Podcast Recommendations

[The King's Flight to the Scots]

Hi,

It's this fool again. I was really pleased by the webcomics thread, so I wanted to build on the momentum with this one. What podcasts, of any kind, do you guys listen to? Which are the funniest? Which ones are on subjects that might be especially fun for quizbowl people?

I'm not an expert on this subject, so I'll just start with the areas I really know. For basketball, the best ones to listen to are the Lowe Post and Dunc'd On. If you're just starting, Zach Lowe is the man. He's easygoing, he gets plenty of high-profile guests, and he explains the game in a manner accessible to most anyone. He's also a trivia buff, so occasionally he'll put in a full-on quiz segment that's great if you're in QB - one time he devoted half an interview with the Trailblazers GM to a Seinfeld lightning round.

If you're an intermediate or advanced basketball person, though, Dunc'd On is probably superior. Nate Duncan devotes more attention than Zach Lowe to tactical details, both on court and in the CBA. As a lawyer, he also brings a more argumentative tone to his podcasts. Duncan is way more willing than Lowe to say a coach or player sucks, or that a star has gone into decline, or that a team totally screwed up free agency. Because he makes unconventional arguments that synthesize advanced stats with the eye test, you can learn a ton from him even if you don't agree.

Anyway, I don't know much of what else is out there in the podcast world; please enlighten me! I'm looking forward to hearing what you guys have to share.

[AKKOLADE]

More to come later, but the F Plus is a vulgar yet enjoyable recap of terrible aspects of the Internet.

[LHDoroschuk]

I love those basketball podcasts. The Bill Simmons podcast is a fun sports podcast too, but it is less geared towards Xs and Os, plus he has celebrities and stuff on the podcast.

I've been listening to the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast since high school. It's one of my favorites of all time. If you're not familiar with him, he's probably most famous now as the former host of Fear Factor and the main color commentator for the UFC. He's a super self-aware meathead who loves bringing on really cool people to talk about really cool stuff. You can generally divide the episodes into Fight Sports stuff, Comedy stuff, or an Interesting People section. If you're into comedy or fight sports JRE is a must for the interviews. He also just brings on really interesting people, like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Kid Cudi, and Wim Hof just to name a few off the top of my head. He's not afraid of bringing on really controversial figures. For example, he did an interview with Peter Duesberg, who basically argues that HIV is caused by excessive drug use. I put it on when I play games or study or whatever. As far as selling points for Joe himself, I think his insights on the world of fight sports, as well as the comedy industry and things like living with fame and stuff, are absolutely astounding at times.

I like listening to "History of" type podcasts, again, when I'm playing video games or studying. History of Rome with Mike Duncan is a classic. Dan Carlin's Hardcore History is fantastic, but he only puts out a few episodes per year. I'm currently listening to Peter Adamson's The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, which is fun if you like quirky, mild-mannered philosophy professors.

A lot of comedian's have podcasts these days, so if you're a fan of one, check them out to see if they have one.

If you like movies and television, Marc Maron's WTF podcast has got to be one of the best. He's amazing at getting candid interviews out of his guests. For example, his podcasts with Aubrey Plaza and Louis C.K. stand out as far as classic interviews go. I also remember he had a good one with Paul Thomas Anderson too. He does have a paywall for old stuff, but I've found his old interviews online for free anyway.

[cchiego]

Revolutions, by Mike Duncan, is superb. Excellent histories of the English Civil War, the French Revolution, and now the Haitian Revolution (current season). The American Revolution was a bit disappointing, but that could be because I'm most familiar with that case. He's also the original History of Rome podcaster and those, especially the ones of the 2nd-5th centuries, are quite good.

The History of England is good and has gone back to split into a parallel podcast with a focus on Anglo-Saxon History, but has gotten bogged down in the 100 Years War and Wars of the Roses plus a lot of extra bells and whistles like word origins.

I'd avoid the History of World War II podcast; the guy is waaaaay too in-depth and, although he gets better throughout the podcast, is a poor speaker. I'm also not a fan of the Dan Carlin podcasts--he's over-the-top all the time and not very informative.

