I consume dozens of hours of podcast content a week. I use the default Apple Podcasts app on iPhone and play them all on 2x speed. I wish there was a 2.5 or 3x speed option and I’m told there is on another podcast playing app out there but I’ve always used Apple’s app and changing to another at this point is a hassle of a new trick that this old dog hasn’t taken the effort to investigate. You probably don’t want to listen at even 1.5x speed, however. While I pine for a quicker way to download the information from these shows into my brain, 100% of the people I play podcast clips at 2x speed don’t like it or flat out can’t understand the dialogue that way. I’m sure it has something to do with how much better I am than everyone else, but the point of mentioning it in this context is just to note that the speed increase is only for a small percentage of you.
Here some that I listen to as of the year 2019, with info about them that you can use as to whether you might want to listen to them also.
Human Interest Stories
RadioLab
This public radio show from New York about science, research, and sociological impact angles sounds like the most boring thing a person could be forced to listen to but I promise you that it is in fact a very easy listen, structured with an eye towards retaining interest and edited down to contain mostly just the good parts and hardly any superfluous snoozery. The only thing I sometimes find irritating about it is a standard radio talk structure that you/most people will probably think makes it more, not less, enjoyable, and that is the sort of Sesame Street style format where one of the hosts often plays the role of the viewer in experiencing the information they’re delivering for the first time, needing the other host or correspondent to unroll the information not just to the audience but to them, so we’re all part of the learning process together. Meh. but its a pretty decent show.
Planet Money (from NPR)
Covering financial stories in an educational and entertaining way, this is truly a show that is interesting and informative. They do exactly the standard info-unroll format I mentioned about RadioLab, but I’ve never found it quite as staged, so it never bothers me. This show takes boring issues that only economists find interesting as broad topics and fluff it up enough into engaging human interest stories that subversively inform you along the way.
99% Invisible
A smooth voiced host with a dope name guides through stories that orbit around design and sociological impacts and implications on innovations and audio-visual changes, nuances, and choices that may not immediately appear logical.
Interesting & Insightful interviews
The Joe Rogan Experience
The first 5 to 10 minutes is typically dedicated to one live-read advertisement for that episodes sponsors and what follows is a 1 to 3 hour open discussion with a guest that is always interesting and entertaining no matter the subject.
“Your Welcome” with Michael Malice
As the superfluous quotes and misspelling of the show name hints at – Michael is an eccentric personality whose interview style comes with lots of ribbing of his guest and trolling his audience, making the issues he discusses with his counterpart he’s talking with for each episode a more flavorful blend than most in this format. Malice is particularly interested in motives and cause-effect dynamics and scratching those surfaces is a unique angle not many others take to their examinations into the issues they talk about with the personalities they have on.
The Rubin Report with Dave Ruben
Rubin’s style is very much in the mold of Larry King where its mostly just a smooth chat that prompts the other person to talk and tell more, rather than do much by way of arguing or even really challenging them too much. Rubin is a gay atheist who used to be a host at the Left-wing The Young Turks network and is now an anti-Left Libertarian, which might irk you especially since he doesn’t argue a lot, so if you’re looking for something rabidly political, his stuff isn’t it, but if you’re interested in hearing some interesting minds and personalities talk about their work and their views (with light pushback when applicable) then its a good listen.
Honorable Mention:
Unregistered with Thadius Russell
Comedic Banter
Get off My Lawn with Gavin McInnes
My favorite living entertainer, McInnes is above all an irreverent unfiltered Scotch-Canadian who loves America and is annoyed by this stupid world we live in, which is why I like him as a personality. Look him up and you’ll see him smeared as a bigot (spoiler: he’s not, at any level or any way even close, except sometimes about feminist women) or at least a wildly offensive comic (or many times they’ll cut out the comedy part to make him look and sound scarier) who is endlessly fired from every media gig he’s ever had and this type of fiery personality is present in his annoyed-dad style rants and monolauges. The flavor of the show ranges from having a conversation-at-a-bar tone to more of a traditional vlog or video caster style but also delivers lulz from a unique point of view that is part punk rock, part annoyed libertarian, part anti-establishment progressive, part traditionalist establishmentarian, and part family man standup comedian.
