Podcasts

Educational/Informational

10 star

• The Economist Audio Edition
  • I can not suggest this enough.  Well worth the money.
  • IMHO it is the best source of world news.
• WNYC’s Ridiolab
  • Science podcast.
  • Entertaining, has high production values.

9 star

• The Teaching Company
  • A bit costly but you can catch course on sale often.
• History According to Bob
  • Various History.
• The History of Rome
  • Not completed yet but so far a complete coverage of Roman history.
• A Short History of Japan
  • Solid and the only audio coverage of Japanese history that I have found.
  • Only up to Sengoku though…
• EconTalk
  • Econ, Russ Roberts a free-market libertarian interviews economist.
  • Slanted but I would say fair.
• The Titanium Physicists
  • Over the top geeky to the point of being cool.
  • Very information dense, well worth the time.

8 star

• The Weekly Weinersmith
  • They talk about science papers.
  • Sometimes they meander a bit to much.
• BBC: Material World
  • Science news.  One of the better ones I have listened to.  Reasonably information dense.
• More or Less: Behind the Stats
  • Undercover Economist – Tim Hartford
• Freakonomics Radio
  • Popular Econ.
• Stuff You Missed in History Class
  • Various shorts on history.
• BBC: In Our Time Archive: History
  • A nice collection of history talks.
• BBC: In Our Time Archive: Philosophy
  • A nice collection of Philosophy primers.
• BBC: In Our Time Archive: Religion
  • A nice collection of history of religion talks.

7 star

• Planet Money
  • Econ, slanted but high production values.
• Astronomy Cast
  • Old episodes are good, the new not so.
• Stuff You Should Know
  • Old episodes are good, the new not so.
• NPR: How to do everything
  • Good.  Kinda of like Stuff you should know was at the start.
• BBC: Arts and Ideas
  • Think NPR’s fresh air.
• BBC: In Our Time Archive: Science
  • A bit simple but a nice collection of podcasts on science topics.
• BBC: In Our Time Archive: Culture
  • A collection of cultural history talks.
• The Big Ideas
  • Philosophy.
• Bloggingheads.tv
  • Mostly politics a bit of science.
  • 30% Great but you need to filter.
• TEDTalks
  • 30% Great but you need to filter.
• TED Education
  • 60% Great.
• Philosophy TV
  • 50% Great.
• Cato Institute Events
  • 30% Great.  70% Libertarian propaganda.

6 star

• Samurai Archives
  • Meandering and Sometimes inaccurate.
• BBC: Best of Natural History Radio
  • Good but in a mainstream format.  This type of thing is better on video.
• BBC: The Radio 3 Documentary
  • It is new and there is only one episode.  It could become very good or become superfluous.
• BBC: Documentaries
  • Good but very much mainstream media.  Think 60 minutes.
  • All episodes are archived
  • There also is a Documentary of the week.

5 star

• The Bugle
  • Funny news, but there are faster ways to consume your news.
• BBC: The Art of Monarchy
  • Historic but at times meandering and information sparse.
• BBC: Shakespeare’s Restless World
  • Great in places but overall slow.
• BBC: A History of Mozart in a Dozen Objects
  • Ok, much like the above Shakespeare podcast.
• BBC: Witness Archive 2010
  • “History as told by the people who were there.”
  • Nice but information sparse.

  4 star

• BBC: Excess Baggage
  • Some are about travel and are great.  More often though they are conversational commentaries on a region.
• BBC: A Point of View
  • An editorial.  Overall very superfluous.
  • I did though rather like the ones by David Cannadin.  He speaks more to history than to opinion.  I expect tough that listening to Lisa Jardine talk about Email Etiquette would be a large waste of time.
• BBC: Desert Island Discs Archive: 2005-2011
  • A celebrity interview.  Superfluous.
  • “Castaways choose eight records, a book and a luxury to take with them to the mythical desert island.”
  • Also for rights reasons they only play a short segment of the song.

3 star

• Science… sort of
  • Information sparse.
• The Verge Podcast
  • Information sparse.
• On The Media
  • Slanted, Information sparse, and not very good.
• BBC: Thinking Allowed
  • So so, very meandering.  The title is accurate.
• BBC: 60 Second Idea to Improve the World
  • Mostly editorial.  Often superfluous.

2 star

• BBC: Reith Lectures Archive: 1976-2010
  • Very information sparse.  Mostly bullshit.
  • A sad betrayal because they are labeled as lectures.

1 star

• Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History
  • Dreadful.  Not really history, more of a rant.
  • This guys tells history the way Glen Beck does.
• Dan Carlin’s Common Sense Podcast
  • Again reminds me of Glen Beck.
  • To much like talk radio.  This guy just blathers on and on.

Entertainment

10 star

• The New Yorker Fiction podcast – Short Stories
• PRI: Selected Shorts – Short Stories
• The Moth – True Stories Told Live

9 star

• This American Life
  • Loved by many, great production values.
• The Truth
  • Movies for your ears.
• The Memory Palace
  • Radio Drama.
• RE:SOUND @ Third Coast Festival
  • Very much like This American Life.
• 99% Invisible
  • Short, focused on architecture and design.
• NPR: Tiny Desk Concerts Podcast (web video)
  • I don’t listen to this all the time and in general don’t listen to music review podcasts so take this nine with a grain of salt.  That said I think this is a good one.

8 star

• Snap Judgment
  • Good, grows on you.

 7 star

• Love + Radio
  • Radio Drama.

6 star

• StoryCorps
  • “National project to instruct and inspire people to record each others’ stories in sound.”
  • The best part is that it is short but they get melodramatic.

5 star

• How Sound
  • Slanted, Mike Daisy Apologist.

4 star

3 star

• Wiretap
  • Just not very good.
• Too Much Information
  • Just not very good.

2 star

• BBC: Drama of the Week
  • I wanted to like the one played by David Tennant but did not.
  • The rest is even worse.  Very melodramatic.

1 star

• The Hackney Podcast
  • Somehow this got on my list of podcasts to try.  It fails to be interesting and it is defiantly a waste of time.

Unrated

• N/A

 

My rating system:
10: You must listen to.
09: Very good. Well worth your time.
08: Worth your time.
07: Good but perhaps not worth your time.
06: Good but probably not worth your time.
05: Pleasant pulp but not worth the time.
04: Not worth the time.
03: A bad waist of time.
02: A painful waist of time.
01: A painful waist of time. May cause damage.

Advertisement