[Quinctilius Varus]

If you enjoy comedy podcasts, Comedy Bang! Bang! is hilarious and well worth a listen, especially episodes featuring (the late) Harris Wittels and Paul F. Tompkins.

Speaking of Tompkins, he hosts the Dead Authors Podcast, which revolves around interviews featuring famous authors who are played by comedians. However, since it mainly focuses on biographical details of the authors' lives, it won't help much in the way of quiz bowl-type clues. It's still very amusing.

Good film-related podcasts include Doug Loves Movies and How Did This Get Made, the latter of which is fun if, like me, you enjoy bashing bad movies.

[dwd500]

I do a lot of walking, especially when it's warm, and podcasts are perfect.

I'm a big fan of the Slate podcasts, especially John Dickerson's Whistlestop. Hang Up and Listen is great for sports, the Political Gabfest is usually good and Podcast for America is growing on me. Lexicon Valley is getting much better, and I'm getting used to Amicus.

Other ones I listen to often:

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics - Bruce Carlson
Freakonomics Radio
On the Media
Planet Money
Stuff You Should Know
Radiolab
Ken Rudin's Political Junkie
How Did This Get Made

I did get a little into Serial last year. I haven't listened to the new season 2 one yet.

[The Time Keeper]

If you enjoy comedy podcasts, Comedy Bang! Bang! is hilarious and well worth a listen, especially episodes featuring (the late) Harris Wittels and Paul F. Tompkins.

Speaking of Tompkins, he hosts the Dead Authors Podcast, which revolves around interviews featuring famous authors who are played by comedians. However, since it mainly focuses on biographical details of the authors' lives, it won't help much in the way of quiz bowl-type clues. It's still very amusing.

I'll second these, my love for the former is obviously reflected in my name/avatar, and also throw out Spontaneanation, Improv4Humans, and Hollywood Handbook among the Earwolf arsenal as being particularly great.

I can't recommend anything from Superego (http://www.gosuperego.com) strongly enough, as that and pretty much anything any of the four main guys behind it are attached to is pure gold without exception. In that vein, I suggest looking up Pistol Shrimps Radio and getting in as close to on the ground floor as you can. Two comedians who know little about basketball doing (kind of!) commentary on games played by a women's rec league team featuring some notable LA alt-comedy people? It sounds like the best thing ever and yet is even better than it sounds. https://twitter.com/shrimpsradio

[Auks Ran Ova]

The F Plus, as mentioned, is a delight, and I also second all of the Earwolf-related recommendations (maybe not I4H--never got into that one, too much Matt Besser ranting and the improv can be, though definitely isn't always, kind of dull). I have somewhat limited and variable tolerance for character comedy but CBB generally provides a good mix and balance of stuff.

As far as comedy people talking to each other, I've really come to enjoy Never Not Funny, though it might be a little love-it-or-hate-it. My recommendation is to find some guests that you like and see if you dig the vibe of the show, then expand outwards. Personal favorite episodes include anything with Paul F. Tompkins, John Ross Bowie, or Jon Hamm.

I also absolutely love I Don't Even Own a Television. It's about bad (or at least divisive) books, it's hilarious, and the hosts are great guys. Also, one of them sang a Replacements song at karaoke with me once.

I guess I don't listen to a wide variety of podcasts--if you're into the SA-centric Let's Play scene, definitely check out Retsucast and the Chipod Ironicast, but if that first part is true you're hardly likely to be unaware of them.

[Auroni]

I can vouch for History of Rome, FPlus, I Don't Own a Television, and Retsucast.

If you're looking for something funny but not at the same intellectual level as those, and are willing to tolerate an actively terrible person as one of the co-hosts, I recommend The Biggest Problem in the Universe.

