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[title]Everyone has a long list of podcasts they’ve been meaning to get around to, but haven’t quite found the time as yet. Well, with Sydney’s lockdown looking to last considerably longer than anyone expected, there has never been a better time to dig into that audio To Do pile.
Even better, podcasts are compatible with other lockdown activities, like upping your wine subscription frequency, vaguely working out to compensate, alphabetising your regrets, and staring into the middle distance. So, the next time you’re doing any (or all) of those, slip one of these gems on in the background and forget about it.
Unravel True Crime: Juanita
Featuring investigative work from some of our finest journalists, all five seasons of the ABC’s Unravel podcast are well worth a spin. Each digs deep into a different unsolved Australian crime. The latest is a must for Sydneysiders, as it deals with the disappearance of journalist and activist Juanita Nielsen in 1975. A vocal proponent of tenants’ rights and heritage preservation, Nielsen vanished in the middle of a high-profile stoush with organised crime figures over real estate development in King’s Cross. This series picks at the underbelly of the city's crime, corruption, politics and bloody murder – just the thing to make you glad you can’t go outside. TJ
This American Life
If you’ve got a short attention span but still love a good story, look no further. Hosted by beloved American broadcaster Ira Glass, the podcast tackles a different theme each week, and the episodes are split into several stories that are usually around ten to fifteen minutes long. Sometimes you’ll laugh, sometimes you’ll cry, but each episode you will definitely feel something. My personal favourite episodes are ‘Fiasco!’, a collection of hilarious stories where everything just seems to go wrong, and ‘Island Time,’ which provides in-depth analysis of the billions of dollars that have been given to Haiti and why aid and money directed at the country hasn’t seemed to work so well. There are more than 700 episodes to try on, so you’ll surely find a few that pique your interest. AM
Keep It!
Just finished watching an incredible TV show and want to talk to someone about it? Keep It! Is your weekly dose of pop culture minutiae delivered by some of the shed's sharpest tools. Tune in to Ira Madison III, Louis Virtel and Aida Osman as they discuss the week’s biggest (and often, pettiest) cultural moments. From viral tweets to problematic film plots, the trio take it on through a distinctly queer and predominantly POC lense. It’s like eavesdropping on the funniest people at the party talking shit with an encyclopedic roster of pop cultural references in their arsenal. Keep It! also has an on-point guest interview in the middle of the episode too. CF
Triple J Hack
Avani Dias hosts this five-day-a-week current affairs podcast from covering events and issues of particular interest to young adults. The show has really come into its own during the current crisis, not only relaying vital information about lockdowns, travel restrictions, and health advisories but also fielding questions and concerns from listeners and advocating for financial relief for sectors with heavy youth employment, including hospitality and the arts. Prime Minister Scott Morrison and opposition leader Anthony Albanese have both recently appeared, which is a testament to Hack’s profile and reach. TJ
NPR Code Switch
American public radio network NPR’s Code Switch, which is hosted by journalists of colour, tackles the subject of race and the role of ’code-switching’ in daily life with humour and empathy. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of code-switching, it refers to when a speaker adjusts the way they speak or express themselves to optimise the comfort of the listener. It’s often used by people of colour as a survival skill to navigate and succeed in a majority-white workplace. You’ll learn about the importance of your name when it comes to assimilation, what it means to have light-skinned privilege and the quiet insidiousness of asking someone where they’re ‘really’ from. Add this podcast to your rotation and it may help you see things from a different perspective. AM
You Are Not So Smart
This podcast should be your first stop on your journey to avoiding Dunning-Kruger Syndrome, as host David McRainey breaks down the many horrifying ways your brain tries to trick you. Every episode explains a way in which nominally smart people believe or indulge in a whole lot of nonsense for a variety of psychological, biological, and behavioural reasons: confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, pattern-seeking and more. It’s a fascinating and often unsettling look at how we often simply aren’t wired to perceive the world correctly or draw the right conclusions from what we do perceive, and if nothing else provides a suite of useful tools to stop you from looking like an idiot on social media. TJ
Hit Parade
If you have “music nerd” in your Tinder bio this podcast is absolutely for you. Chris Molanphy is a music chart analyst who gives the hits of history an extraordinary amount of contextual care. Each lengthy episode takes a deep dive into an artist or moment in music history and unpacks their popularity (or as Molanphy calls it their “Imperial Period”) in an exceptionally entertaining way. Start your journey with the big hitters: Whitney Houston, Elton John and George Michael, Donna Summer and Stevie Wonder then follow the threads deep into the weeds, like when rap became singing, how Yacht Rock rode the waves, and a surprisingly moving two-parter about the links between REM and the B-52s. Every episode is aural gold, even when you least expect it (looking at you, episode about Bon Jovi). CF
