Podcasts

YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine on the planet, which algorithmically suggests related vids to people.

Can’t hurt.

Once you become accustomed to hearing sped up podcasts normal speed feels like being stuck in a dream where you’re trying to run and your legs don’t work

A friend turned me on to Cocaine & Rhinestones last weekend and I've done three episodes now. They're looooong, and the host/narrator is kind of awkward, but if you want deeeeeeep dives into facets of the history of 20th century country music, this seems like the one to hit up.

Tyler Mahan Coe, the host/narrator, is apparently David Allan Coe's kid it turns out.

i might be into that

of course i want him to do a two-hour episode on the making of red-headed stranger

something else from me - i present a bit of behind the scenes of a new(-ish) BBC podcast thriller: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05vytrj

xp Thanks for linking this, I enjoyed the episode (based around "The Pill") about the gender bias of country music radio bans.

Listening to that one now.

JFC the one on the Judds is insane.

I gather the one about Spade Cooley is even more fucked up than that one, so I'm kind of saving it for last.

https://www.wired.com/story/apple-podcast-analytics-first-month/

I don't know if it's because I am so used to the style of NPR/American podcasts, but I sure do love a lot of the arts & culture shows on BBC Radio 3 & 4. Jarvis Cocker's show about the night (Wireless Nights) is pretty great.

I recently discovered The Organist, produced by NPR/KCRW in collaboration with Mcsweeney's. Great weirdo artsy podcast, sort of like the newsmagazine version of Love & Radio. Recently did shows on Firesign Theatre and vintage experimental radio advertisements. Through them I also found out about The World According To Sound, a 180 second podcast where every episode focus on one unusual/evocative sound.

I'll also mention the podcast I produce/musically score: Solutions To Problems (https://www.stppodcast.com/). It's a fictional Dear Abby, set in space.

Interesting premise.

wow thanks for these Michael

which r4/r3 podcasts do you like especially? and what is it about them that's refreshing when set next to american ones? (he says with not entirely non-professional interest?)

I confess: I'm a bit of a podcast addict. I've just looked at the R3/R4 ones I listen to and realised I sound a bit mental: In Our Time, The Essay, the Arts & Ideas Podcast (formerly Night Waves), the Infinite Monkey Cage, the Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry, David Baddiel Tries to Understand, the History Hour, Soul Music, Seriously and the Documentary.

Current other favourites for me include the (recently returned) Adam Buxton podcast (with an interview with PTA), Revolutions (currently on a mammoth recounting of the Paris Commune) and Russell Brand's Under the Skin interviews.

Tracer, I think it's mainly a matter of taste in the end, but sometimes I just want something that leans a bit more artsy/cerebral yet still is engaging. Most hosts/shows at NPR sound very warm/engaging/accessible, which can lead to a lot of great storytelling and conversations, but doesn't take a lot of risks with their audience or format. I think if you compare NPR's popular quiz show "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" to BBC's "Brain Of Britain" or Round Britain Quiz, you can hear a bit what I'm talking about. I can't imagine something like that fascinatingly trippy "Three Second Rule" episode of BBC's Between The Ears ever being greenlit on U.S. radio. I like poetry, math/statistics, contemporary art, and some philosophy, all of which seems to be covered better and in more depth by BBC shows such as In Our Time, Start The Week, The Philosopher's Arms, The Radio 3 Documentary, The Essay, Arts & Ideas, More Or Less, etc.

This is not to say that BBC doesn't have it's own ring of overly dry, overly niche shows, and that freeform/independent US radio stations like WFMU or KPFA aren't awesome and inspiring. Any station that lets their DJ do live sound collages is more than alright in my book (See long-running shows like Over The Edge, Puzzling Evidence, Ken's Last Ever Radio Extravaganza, others.)

lot of talk abt radio shows, not native podcasts, in the last few posts

worthy distinction

This is true. But w/o podcasts I wouldn’t be able to listen to these shows in the first place, unless I was really good at using a world band radio.

you could use the iPlayer radio app :)

it is not as handy tho

I used to listen to BBC radio online before RSS was even invented

I used to listen to BBC radio before online was invented

Can anyone recommend some podcast drama? I have a long standing love of BBC radio drama, But never explored much beyond the BBC.

i hate pretty much all audio drama. homecoming was good though. season 1. try it. i would also love some suggestions.

there's a ton of dr who dramas from big finish that some people rep for. you could try that if you're a whovian. i listened to the trailer for the new Wolverine thing but i don't think it's for me.

Podcast drama: I like Within The Wires a lot, they just finished their second season. First series is told through a series of subversive relaxation cassettes, second series is through a series of audio guides to museums. I also like The Far Meridian and Greater Boston, both of which have a bit of a surreal/dream logic element to their narratives.

i like far meridian thanks!

i tried within the wires a couple of months ago and got impatient with it - i will give it another chance

i find myself getting impatient with a lot of podcasts tbh

Any good podcasts that interview smaller-time musicians beyond the NPR-related shows, getting into talking about making music? Marc Maron's interview with Ty Segall a couple of years ago was really good and in the ballpark.