The Adam Carolla Show
Adam is a quirky dude with a high octane brain and his show is a showcase for it. Absolutely no living comedian besides myself (*deep sniff*) has the talent of going on a hilarious and witty jag on any random topic the way Carolla is able to completely off the cuff, and those are the moments where the show really shines. You’ll swear to yourself that it had to have been pre-prepared. Unlike many podcasts who feature sidekicks and guest stars for most of its content, enjoying this show requires enjoying Adam Carolla. If you tune in to an episode with a guest you particularly like hoping to hear that guest talk, you will be disappointed. This is an “Adam rants about stuff” show and the guests, the callers, and the 2 cohosts (Bald Bryan and Gina Grad) are only there to serve as prompts for Adam to launch into monologues about a given subject they raise. Yes, Adam talks about his cars too much (subjecting the listener to hearing extended segments of his racing at times for some bizarre reason, despite him having a dedicated CarCast podcast to talk about that subject), and yes you will hear the same stories repeated many times, and yes the other people won’t be doing very much talking – but that’s part of the charm of the show because at its heart, its a show about a smart brain who was never encouraged and was largely ignored growing up, who now has a few million dollars and a microphone and steers the topics and conversations accordingly (so in other words – even the annoying aspects of the program get diffused by being interesting quirks of the hosts personality profile on display).
Fitzdog Radio
Greg Fitzsimmons is a comedian who’s been around since the 90s and his delivery and personality is similar but mirror-image’d reversal to Get of My Lawn with Gavin McInnes in that where Gavin is more libertarian, Fitz is Left/Progressive, Gavin is more brash and Fitz is calm NPR-voiced, Gavin is a straight up alcoholic and Fitz has been sober for 20something years or more. They both talk about the ups and downs with their families in very similar tones, they both are fearless, and both can riff in hilarious ways. Sorry to make Fitzdogs description all about comparing him to another show but these are the reasons I enjoy it enough to recommend.
Doug Loves Movies
This show is the audio of live performances by Doug Benson and 3 comedian guest stars who join him in talking about movies and playing The Leonard Maltin Game which is a twist on “name that tune” in where the guests must name the movie and as many cast members as they can given only the year of the films release and some unhelpful excerpt from film critic Leanard Maltins review of it. It’s a “hang” show whose appeal is joining the fun as if you were there hanging out with the host and guests and since they’re all comedians, the side banter usually offers enough lolz to keep things interesting.
News Reporting and Analysis
Tim Pool Daily Show
(audio of youtube show / Center-Left)
While host, Tim Pool, himself leans heavily left-wing, he balances that out by covering topics most lefties ignore, making him a unique reporter and voice to listen to as he confronts many of the issues the Right finds important, without really advocating for them ideologically. He will also frequently cover problems within the side he ideologically agrees with more, giving a unique angle and honesty to the commentary and story choice.
The Five (audio of Fox News Show / Center-rightwing)
The show features Greg Gutfeld (the gem of the show, a libertarian humor-centric commentator), Juan Williams (former NPR host, and the shows only Left-wing advocate), Dana Perino (former Bush administration press secretary who occasionally has some interesting things to say), and Jesse Watters (a predictably conservative hack who is mostly bland as a pundit) and the 5th host is a rotating guest role. Admittedly, that description doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement, yet somehow, the show works really well as a news coverage outlet. Despite being lopsided to the right in terms of ideological vantage point of the hosts, the actual substance doesn’t lean heavily right-wing politically.
Hardball with Chris Matthews (audio of MSNBC Show / Center-Left)
Similar to the subverted expectation of The Five’s ideological bend, Hardball isn’t as loudly left-wing as you might expect despite its Democrat Progressive host on most-Left-leaning news net MSNBC. Aside from Matthews opining here and there about Republicans and Conservatives being wrong on an issue philosophically or dangerous to a Progressive vision, his analysis and the directions he steers the conversations with his guests are more politically structure focused than they are biased, making for a pretty centrist take on current events.
Political News Analysis (Left-wing)
Skullduggery
The hosts (Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman) come from a Leftist angle but aren’t obnoxious about it. Broadcast by Yahoo News, the hosts mostly cover scandals and criticisms of President Trump and his administration.
The Mother Jones Podcast
Guests chat about how scary they find the Trump administration along with a more eclectic basket of international issues and human interest stories orbiting around the environment, foreign policy, and perspectives of the personalities they feature, all emanating from and coming back to a Leftist perspective that frames each issue discussed.
Real Time with Bill Maher
(audio from the HBO show), I don’t find the actual show stimulating enough to watch but the audio version that I can play at 2x speed is a good listen for the interview and panel sections even if they suffer from the same problem as truncated cable news segments where too many people have to get too much of an amount of talking into a short segment that is open-talk and unedited.
