The Top of the Playlist

I listen to a lot of podcasts. I listen when I do household chores, walk the dog, cook, work, shower, exercise, and just about any time I might be left alone with my thoughts. This is probably unhealthy, but what are you going to do?  

In the last year, a lot of my historically favorite podcasts have fallen out of my favor for one reason or another. I'm actually quite picky about how people handle pandemic content - I want it to be acknowledged that there's a global pandemic, but I also don't want my entertainment to be dominated by it.  This is a fine line that is quite arbitrary, but it is what it is.  I lost patience with more than a few podcasts that I would have never said bad things about before.

But! There are a few standouts.  Without further ado, here are the podcasts that I do put to the top of my playlist every time they come out and listen to as soon as I possibly can, usually the day they come out.

1. Crime Writers On...

CWO drops on Mondays. It's honestly the best thing about Mondays. I like to download the episode right before I take the dog out first thing and listen to it as I get ready for the day.  This pod is a review podcast with four panelists and they review true crime pop culture that includes mostly podcasts, movies, and television. I love listening to people talk about true crime in a critical way.  I rarely agree with their assessments and they have a very strange sliding scale about ethics (hey, who cares if Brian Reed totally outed a dead guy as gay on S-Town?  pshaw, we won't hear any criticism of Dan Taberski who totally harassed Richard Simmons in Missing Richard Simmons! but heaven forbid anyone dare question Debra in Dirty John), BUT the panelists have great chemistry and I have found out about many a new podcast listening to this one.  

2. Let's Go To Court

Brandi and Kristin are long-term friends who each tell each other a tale of the court process every week.  It's also two friends just bullshitting about their lives from their illnesses to divorce to sick dogs.  It's always a hit for me. This pod drops on Wednesday, which is a day I typically go into the office, so when I'm all alone in the giant space that is my office, I listen to these two and it feels like I have friends around me.

3. Crimelines

Crimelines is hosted by a woman named Charlie, who, if I'm being honest, I don't care for. She has a passel of children and I have some strong feelings about how she parents (*ahem* I acknowledge that I am the childless judgmental asshole in this situation), but she is brilliant at research and putting out episodes about true crime cases I have not heard about before.  She also does all her chit chat in the first five minutes of her podcast, so if you don't want to hear about her kids, YOU DON'T HAVE TO.  One of the things Charlie does that is unique to her pod is that she has a regular series on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Woman and Girls (MMIWG). She shares some cultural background and then goes into cases that have generally received little to no media coverage.  

Another thing I like about this podcast is that her scripts run through the cases linearly and she doesn't veer off script.  Then at the end, she goes through theories about the case and adds what she thinks about the theories. It's just so organized and clear.  Very well done.  I look forward to her new episodes every week.

4. True Crime Bullshit

Josh Hallmark hosts True Crime Bullshit, which is a podcast based around the serial killer Israel Keyes. (He took a slight detour in season three in which he covered Kelly Cochran - you should definitely skip this season.) There are a number of problems with this podcast, the largest of which is that it's filled with endless clips of interviews with Keyes that are nearly inaudible. I despise this.  However, Hallmark is absolutely obsessed with the details of Israel Keyes, a famously slippery character who regularly paid cash for things, flew into airports and then drove hundreds/thousands of miles away to commit crimes, and just didn't have a lot of ties to the world around him.  I love his enthusiasm for research into Keyes and the level of detail he has is amazing.  

It's not a podcast for everyone. Sometimes it feels like I'm doing homework, but most of the time I'm just pleased that Hallmark found an outlet for his passions and feel lucky that I get to participate in that passion.

5. Taskmaster The Podcast

Taskmaster the Podcast is a review podcast of the brilliant panel show Taskmaster. It's hosted by Ed Gamble, a former contestant on Taskmaster and features weekly guests that include people on the current season, former guests, and superfans. It's interesting because Gamble sees the show from a completely different lens than I do. He's quite competitive and spends a great deal of time talking about the allocation of points and dissecting why the Taskmaster scored things the way he did.  Meanwhile, I think of the show the way former contestant Sarah Kendall thinks about it - it's a series of ridiculous tasks and it doesn't really matter how well you do or don't do, there's an arbitrary force in the world that's handing out awards (or not).  I also spend a lot of time marveling at Alex Horne's ingenuity in coming up with creative, funny, interesting tasks.

If you enjoy Taskmaster, this will be a podcast for you. I immediately download it to listen to after I watch the episode.  If you do not enjoy Taskmaster (what's wrong with you? are you heartless?) or have never watched an episode (what are you waiting for? go watch it now), then don't worry about this.   

6. The Bake Down

The Bake Down is a review podcast of the Great British Bake Off (GBBO). It features previous contestants Howard, Jane, and Dan. After I watch a new episode, I download the podcast episode immediately. I think Howard and Jane are (inter)national treasures.  I'm less keen on Dan because he sometimes gets snide and I like my GBBO content to be light and fluffy, but it's great to hear some behind-the-scenes tidbits and they answer questions about the logistics of filming.  

7. Pop Mom!

I am ride or die for Pop Mom! Pop culture critic John Teti and his mom Bonney discuss pop culture from tv to movies to videogames. There's also an update about Bonney's life in small town New Hampshire. I love the view into a solid relationship between an adult child and a parent. It's not about the reviews for me (although I did discover Taskmaster through Pop Mom!), but it's about the delightful relationship between the two hosts.  It goes to the top of my list every time, regardless of whether or not I've even heard of the pop culture product being discussed. 

8. Too Scary; Didn't Watch

Too Scary; Didn't Watch is a horror movie recap pod in which two friends are too scared to watch the movies so their brave friend watches them and then tells them all about it. Sometimes they have guests, but I actually mostly like it when it's just the three of them. This is a recent discovery for me, so I'm actually only about halfway through their archives, but when I don't really want to listen to anything on my list, I download one of these episodes. Much like with Let's Go To Court, we get to listen on friends as their lives change - divorces, cross-country moves, and new pets all make small appearances - and I get to listen to movies I would be too scared to watch!

Do you listen to podcasts? Which ones get moved directly to the top of your playlist?