scientifically accurate way possible. Listening from the beginning is very rewarding because they've built a cadre of recurring in-jokes.
Some of the questions they've answered are things like "1 trillion lions versus the sun, who would win?" and "Does my poop reach terminal velocity when I flush from the top of a skyscraper?" or "How long would it have taken Westley in The Princess Bride to develop an immunity to iocane powder?" (that last one has a great twist ending). It's one of those ones that gets me funny looks when I listen in public because I'm always laughing out loud.
Bonus: If you already subscribe to Nebula you can get this one ad-free.
Thanks for the recommendation! I listened to an episode and it felt very similar to the podcast No Such Thing As A Fish that I recommended here, so if anyone is familiar with Fish, they might well like this one as well. And vice versa.
As I've only heard one episode of That's Absurd, I'm not the right person to compare them, but in the spirit of not caring about such things, I would say that Fish is a little bit faster moving with more banter and detours, while That's Absurd seemed to go into much more detail in the topics. I'm looking forward to hearing more episodes.
Someone already mentioned Behind the Bastards, so just count this as another thumbs up for that one.
Relatedly, from the same podcast network:
Weird Little Guys - a weekly dive into some of the modern historical figures, both big and small, of the alt-right, white supremacist, and/or neonazi groups.
Better Offline - a weekly exploration of the tech industry's influence and manipulation of society
Sixteenth Minute (of Fame) - little deeper looks into the brief main characters of the internet. A nice break from the rest of my podcasts.
Jon Ronson does some great reporting on the "culture war" in America and a bit of the international impacts of it. I would highly suggest Things Fell Apart or The Last Days of August. If I remember correctly, Jon is the guy who broke into Bohemian Grove with Alex Jones.
And I guess speaking of Alex Jones.... Knowledge Fight is the ongoing series by two comedians, where one listens to Alex Jones and the other reacts to the clips and context given by the first. Surprisingly well researched and a deeper look at Alex Jones than most people are willing to give - once you are a few (hundred) episodes in, you really understand why most people don't dive deeper than the surface on Alex Jones. They've started breaking out into some of the other main characters of the alt-right media sphere, such as Tucker Carlson, recently, as Alex Jones is ... waning in a lot of ways.
My last recommendation is If Books Could Kill. Two hosts explore a book per episode but the books are "the airport bestsellers that captured our hearts and ruined our minds." A great exploration of all the books on my parent's bookshelves that I couldn't bring myself to read to find out exactly how dumb they are.
Things Fell Apart is so good, I hope he continues making seasons. I could listen to Jon Ronson tell any stories and I’ve listened to all his previous podcasts but I think he really knocked it out of the park with this one.
Surprised no one has mentioned Decoder Ring yet.
Here’s the site description:
In each episode, host Willa Paskin takes a cultural question, object, or habit; examines its history; and tries to figure out what it means and why it matters. New episodes come out every two weeks.
Some recent episodes have been about Spring Break, Scratch Off Tickets, and super niche stuff like Pink Lady and Jeff, which hadn’t know about before.
Also I listen to podcasts at 1.5x speed and the theme music is awesome and perfectly timed at that cadence.
https://slate.com/podcasts/decoder-ring
I like to look for small podcasts that are very niche or specific to whatever I'm interested in at the moment.
I've gotten in the habit of watching old TV shows, especially ones from the 1970s. Most recently I've been watching The Rockford Files. It's a very good show with excellent writing and acting, and has a lot of guest stars that you will recognize from other old shows and movies. It has that in common with Columbo but has way more episodes.
Anyway, when watching an old show I think it's fun to find a podcast that has discussions about the show. I think Two Hundred a Day is pretty good. They hosts are good at pointing out the inside jokes and tropes in the episode, but they do miss some of the 1970's details since they are younger than the show. At least in the early episodes, they talk about how the storytelling techniques used in the show can be applied to game design or game scenarios.