Political News Analysis (Libertarian)
Dave Smith’s Part of the Problem
Comedian Dave Smith covers news items in an always entertaining and insightful way from the perspective of anti-war/civil liberty/personal freedom angle. Dave is my age and in many ways an alternate universe version of myself had I stayed living on the east coast. His riffs are funny but his surprisingly astute rebuttals and dissections of current events are what really make it the top of this section.
The Tom Woods Show
Woods is a Libertarian thinker that is also one of the most prolific political podcasters out there with daily shows covering all kinds of topics and approaching them with an educational tone about freedom from government constraints that you don’t see around many other places.
Contra Krugman
This one is only for the wonks. Each episode responds to NY Times Columnist Paul Krugmans columns and takes a Liberty filtered analysis to the things wrong about Krugmans takes.
Political News Analysis (Right-wing)
The Ben Shapiro Show
Of course I’m gonna listen to and recommend my good friend Ben Shapiro’s daily show on here. Ben is – and I say this with only affection – a total nerd, and that’s part of his charm. His glowering facial expression is audible in his voice with his “facts don’t care about your feelings” approach to the issues and sometimes his jokes are a little stiff, but his knowledge about political matters both current and historical always make for interesting commentary on the subjects he analyzes on the air.
The Dennis Prager Show
A commercial-free version of his daily 3 hour radio show that is, unfortunately a subscription-only product, but its worth it. Aside from weekly hours dedicated to the topics of Happiness (specifically its psychological, moral, and emotional components), “Ultimate Issues” (covering philosophical conundrums), and the Male & Female Hour (meditations on gender studies, sex, and sexual dimorphisms on display in patterns of behavior) – Pragers show is more lively and a lot less stuffy than you’d expect from a traditionalist, conservative, orthodox jewish, host in his (60s?)
Louder with Crowder
Steven Crowder hosts a late night tv style show with sketches, interviews, and monologues on news items and recent controversies. Crowder has grown a lot in recent years as a personality and as a comedian. His on camera demeanor used to rub me the wrong way but I appreciated his moxy anyway, but recently he’s gotten a lot better on screen and as an audio broadcaster.
Raunchy/Offensive Conversation
The Anthony Cumia Show
The funny half of “The Opie & Anthony Show” has been doing a stand alone video show whose podcast is made available for awhile and it still entertains. He brings other personalities and comedians on with his excellent (read: funny) co-host Dave Landau for an hour of riffing on personal stories, current events, controversies, viral videos, and Vlog style rants about life in NYC or at home at his “Compound” (a mansion in Long Island where he started the show in his basement before moving to a studio in the city).
Legion of Skanks
Comedians Big Jay Oakerson, Luis J Gomez, and the previously mentioned on this list Dave Smith plus a guest or two cover personal stories and random topics in a seeming competition with each other to say the most fkked up things possible.
In Hot Water
Probably the most offensive show that has ever been broadcast. I wanted to hate this show because they stole (read: they got to market before I did) the series name from something I was planning, but if you like outrageous offensiveness then you will laugh your head off.
The Church of whats Happening Now with Joey Diaz
Joey CoCo Diaz chats with a guest and free flows observations and musings from his life, past and present, with the most absurd and nasty details peppered throughout that you can’t help but laugh at the sheer shock of wtf you just heard a human being say.
Crazy Streams of Consciousness
The Duncan Trussel Family Hour
Stand-up Comedian Duncan Trussel, usually with a guest, explores topics from a very “spiritual” hippie psychedelic philosophical angle unlike any other host or show you’re likely to find.
Why didn’t they Laugh with Owen Benjamin
Owen is a talented comedian and piano player. He is also completely cuckoo bananas. He legit doesn’t think we landed on the moon and to be honest, that’s one of his more tame theories that he passionately and very confidently preaches (and preaches is the right word for his delivery) on. He is musically talented as a pianist, very politically incorrect to the point of zig zagging in and out of actual-offensive thoughts and musings in these unscripted streams, and his rants get weirder and more incredulous all the time. but that’s why I tune in when I do.
Alex Jones’ InfoWars
Jones has been banned from Apple Podcasts and Spotify so his show requires an extra step to listen to, which I don’t anymore for that reason, but it’s worth a try. Don’t come expecting cogent and insightful news analysis, and don’t believe the veracity of any claims he makes without thoroughly checking them yourself – but if you enjoy a good streaming consciousness rant, then Jones is undeniably entertaining.
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