The past two years or so, I’ve found myself moving away from listening to music at every possible time to consuming podcasts instead. Don’t get me wrong, I still love music, but I just feel that podcasts give the brain something more to chew on.
Here is a list of some of my favorites.
- Celebration Rock – Steven Hyden, music columnist and critic at Uproxx talks about modern rock and indie music, as well as frequently diving back into the classics. His knowledge on the topics is comprehensive, and the show makes you understand and appreciate music all the more.
- Desert Island Discs – From the BBC, this podcast asks guests to list down eight songs, a book and a luxury item that they’ll take with them on a desert island. A nice look at how the great and influential minds think and arrive at their choices, and also an even greater reminder for me to go and seek the music they chose and love.
- Dissect – Probably my favorite podcast of all time. The show’s host, Cole Cuchna, spends an entire season dissecting every nook and cranny of an album (Season 1 was Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly, Season 2 is Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy) and he spends one episode to study one song. It features thorough and in depth analysis from symbolism to actual events, and music theory as well. I just wish this was the sort of class that I had to take during college.
- Heavyweight – From Gimlet, this podcast by Jonathan Goldstein is a journey to the moment where everything changed. Guests are usually taken back to deal with a person, a moment or a feeling that have been giving them intense ordeal for several years. It’s laugh out loud funny one minute, then has you bawling in tears the next. Awesome stuff.
- Modern Love – The podcast of the popular New York Times column, this is a great look at the workings and intricacies of love and relationships. What’s best about this show is that I get a peek at how different types of love work, the type of love that I wouldn’t necessarily encounter in my everyday.
- Reply All – Another one from Gimlet, this is, as it’s tag line says, a show about the internet. I thought I was internet savvy, but this show tells me that the internet is a bigger and scarier (but funner) place. Please, do yourselves a favor and listen to Long Distance (Part 1 and 2)
- Staying Major – PBA great Eric Menk mostly talks about local hoops and being one of the best Philippine players of all time, his insights do have a lot of significance for me. Guests of the show have been stellar too and it’s a lot of fun to eavesdrop on their conversation. My initial criticism is that the early episodes of the podcast were a bit poorly researched, but Menk has certainly grown and steadily improved to make this show a must listen for me.
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