Stuff You Should Know
Launched in 2008, this gem sees former HowStuffWorks senior editors Josh Clark and Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant tackling a variety of different topics, with the aim being to give the listener a basic working knowledge of the subject at hand. What kind of subjects, we hear you ask? Science, history, pop culture, the odd dash of urban legend and conspiracy theories, and heaps more. Think of it as Cliffs Notes for being an intriguing dinner party guest, or at least making sure you don’t come across as absolutely pig-ignorant when the conversation topic changes. TJ
Hardcore History
It can seem like the world isin a bit of a mess right now. Perhaps you need to put our current travails into a historical perspective? In which case Dan Carlin is your man. As a history fan (he insists he’s not a historian) he takes meticulously detailed, endlessly fascinating deep dives into some of the most pivotal events on record. How meticulous and how deep? Well, his latest series, Supernova in the East, which covered the fight against Japan in World War II, ran for five parts, each about four to six hours long. Don’t be put off, though. Carlin has a knack for making the sweep of time super-accessible. TJ
Still Processing
It’s a known podcast gag that the form is largely populated by two white guys with microphones. Their voices take up a huge amount of space, particularly when it comes to talking about movies, music and TV. Enter Still Processing, a culture podcast helmed by NY Times writers Wesley Morris and Jenna Wortham, both queer POC, who rake through a chosen topic per episode with the mind-blowing detail of a memorable essay. The show’s edge comes from the explicit emotional investment of its two hosts, they imbue each topic with a razor sharp perspective unlike any podcast in the “entertainment” category while demonstrating a robust care and warmth for one another and the listener. Give them all the microphones! CF
WTF with Marc Maron
One of the best interviewers currently working, comedian Marc Maron has been interviewing people in his garage twice a week since 2009. What began as him talking to other funny folks about the craft of comedy has subsequently evolved into one of the most essential cultural podcasts on the planet. Maron has a knack for getting his interview subjects to really open up in a candid and forthright manner, giving us rare insight into everyone from Robin Williams to Iggy Pop, to then-President Barack Obama, who joined Maron in his garage studio in 2015. TJ
The Dollop
This long-running comedy podcast hosted by Dave Anthony has him shock and appall his unwitting buddy Gareth Reynolds with wild tales from history – and quite recent history sometimes, as a three-part series on Donald Trump demonstrates. The fun here is really in listening to Reynolds’ absolute horror at some of the crimes that prominent people have simply gotten away with, with the pair generally being able to draw strong parallels with recent headlines even when they do jump back quite far. As a bonus for listeners, the duo cover local history when they tour here, often inviting Wil Anderson as a guest host – the ‘Emu War’ episode alone is worth the price of admission. TJ
Behind the Bastards
If you need to vent, this one's for you. Hosted by journalist Robert Evans, the podcast dishes the dirt on some of the worst humans ever to walk the Earth. Armed with impeccable research and a winningly conversational narrative style, Evans cuts through the PR and goes straight to the on-the-record facts to give you the true story of everyone from Joseph Stalin to Ben Shapiro. Want to know how a pulp novelist founded a religion? Check out the L. Ron Hubbard episode. Keen to learn how a fascist movement thrived in Britain even at the dawn of World War II? The one on Oswald Mosley is for you. TJ
My Favourite Murder
Hosts Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark have invited a vast audience of “murderinos” on a journey into the heart of darkness since 2016 with their bi-weekly true crime podcast. Debuting with a double header covering the murder of child beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey and the predations of the Golden State Killer, it crashed into the upper echelons of the podcast charts and stayed there, quickly establishing a reputation as the true crime ‘cast du jour. With over 5000 episodes and “minisodes” to date, anyone with a penchant for the macabre has a lot of listening hours ahead of them. TJ
One Heat Minute
Australian film critic and scholar Blake Howard loves director Michael Mann’s 1995 crime opus Heat so much that he decided to spend a good portion of his life on creating a podcast that would analyse it minute-by-minute. Inviting a variety of guests – including Time Out Sydney arts editor Stephen A Russell – it culminated in Mann himself joining Howard for the final episode. An impressive and exhaustive act of analysis and fandom, Howard’s has since tackled All the President’s Men, The Last of the Mohicans, Zodiac and more. His next will navigate Peter Weir’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. TJ