I'm half-joking, but I could use a "not just two guys joking around" tag. There's so many podcasts out there where I check them out because the topic sounds interesting but most of the episode time is given to 'two guys joking around'.
100% agree. And not just "the two guys joking around tag" but the "we recorded this in one take and then published straight from garage band." That would be a significant improvement over the podcasts discovery tools inside of every podcasting app.
That make it a lot easier for any of the new shows coming out that are trying to be like a Radiotopia or Gimlet style show, to be discovered.
I don't think that is such a great idea- Sometimes very professional people who are amateurs at audio production and amateurs at public speaking make awesome podcasts- The tag would need to be a lot more specific.
While we're at it, some kind of "Does not interrupt the speaker" tag would be great. It absolutely drives me nuts, listening to stuff like This American Life or Radio Lab, where the person being interviewed never gets more than half a sentence out before the narrator overdubs themselves correcting or summarizing what the speaker is trying to say.
I find it incredibly obnoxious. You brought this person on to tell a story: let them tell their story, goddammit!
I feel the opposite. With those two shows the primary focus is telling a story. They aren't really conventional interview shows. It seems to me like a lot of the time, a narrator dubbing over the interviewee can help maintain the pace and focus of the show.
By commenting here, I do not want to be that guy that just comes up to say "I second this", but, in a way, this is what I am doing. I also find it terribly obnoxious, and, in some sense, completely paternalistic.
While on a broad reaching medium, like TV, when can accept that the presenter is trying to reach the least capable person out there in terms of understanding the message, on podcasts, being as they are so specific and targeted, doing the same just does not feel right (to me, at least).
If the presenter breaks the rhythm of a guest to explain what the guest is saying is like rubbing in your face and saying "I'm sorry you can't understand this, but I'll translate it to you". If we reached the podcast, we probably CAN understand what the other person is saying.
Thank you for pointing that out. It really gets to my nerves sometimes.
Excellent:
This American Life
99% Invisible
Very good:
Planet Money
The Memory Palace [historical narratives]
The Moth
On the Media
Snap Judgement
Good:
Freakonomics
Radio Lab
Radio Diaries
Occasionally good:
The Truth [fictional radio dramas]
Criminal
Dan Carlin Hardcore History. It's not in often and when it is it can be a 21-hour series. The guy is brilliant and I could listen to him tell a story about the most boring man on the plant if he decided to.
Really good list! I'd move On The Media to Excellent, it's really cream of the crop. And I'd throw Skeptic's Guide to the Universe in there too, for anyone who likes science. If you like ancient history, add Dan Carlin's Hardcore History.
Agreed on On The Media. It's basically just meta-news, but stepping back and looking at the narratives being presented is really interesting. Their recent show about this history of political polling was fantastic.
Stephen West does an outstanding job of tracing the complete history of philosophy in the West and relating its ideas to modern thought and idioms, and uses humor effectively as well.
But usually that's because you already like the two guys. Few pairs can go off on a topic and not litter it with inside jokes that leave the new listener on the outside.
I would refer to them as a subject podcast vs. a personality podcast. A site could provide a determination on the type by allowing listeners to review the composition of a podcast (eg: this podcast is 20% subject, 80% personality).
If CarTalk were still being produced, it would have a large personality rating. If I had dismissed it based on the large personality rating, I would have missed out on Click and Clack. My life has been better because of their personalities!
Not sure how I'd feel about that, it would make it easy to miss worthwhile stuff like a lot of "Back to Work" or "Home Work" - the first in particular has a lot of wandering around on some episodes but also can have some real gems.
Seems like the scoring system could catch a lot of what you're concerned about.
or "came prepared with a topic", which is maybe what you're saying, but too many podcasts for a while were "So....episode 12...what do you want to talk about".
I don't see this as much these days, but perhaps because I started to look for "non-current events" podcasts knowing that they were recorded earlier and better prepared.