[Rufous-capped Thornbill]

Oh man, what a great thread. Through college and a little bit after, I worked at a place where the work was insanely boring and the rules lax, so I used to listen to something like 35-40 hours of podcasts a week (sustained music listening gave me headaches). Some of my favorites over the years:

-Smodcast. I have no problem outing myself as sympathetic to Kevin Smith and his endeavors. I started listening to this all the way back in high school and it has always proven to be a pleasant and entertaining listen.

-The History of Rome/Revolutions. Mike Duncan has a pleasant voice and does a very good job of distilling historical information into easy to follow formats. On a quizbowl note, I've gotten a lot of good buzzes on Roman history from the former.

-The Flop House. Probably my favorite podcast at the moment. The "talk about bad movies" genre has about 10,000 entries in it, but this was one of the first (I believe they began in 2007 or 2008) and, in my opinion, is the best. Unlike other bad movie podcasts, they only look at recent "flops" (so you don't have to listen to the millionth takedown of Nothing But Trouble) and the hosts, former head writer of the Daily Show Eliot Kalan, current DS writer Dan McCoy and their bartender friend Stuart Wellington, are extremely smart and very funny. Listen to this one.

-Deadcast. Deadspin EIC Tim Marchman and Drew Magary talk about sports stuff. It's funny and informative.

-The Lowe Post. I'm not a huge fan of Lowe's writing, but I really enjoy listening to him talk to various guests about the NBA.

-Judge John Hodgman. Like the Flop House, JJH belongs to the Maximum Fun podcast "network," which is full of pretty good stuff (though some of them tread too close to mainstream "nerd" garbage for my liking), but I will recommend this one by name. The format: petty disputes (is a hot dog a sandwich? can I force my gf to play a video game with me that I am much better than her at?) are worked through and then Hodgman makes a decision. This podcast is not only funny, but filled with a certain kind of wisdom.

-Filmspotting. Two dudes from Chicago talk about a recently-released movie every week and then have a Top 5 list of some sort (Top 5 Film Books was a recent one), as well as other segments. The two hosts heavily subscribe to auteur theory, which can be annoying, as can some of their smaller features in the show, but on the whole, I like this podcast a lot and it's helped me stay current with a lot of film-related things.

Others that I have listened to in the past and enjoyed but aren't worth describing: Ancient Warfare Magazine podcast, History of England, Slate's Whistlestop, This American Life, the BBC's various podcasts on history, culture, etc., 99% Invisible (I need to give this one more of a chance), Overdue.

[Captain Sinico]

In Our Time is far and away my favorite podcast. It's pretty austere, but I find its format endlessly engaging. It can also get you endless points if that's what you're after.

[Good Goblin Housekeeping]

In Our Time is far and away my favorite podcast. It's pretty austere, but I find its format endlessly engaging. It can also get you endless points if that's what you're after.

For those who doubt Sorice's claims (has Sorice not scored endless points or something?!) whenever he visits practice there is definitely a significant amount of "oh I heard that on a podcast just the other day"

[The Infanta]

I spent five whole minutes looking at this thread only to see that not one of you mentioned The Read?

[Sima Guang Hater]

I like "Waking Up" with Sam Harris

[Marble-faced Bristle Tyrant]

I also absolutely love I Don't Even Own a Television. It's about bad (or at least divisive) books, it's hilarious, and the hosts are great guys. Also, one of them sang a Replacements song at karaoke with me once.

I was directed to their episode on Ready Player One (as were a bunch of their listeners, it looks like). If you have any interest in what one might call "nerd culture", that and the episode on Armada are must-listens. Of course, the rest of the series is also great; in fact, I just finished going through their archive tonight. I really like the custom music they use to introduce the show and segments.

I regularly follow Dirty Old Ladies, which discusses comics production, particularly independent webcomics production. Profanity aside, it is somewhat NSFW in the sense that they occasionally promote works that are themselves NSFW. I think it's intended to be a guide for aspiring comics professionals, but I have found it 100% accessible and informative as a person with no interest in pursuing a career in art or publishing. Maybe I'm just weird, but a lot of the DIY aspects of independent comics remind me of the things we go through to run quizbowl clubs and local tournaments.