It seems like their last episode is from November 2024 so maybe they stopped making new ones. But they do have 147 episodes.
I really don't watch/listen to many podcasts, but the one I do tune in for every week is The Deep 3, which is an excellent basketball podcast (I linked to youtube because I watch them every week, but they're also on spotify/apple/etc.). They have a good mix of long form, in depth discussion in the first half of each episode as well as shorter form, lighter content like tier lists and off the cuff player comparisons in the second half. There are some good jokes here and there and they also often touch on the intersections of basketball and culture (though not necessarily in a deep way). It's nice and light hearted and fun while also having some great analysis of the game. These dudes know ball and I would much, much, much rather listen to them than any basketball "analysis" found on TNT, ESPN, etc. They certainly aren't the only basketball analysts I watch on youtube, though they would be the only ones that fall under podcast territory.
My favorite podcast is probably Science Friday, which invites scientists to talk about their work, frequently on topics that have been in the news recently. News articles tend to sensationalize or misrepresent scientific research, so it's great to hear about things directly from the source.
I also like Planet Money, an NPR podcast about economics. They also frequently have economists or other experts on. I feel like news reporting on economics is often so politically charged that it's hard to trust normal news articles. Hearing from experts is a bit better. I know these kinds of people write articles too, but it's more digestible in podcast form, especially while doing menial work.
When I have some extra time, I like listening to Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, which is a comedy news quiz show on NPR. I feel like I'm getting slightly informed on current events, but it's mostly about the jokes from the host and guest comedians.
One other thing I've been doing lately is using google's notebooklm to generate podcasts for me. I'll feed it a scientific paper or a chapter from a textbook, and it's able to generate a reasonably realistic sounding podcast discussing the topic at a high level.
I don’t listen to many podcasts, but I started recently because I need a daily dose of comedy in my life, especially when I am busy and exhausted. Podcasts seem good for that. The only one I am really listening to lately is Bad Friends with Bobby Lee and Andrew Santino. It is a comedy podcast that sometimes has other comedians on. Silly and outrageous. Probably not for everyone, but it scratches an itch for me that is hard to describe. It makes me feel close to my childhood friends and our childhood spent together.
If anyone is looking for something exotic, there is this podcast that consists of episodes from a 90s Korean radio show whose host died tragically in 2004. It has all the commercials from the time and feels like a blast from the past. They play a wide variety of music from around the world and talk about film (in Korean).
The other podcast I was gonna mention is on the list, so here are the other two I listen to as soon as new episodes happen:
The Off-Menu Podcast (https://www.offmenupodcast.co.uk/ )
Two comedians invite a celebrity guest and ask them their favourite dream menu items. It gets funny, sometimes serious, sometimes deep or nostalgic... I think I've only disliked two episodes ever.
The Taskmaster Podcast ( https://www.taskmaster.tv/podcast ). It's very much based on the show, so if you're not watching the show you'll be lost, but if you are, it a nice way to get more taskmaster after you've seen it all
The only thing I keep up with these days is Friends at the Table. I really love their world-building and the stories they tell. I started listening to their Twilight Mirage season, and it remains one of my favorite Sci-Fi stories to this day.
If shilling my own podcast is acceptable: since 2022 I've been running the GROGPOD Roguelike Podcast where we cover roguelike/roguelite games ranging from recent, super popular ones like Hades or Slay the Spire to ancient, obscure ones like Azure Dreams or Tales of Maj'Eyal.
My three other co-hosts and I have known each other for like 15 years but we each have different preferences for games, so when it comes time to rank them at the end of each episode, opinions can vary wildly. Some of us are more action-game leaning while others more turn-based strategy. It allows us to take those diverse rankings and revisit them at the end of the year for a playoff tournament recap of the games we've covered.
We've also done a number of interviews with roguelike developers ranging from text-based ones, to long-form singular interviews, to roaming the PAX show floor and interviewing lots of devs.
The podcast also takes a summer break session to cover music from roguelike games, which is always fun.