THE UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN’S MAIN CAMPUS IS SITUATED ON TREATY 6 TERRITORY AND THE HOMELAND OF THE MÉTIS.
THE UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN’S MAIN CAMPUS IS SITUATED ON TREATY 6 TERRITORY AND THE HOMELAND OF THE MÉTIS.
So, you think you’re into podcasts? Well you haven’t heard anything yet. Check out our list of the top 10 podcasts that you should be listening to below.
This is the most comprehensive film podcast hosted by “Art House” Adam Kempenaar and “Mainstream” Matty “Ballgame” Robinson. Each week you get film reviews and a very specific top five list such as “Top Five bad day movies” or “Top Five teen rebels movies.”
The duo covers new releases and revisits older films through themed marathons like “70s Science-Fiction” and “Films of Ingmar Bergman.” The podcast is good for filling out your film education and knowing what you want to see the next time you’re at the theatre or the video store. Just to make it more enticing, Filmspotting has been called “a force for good in the universe” by Brick director Rian Johnson.
This BBC show is the audio equivalent of a tweed suit and loafers. Each episode features three university professors in discussion with host Melvyn Bragg on various topics in literature, science and history. Don’t be put off by the fact that most guests teach at Oxford and Cambridge — Bragg is the master at keeping discussions accessible but not dumbed down. Favourite episodes: “The Frankfurt School” and “Swift’s ‘A Modest Proposal’.”
Another BBC production, Start of the Week has three professionals from very different areas (for example, an architect, neuroscientist and poet) meet in a studio to discuss each others’ most recent projects. The convergence of such different points of view broadens everyone’s perspective. A good introduction is the recent “40th Anniversary Special.”
For me, the Slate Culture Gabfest is the best podcast going right now. This weekly podcast from Slate magazine features intelligent engagements from highbrow to lowbrow. The three regular hosts — Stephen Metcalf, Julia Turner and Dana Stevens — have a great rapport and guest journalists add fresh perspectives. Best episodes: “Eat, Pray, Vomit” and “How Does That Make You Feel?”
Marc Maron is lovable in a Grinch kind of way. Although he is a comedian, here he plays the journalist-therapist to guest comics like Demetri Martin, Carlos Mencia and Amy Poehler. Each conversation takes listeners pretty deep inside the minds and souls of the comedy set. My favourites: Gary Shandling and Conan O’Brien.
Episodes of TimesTalks are like listening to the raw material for a New York Times Magazine profile, but with extra polish since each is recorded in front of a live audience. Favourites: Salman Rushdie on his life and career (including the fatwa) and Michael Pollan on his food writing.
Dan Savage has become a leading gay-rights activist in recent years, thanks in part to this podcast where he found a platform and an audience. It’s a phone-in sex advice column that plays on the tension between the callers’ intimate questions and the fact that we’re all listening. Also, each show opens with a political rant where Savage takes on the political right with the uncensored bombast of someone like Bill Maher. Each episode is as unpredictable as the listeners’ questions and Savage’s wit — and is intended to offend some listeners.
Yes, there’s Winston Churchill, but you also get Malcolm X on “The Ballot or the Bullet,” the original King’s Speech and the Gettysburg Address recited by Colin Powell. From the days before the sound bite, this feels like retraining your political attention span.
This podcast gives you a playlist of new music every week. Although mostly catered to the indie-rock set, it reaches out to genres like electronica, jazz and world music as well. Themed shows like “Best Love Songs” or any of the “Best of (Year)” specials are a good entry point.
You’ll miss the cartoons, but you get a summary of the current issue as well as editor Blake Eskin in discussion with a New Yorker writer on their most recent piece. Episodes are short and might help you decide whether to seek out the current issue in print.
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graphic: Brianna Whitmore/The Sheaf