[Victor Prieto]

Resurrecting this thread to strongly recommend Malcolm Gladwell's podcast called Revisionist History. I've only listened to episodes 4, 5 and 6 so far, which were all extremely illuminating and thought-provoking, and only 30 minutes each.

[gerbilownage]

This American Life. Then, now, and always.

[Adventure Temple Trail]

Resurrecting this thread to strongly recommend Malcolm Gladwell

do not

[Auks Ran Ova]

listen to chapo trap house

[Ciorwrong]

I used to listen to a few podcasts a day when I was mowing lawns. Many of those podcasts have since been canceled or become terrible but I still have some recommendations.

1. The Partially Examined Life is a really good podcast. It is a deep dive philosophy podcasts on the big thinkers and works. They have around 100 episodes on everyone from Heraclitus to the contemporary Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel. The hosts are all former philosophy grad students who dropped out of grad school to pursue work in other fields so the discussion is pretty easy to follow while still extremely informative. I pick and choose what episodes to listen to. Some, like the Buber and Husserl episodes, were confusing but the vast majority are high quality.

2. The Dunc'd On Basketball Podcast is amazing. Nate Duncan and Danny Leroux are podcast fiends who produce daily content during the regular NBA season. They both have super knowledge on the NBA salary cap partially due to how they are both trained attorneys. They also do deep analysis into critical possessions or sequences and break down plays on air. These guys are only getting big now so audio quality is shaky but they are among the smartest people in the NBA media. There is not a lot of goofy jokes on this podcast, but if you are a hardcore NBA fan, this podcast is a must-listen.

3. THE College Football Podcast is a pretty analytical college football show that mixes in humor and incessant jokes about player eligibility with game breakdown and recruiting knowledge. The hosts follow college football closely and seem to hate the boring cookie-cutter analysis you get from Fox Sports and ESPN podcasts. "Canada" (the guy's name on the show) also likes to talk CFL if you are into that and there are plenty of tangents to with your college football. Both hosts are Oregon columns so that could be frustrating if you hate Oregon.

4. Econ Talk is the preeminent economics podcast. The host Russ Roberts works at the Hoover Institute. That should tell you everything you need to about his political views. If you can past them, though, the podcast often features interesting guests from all over the field of economics and occasionally outside of it. Roberts is usually pretty fair and is willingly to admit that he was wrong at points. This podcast is very dense and I choose not to listen to every episode but there are many interesting gems. I thought the Bitcoin episode was especially cool.

[Rococo A Go Go]

Resurrecting this thread to strongly recommend Malcolm Gladwell

do not

listen to chapo trap house

These are both good and correct opinions that people should adopt as their own.

[ryanrosenberg]

Keepin' it 1600 is my favorite politics podcast. It's two former Obama staffers, Jon Favreau (speechwriter) and Dan Pfeiffer (strategist) who have left DC and thus can speak a lot more colorfully about the news. They make no bones about their bias, are super engaging, and bring in great guests, as you might expect.

[theMoMA]

KCRW's Bookworm is the best podcast/radio show I've ever listened to. The host is incredibly insightful--I have no doubt that he'd be one of the best lit players in qb if he ever picked up a buzzer--and its archive span 30 years and most of the culturally important American and world authors from that time (plus, you learn a lot about historical authors from the constant references to others' work). There's even a Manuel Puig episode! Manuel Puig! It's the only book show that educational and engrossing even if you haven't read the underlying work (or even heard of the author).

[Auks Ran Ova]

Keepin' it 1600 is my favorite politics podcast. It's two former Obama staffers, Jon Favreau (speechwriter) and Dan Pfeiffer (strategist) who have left DC and thus can speak a lot more colorfully about the news. They make no bones about their bias, are super engaging, and bring in great guests, as you might expect.

chapo is like this but good

[John Ketzkorn]

Resurrecting this thread to strongly recommend Malcolm Gladwell

do not

Even if you don't like Malcolm Gladwell as a person (or agree with things he's said in the past), I still recommend Revisionist History. You learn some things, you're given a new perspective on some old things, and Gladwell raises some interesting arguments worth considering. Obviously, take everything with the necessary spoon of salt, do your own research, look at rebuttals--the standard affair, but as someone who's listened to all the episodes so far and read through these articles, I still think its worth checking out considering the episodes are free (I recommend the Wilt Chamberlain episode).

