The Best Podcast: A List of the 5 Podcast You Should Be Listening To
- "America through the eyes of 2 American Americans" is how host Seth Romatelli and Jonathan Laroquette (yes, he's the son of TV's John Laroquette (Night Court)) describe their show. What can be said about UYD other than it's the definition of a well done podcast, with a unique and hilarious perspective. In these crazy times that we live in Seth and Jonathan spend an hour each week chronicling the craziness, discussing news stories from around the country that reflect the worst and/or most unbelievable aspects of American society with a thick layer of humor. The only hurdle between realizing how this podcast is consistently good week in and week out, is the little voice in the back of your head that says, "I shouldn't be laughing at this"—it's likely you're already laughing before that happens. The best part about UYD is there are over 200 episodes stretching back to 2006 which means there's always a UYD episode to listen to.
- Who knew comedy was so interesting? Standup comedians aren't just performers or stage monkeys, they're incredibly smart and hardworking artist and what they have to say is more often than not incredibly interesting. There are many podcast that attempt to pull back the curtain, even if just slightly, on the world of a standup comedian, Marc Maron's is the best. Marc Maron is a comedian and apparently has been a difficult personality in the past—that's according to many of the comedians he interviews on his show and Maron himself. But his ability to get comedians to be honest and self revealing is unbelievable. He's gotten Carlos Mencia to come very close to admitting he steals jokes, and Andy Richter to talk about his very troubled, dramatic family. If NPR did an unrated show about comedy where nothing was off limits this would be it. Of course NPR won't ever do that, so thankfully there is WTF with Marc Maron.
- Everyone who's anyone, who's somebody that listens to podcast is aware of Slate Magazine's various gabfest podcasts. There's a political gabfest, culture gabfest, daily gabfest, sports podcast etc... Each podcast features 3 host and tackles three issues a week, discusses and dissecting them from an intellectual angle. The 2 best are the political gabfest and the culture gabfest. The culture gabfest in particular gives a weekly roundup of the cultural landscape in a succinct yet very informative and thought provoking manner. The regular host, Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, Julia Turner, all provide a sophisticated intellectual perspective that would likely come off as snobby were the podcast not interesting and enlightening.
- The Sound of Young America is a podcast that doubles as an actual radio show broadcasting in certain markets on public radio. Host Jesse Thorn might be considered one of the founding fathers of independent podcasting as he has hosted TSOYA with such quality that it enabled him to get the show picked up on actual radio. He still host the show out of his apartment on his own equipment. The show itself is a weekly 30 min interview with comedians, television personalities, authors, and more. Interesting, and to the point. Freakonomics is the title of a book written by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner that explored, as only an economist would, unconventional aspects or " the hidden side of everything" to quote the podcast description—the podcast is an audio follow up of the book. Take everything in the world and think about in a way you've never thought about it. You can't. So just listen to Freakonomics Radio instead.
- The great thing about sports is that it's a debate with no right answers and no consequential outcome. Enter Bill Simmons. Bill Simmons, a sports columnist at ESPN, is described simply as the sports guy. Every time he releases an episode of his podcast it immediately becomes #1 on Itunes top charts, which speaks to the quality of his show and probably to the power and domination of ESPN in sports—but that's another subject for another day. Essentially Simmons is the nerd's sports fan, which is to say he will reference game 2 of the 1984 World Series, or Game 4 of the 1992 NBA Finals, as though his listeners recall each play—real matter of fact. It would be incredibly annoying if he couldn't make it so darn interesting. If you have an interest in any of the 3 major sports in this country, Baseball, Basketball, or Football, Simmons let's you know what's going on, and his encyclopedic knowledge only serves to add to the conversation.
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