No Effects (specializes in '00s indie/Brooklyn musicians, hosted by one of the members of Tanlines)
The Trap Set (drummers)
Secret Skin (specializes in indie rappers, hosted by Open Mike Eagle)
The Wandering Wolf (mostly musicians, hosted by the dude from Why?)
Kinda Neat (L.A. rappers mostly)

Turned Out A Punk (hosted by the singer of Fucked Up)
Kreative Kontrol (lots of Canadians)

Song Exploder

lol there was that rick rubin / malcolm gladwell podcast that came out in november and still hasn't had another episode

578 ratings

I love Song Exploder, I wish each episode was 3x as long. what about Album Exploder. i'm all in. patreon, whatever. let's go

Any suggestions for particularly good Song Exploder eps? I usually only tune in when it is a musician I like, and the few times I've tried listening to some band I've never heard of before I've also found the episodes to be lacking. There have been eps with bands that I like that I didn't enjoy also, but I'm less likely to take a risk on a band I don't know after a few bad tries I guess. Ones I've really enjoyed include Grimes, Carly Rae Jepsen, and Lorde.

this is the one that got me hooked: http://songexploder.net/the-microphones

The Onion have just launched the "A Very Fatal Murder" podcast

https://www.theonion.com/episode-1-a-perfect-murder-1822346450

Holy shit this is good, even the live-reads for subscription food boxes.

A Very Fatal Murder sends Onion Public Radio (OPR) correspondent David Pascall from New York City to the sleepy town of Bluff Springs, Nebraska to investigate the mysterious death of a 17-year-old girl, Hayley Price. Hayley was a popular, smart animal lover, with a bright future ahead of her. Everyone in town knew her name, and now everyone in town is a suspect. Join David as he works to understand why the initial investigation of Hayley’s death failed, and how a very inquisitive and Pulitzer-hungry podcast host might shed new light on the case.

there are lots of good song exploders--the recent one with ?uestlove was excellent.

The Trent Reznor episode was pretty fascinating

yeah that one was great.

also Song Exploder is SO good at changing the way you listen to that same song afterwards. You can hear so many more of the elements that they talk about once they're pointed out, it's so cool

Celebration Rock can be okay--his thing seems to be having an artist on to talk about another artist's work, like recently Craig Finn was on to talk about Joe Strummer and now he has a series going about Springsteen with Brian Fallon talking about Greetings and TWTIATESS and Jeff Rosenstock on Born to Run. In the past he had Dan Bejar on to talk about 80s Dylan.

Song Exploder sometimes has the weird effect of making me like a track less, or being disappointed about how the whole came together after hearing about the process and the cool little elements.

god song exploder is the most overrated thing in the world. so superficial - no dig-deep or fascination, just banal gloss (unless the interviewee is naturally forthcoming). it's the crummy version of an excellent thing

Listened to all of "A Very Fatal Murder" last night, starts out as just a satire of "serial" and similar podcasts, but as it got more and more absurd it just kept getting funnier.

lmao

Haley Price was a typical 17-year-old with clear skin when she was killed. She was a high achiever, a debate champion, a prom queen, a doting girlfriend. But she also excelled at being murdered.

Didn't want to harsh on the 'sploder but Sean Grammo is so OTM. It's such a great concept but done so poorly.

god song exploder is the most overrated thing in the world. so superficial - no dig-deep or fascination, just banal gloss (unless the interviewee is naturally forthcoming). it's the crummy version of an excellent thing

― sean gramophone, Tuesday, February 13, 2018 10:42 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is true for some of them, but it's dependent on the guest imo. Like the Courtney Barnett one- it's mostly about how the song was written, what inspired it, which is interesting enough, but the shit I want is Phil Elverum explaining how he had a song in G and he broke up the notes of all the chords and voiced them individually and how he got that ocean-scraping percussion sound. like, total nerd shit. the Grimes one is equally good for this reason. but I still wish they were like an hour long.

Yeah, the ones that I've taken a chance on that flubbed were all like "and I wanted to write this song about a relationship that blah blah blah" whereas Grimes talks about pitching a dentist drill sample down to match her 808 and then hard-panning it. And it wouldn't even have to be weirdo innovative stuff like Grimes or the Microphones necessarily(which btw I listened to and enjoyed yesterday - thanks). Just more nitty gritty like that.

Yeah, “A Very Fatal Murder” is great, and you can hear the whole thing in like 35 mins

xpost

but why not talk more about HOW or WHY that decision - about the other alternatives s/he considered or what they like about what they chose?

even the Grimes one or whatever feel like a surface-level eHow article about making a song

i mean ehow is useful when you want to fix a dishwasher but