[Red Panda Cub]

KCRW's Bookworm is the best podcast/radio show I've ever listened to. The host is incredibly insightful--I have no doubt that he'd be one of the best lit players in qb if he ever picked up a buzzer--and its archive span 30 years and most of the culturally important American and world authors from that time (plus, you learn a lot about historical authors from the constant references to others' work). There's even a Manuel Puig episode! Manuel Puig! It's the only book show that educational and engrossing even if you haven't read the underlying work (or even heard of the author).

This podcast is super duper great. It even has two Sparks theme songs!

[The Stately Rhododendron]

KCRW's Bookworm is the best podcast/radio show I've ever listened to. The host is incredibly insightful--I have no doubt that he'd be one of the best lit players in qb if he ever picked up a buzzer--and its archive span 30 years and most of the culturally important American and world authors from that time (plus, you learn a lot about historical authors from the constant references to others' work). There's even a Manuel Puig episode! Manuel Puig! It's the only book show that educational and engrossing even if you haven't read the underlying work (or even heard of the author).

KCRW also is home to Here Be Monsters, featuring episodes produced by my former camp counselor. Great stuff about "the unknown."

I'm a big fan of the Savage Lovecast. If you're into advice, no-one gives it better than Dan Savage.

[nadph]

In Our Time is far and away the best podcast series out there*. One tip: due to the large number of episodes going back to 1999, the majority of old episodes are not in the main iTunes feed but are instead in the subject-specific feeds ("In Our Time: History", "In Our Time: Philosophy", etc).

Peter Adamson, a professor at King's College London, has an ongoing series called "History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps" since 2010 which is very good. He has done 280 episodes so far spanning the period from pre-Socratics to the 14th century. There is also an additional series on Indian philosophy specifically called "History of Philosophy in India".

"BackStory" is a nice podcast focused on thematic issues spanning American history. The topics can be weird sometimes but there is a lot of interesting material. "Slate's Whistlestop" is also full of interesting stories from 20th century politics.

On economics/markets, EconTalk is very good, as is FT Alphachat and some of FT's other finance-specific podcasts. Tyler Cowen also has a good podcast series ("Conversations with Tyler"). "Slate Money" is also often good.

"First Mondays" is a very good legal podcast that focuses specifically on the Supreme Court.

The Guardian's Science Weekly and PRI's "Science Friday" are decent nontechnical science podcasts. Quanta Magazine also has a good audio edition that is slightly technical.

Does anyone have recommendations for technical, recent literature-focused sciences podcasts (akin to "This Week in Microbiology/Virology")? Unfortunately the major journals have podcasts that are occasionally technical but mostly not and don't go in depth on recent research. The closest I have seen are all in medicine or biology (the NEJM and JCB podcasts and "UpToDate Talk"), but there's really very little I've seen so far in physics or mathematics. There is a decent CS-adjacent podcast ecosystem (especially focused on information systems and artificial intelligence) but nothing I've seen so far that focuses on core theory.

*other than Jerrycast of course

[vinteuil]

I've been listening to a lot of episodes of the old radio quiz show Information Please for a seminar paper; about 200 episodes are up on Spotify. It's not great quizbowl (tons of factoids, a lot of them new to me, though), but the caliber of guests they got is wild (Edna Ferber, Alfred Hitchcock, Sinclair Lewis, Arthur Rubinstein, Carl Sandburg, Orson Welles, etc. etc.) and the format/panel is really engaging.

EDIT: also, it's about time I plugged my cousin Brian's podcast S-Town (https://stownpodcast.org/), which has to be some of the best storytelling I've ever heard.

[AKKOLADE]

S-Town is very good.

