Yes, I completely agree with Ian: mid-year best-of lists are a travesty.
And yet...
1) Timing is everything. I have enough time now to deliver a mid-summer list of podcasts whereas December is generally crazy.
2) Housekeeping is good. This laundry list will eventually become the "best of", save some trimming and editing.
3) Sharing is caring. There are some great new podcasts out there! People should know.
For example:
Shell Game, hosted by Evan Ratliff: hands down, the best podcast of 2024. There was some untapped kaufmanesque potential here, but still, brilliant.
Hysterical, hosted by Dan Taberski. As is typical with Taberski, the storytelling proves more compelling than the story itself.
Question Everything hosted by Brian Reed. There's a lot of soul searching in these episodes. Soul searching is good.
Things Fell Apart Season 2, Jon Ronson, BBC 4 As compelling as Season 1, this series would truly benefit from a companion book, à là So, you've been publicly shamed. Ronson excels at connecting the dots.
The Gatekeepers, Jamie Bartlett, BBC 4 While it offers little new information, the presentation is slick, and Bartlett excels at exposing the horrific ideologies of Silicon Valley's edgelords.
Best limited series
Ted DeLay, Future of Denial. An excellent companion to one of the best books about the rhetoric of climate change I've read in a long time. Short and sour (4 episodes).
NPR, Embedded: Supermajority Hosted by Meribah Knight In which a group of Tennessee Republican women discover the terrifying politics of their own party.
Dehumidified, hosted by Polly Weston, BBC Sounds, March 2024. The most boring story of a scam in the history of scams. An insightful study of disinformation at scale. Very post-human.
Standout episodes (selection)
The Missing Cryptoqueen, hosted by Jamie Bartlett, Episode 12: Wanted: Dead or Alive, June 3 2024.
Soul Music, BBC Sounds: "I Can See Clearly Now", April 20 2014
This is Hell!, hosted by Chuck Mertz. A conversation with Ted DeLay. Ideologies of Climate Change, episode 1749.
99% Invisible, hosted by Roman Mars. The Los Angeles Leaf Blower Wars, June 12 2024. Epic. Even Wonder Woman gets involved.
This American Life, episode 833, hosted by Ira Glass. Come Retribution, June 10 2024,
This American Life, episode 821, hosted by Ira Glass, Embrace the Suck, January 22 2024.
Longform, hosted by Aaron Lammer, Max Linsky, Evan Ratliff, Episode 577, P.J. Vogt, May 2024
Search Engine, hosted by PJ Vojgt, Why didn't Chris and Dan get into Berghain? (Part 1, June 21 2024), (Part 2, June 27 2024),
Search Engine, hosted by PJ Vojgt, What Do Trigger Warnings actually do? (May 3 3024)
Search Engine, hosted by PJ Vojgt, How do we survive the media apocalypse? (March 15 2024)
Intelligence Squared, hosted by Adam McCauley. Why We Need to Slow Down to Save the Planet with Kohei Saito, April 7 2024.
The Grey Area, hosted by Sean Illing, The World After Nuclear War with Anna Jacobsen, June 17 2024.
Joshua Citarella podcast, hosted by Joshua Citarella, Alex Hochuli on the End of History, August 1 2024. A great crossover episode featuring a comphrensive recap of The End of the End of History now that Bungacast has become something else altogether.
The Guardian Long Read, Super cute please like’: the unstoppable rise of Shein, May 17 2024. Shein, like Temu, is pure evil. This is based on Nicole Lipman's terrific article for N+1.
Radio Atlantic, The Last Days of the Barcode, Saahil Desai in conversation with Hanna Rosin, January 18 2024.
(to be continued)
