Hi,
I’m a big fan of podcasts and I’ve been enjoying “Against the Rules” and “Darknet Diaries” lately.
Now, I want to hear your recommendations! What podcasts do you love and why? Let’s build an epic list of must-listen podcasts together.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
I like listening to historical podcasts, and my favorites are “The History of Rome” (which has finished) and its followup “The History of Byzantium” and “Hardcore History” . I’ve heard good things about “Revolutions” by the creator of “The History of Rome” but I haven’t checked it out yet.
Also I’ve been enjoying “Fall of Civilizations” a lot, but so far have only listened to a few of the episodes.
The Fall of Civilizations is one of my favorite podcasts right now! I highly recommend it if you like to think about history from a sort of different point of view. The host is really invested in trying to contextualize what things may have looked and felt like from the common person’s point of view.
I’ve listened to all of these podcasts besides Hardcore history, and I can highly recommend all of them. It’s hard to pick a favourite but it might be Revolutions, which I found the most eye-opening, especially season 3 on the french revolution. I’m currently working my way through Wittenberg to Westphalia, the Wars of the Reformation, which is meant to be on the 30 years way, but takes a very deep dive into the life, economy, history and culture of the middle ages and early modern period.
Fall of Civilizations is the best podcast I’ve listened to. Every episode is amazing.
Behind the Bastards, a deep dive into the various shit people of history. Episode one is Saddam Hussein: Erotic Novelist.
There’s nearly 700 episodes, and I’ve yet to run tio a dud. Loads of great guests. My only gripe is that it’s a touch Amerocentric, but other than that I’d recommend it to basically anyone. Not kid friendly, in case that wasn’t obvious.
I think it’s only fair to add that this podcast has a very left leaning bias. I’m not saying that that is bad, just being objective.
Yeah, it does. That’s a fair thing to say.
Big fan of Darknet Diaries.
Throughline has been my favorite since it launched a few years ago. The hosts take a deep dive into the historical events leading up to topical events of the present weaving a thread through them, hence the name.
Some of the examples are the history of policing in the US and how capitalism became the dominant economic system.
I cannot recommend this podcast enough!History:
- History of Rome
- History of Byzantium (spiritual successor to HoR) - ongoing but with an end planned
- British History Podcast (in depth) - ongoing but with an end planned
- Revolutions (various revolutions from HoR
- Blowback
- Hardcore History
- Fall of Civilizations
Horror:
- Magnus Archives
- The Lovecraft Investigations - unsure if finished
True Crime:
- Bear Brook
- Dirty John
Others:
- *Shut up and Sit Down (Boardgames)"
- Beef and Dairy Network (Comedy)
- Outer Reach (Sci-Fi)
Bold = Ongoing with no end planned
- Hidden brain for psychology
- 99 percent invisible for interesting stories of stuff.
Massively depends on what you’re into.
That said, I follow these podcasts:
News related comedy:
- Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me from NPR
- Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4
- The Bugle
- Breaking The News from BBC Scotland
DnD:
- Dicefunk (I recommend seasons 3 & 4 in particular)
Puns:
- Punwatch
- (also The Bugle sometimes)
Science communication:
- The Infinite Monkey Cage
- Daniel And Jorge Explain The Universe
- The Curious Cases Of Rutherford & Fry
- Supermassive
- A Problem Squared
- Creature Feature
- My Favourite Theorem
About Media:
- Failure To Launch, about TV pilots that failed to become full series
- Get Played, originally called “How Did This Get Played?” and focused on the worst games ever made, now about games in general
- Dream Factory, about plots of non-existing movies
Security/Hacking:
- Malicious Life
- Darknet Diaries
- Human Factor Security
History:
- You’re Dead To Me
Hardcore History. The come out a few times a year and are incredibly long (some episodes are five hours), but listening to Dan Carlin talk is really engaging. Plus he has one of those voices you can fall asleep to.
It Could Happen Here. Keeps my righteous anger at ‘the man’ topped up.
Criminal Records. Fun crime podcast focussed on the weird and less heard of crimes in history.Trashfuture is a great podcast. It is, ostensibly, a tech-pessimist podcast, but every now and then there are some great UK-centric politics that bleed through since they are based in the UK. All of the host are kind of leftist weirdo Marxists and they really take the piss out of “technology companies” that are nothing more than shell games of moving things around that have been around forever and calling it a tech company. One of my favorites.
It’s an old one, but Stuff You Should Know. I’m listening chronologically, a couple a day (I do a lot of driving for work) and I’m still only up to about mid-2018. The hosts are so easy to listen too, and I really enjoy their humour.
Behind the bastards, Self explanatory.
Ear hustle, A podcast about prison made by prisoners in prison.
Knowledge Fight, a couple of dudes who like to sit around and talk about Alex Jones. Essentially deconstructing his bullshit.
A couple interesting options: Good Job Brain - always an interesting listen. They deep dive into different topics from a trivia standpoint… super interesting.
Behind the Bastards - looks at bad people throughout history.
Definitely the moth. It’s a great storytelling podcast with a ton of variety. I also second darknet diaries.
My top podcasts lately:
-
QAnon Anonymous: started out chronicling the QAnon freakshow but moved towards more general deep dives into modern and past conspiracy movements
-
Minion Death Cult: laughing at right wing comment sections
-
This Is Revolution: great leftist interview/discussion
-
Joy Tactics: extremely funny stuff
-
Uhh Yeah Dude: one of the longest running podcasts out (13 years) and still funny as hell
I dip into some other podcasts from time to time like Chapo Trap House, Comedy Bang Bang, and Vice’s CYBER.
I also listen to some paranormal/weird shows that I can recommend if anyone is interested.
-
- History on Fire (Italian Prof talks about interesting events and people)
- The Deprogramm (An iraqi, a slav and a american rant about things)
- Duncan Trussell Family Hour (Classical “guy invites interesting people to talk to”)
- Blowback (Historic events regarding american imperialism)