[armitage]

Thanks folks in this thread for recommending podcasts like HoPWAG, Bookworm, In Our Time, Lowe Post, Revisionist History. I listened to them a bunch this summer and enjoyed them.

I'll contribute my 2c with the New Yorker Fiction Podcast and Romance of the Three Kingdoms podcast.

[Durkheimdall]

I'll add a third recommendation for Econ Talk. Even if econ isn't your thing, many of the episodes aren't about economics in the concrete and direct sense. My favorite episode of 2018 is about the philosophy of history. In terms of QB knowledge, you'll definitely pick up some tidbits about Adam Smith, Hayek, and probably Coase but I don't think it's that great for increasing your scoring potential in games.

A podcast I've really enjoyed is The Fall of Rome. It's more QB-relevant and I don't think anyone's recommended it yet. The creator did a PhD in Roman history and cites academic sources by name in the episodes but I don't find it dry at all. It's a systems-based approach to history, and he's keen on breaking down the Rome/barbarians dichotomy.

For history, I also recommend Born Yesterday. Unfortunately the creator isn't producing new casts but the back catalogue is fantastic. He has a series of four episodes about Carthage, Hannibal, and the Punic Wars, and two awesome episodes about Cortes and the Aztecs which I admit are really fun to listen to in part because of the Age of Empires -esque background music.

A great podcast about the history of philosophy is The History of Philosophy without any gaps (by a philosophy professor, already recommended by Lee and Nikhil). Don't listen to it all the way through or you'll never finish but I think if you pick and choose episodes based on individual philosophers that come up it could help you score many points. The episodes themselves are often short.

Does anyone have recommendations for philosophy (not history of philosophy) podcasts? I've had trouble finding these. The best so far has been individual Econ Talk interviews with philosophers. I'll also check out In Our Time.

There is a decent CS-adjacent podcast ecosystem (especially focused on information systems and artificial intelligence) but nothing I've seen so far that focuses on core theory.

There are a couple episodes of the Haskell Cast that are relevant to core theory but definitely not all of them.

[Sjenk225]

How do you guys incorporate podcasts into your day? I don't think I can effectively multi-task; I can't process what I'm hearing while trying to do something else efficiently.

[ryanrosenberg]

How do you guys incorporate podcasts into your day? I don't think I can effectively multi-task; I can't process what I'm hearing while trying to do something else efficiently.

Listening to them on a commute or while exercising is best for me.

[Sam]

Last fall I started listening to Tides of History, which is a hodgepodge of late Roman Empire and early modern Europe history. What's great about this podcast is the host, Patrick Wyman, spends time discussing the sources and historiography of the topics he covers. (For that reason it also doubles as a good place to get book recommendations.) I especially enjoyed his episode on how historians have approached the idea of "the fall of Rome" and an interview with Kyle Harper on recent findings in the environmental history of the late Roman Empire.
Unfortunately, both of those episodes, along with over a year's worth of material between 2017 and 2018, no longer appears to exist on the Wondery website. If anyone knows where they exist I would be much obliged.

[Tejas]

Last fall I started listening to Tides of History, which is a hodgepodge of late Roman Empire and early modern Europe history. What's great about this podcast is the host, Patrick Wyman, spends time discussing the sources and historiography of the topics he covers. (For that reason it also doubles as a good place to get book recommendations.) I especially enjoyed his episode on how historians have approached the idea of "the fall of Rome" and an interview with Kyle Harper on recent findings in the environmental history of the late Roman Empire.
Unfortunately, both of those episodes, along with over a year's worth of material between 2017 and 2018, no longer appears to exist on the Wondery website. If anyone knows where they exist I would be much obliged.

Would also recommend this show, it's excellent. Old podcasts are on a different show called The Fall of Rome.

[Sam]

Would also recommend this show, it's excellent. Old podcasts are on a different show called The Fall of Rome.

The Harper interview is there and well worth listening to. I didn't see some others; according to his Twitter account they are now at something called "Stitcher Premium" which unfortunately costs money (but still may be worth it).