Five Great New Podcasts
Welcome to the 43rd edition of Find That Pod.
Greetings new subscribers…welcome to the club that’s all about finding the best podcasts for you to listen to. You veterans of FTP take it easy on the new kids ok?
Man, the twitter suggestion thread really went off this week. Many thanks to everyone that suggested podcasts. Don’t worry, I keep track of all the suggestions in an ever-increasingly large spreadsheet.
I also wanted to give a mention to a newly launched app that I was invited to be a part of as a curator. It’s called REPOD and its mission is to make podcast discovery better while creating a more social / water-cooler type community where we can all come together to talk about our favourite podcasts. If you have a minute, check them out. Now onto this week’s picks:
Throughline
Context. It’s something that is all too often sorely missing in our discourse. That’s what I like most about this fantastic show from NPR. It’s not your standard history podcast, because its approach is to discuss CURRENT events in the context of a historical perspective. And sometimes that involves a peripheral or analogous view to current events, but sometimes it involves diving deep into the actual historical events that precipitated today’s happenings.
Website | Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | PodChaser | Overcast | Not sure where to start? Start with this episode: American Exile
Sleepwalkers
Perhaps an odd choice of name for a podcast about this topic, but Sleepwalkers is one of the better podcasts about AI (artificial intelligence) that I’ve had the pleasure to stumble upon. I’m also unsure if their extended hiatus from last July till just this past January means that the podcast won’t get many more episodes, but nevertheless, if you’ve even got a passing interest in the concepts of AI and the coming revolution that it is sure to bring to our society, give this podcast a try.
Website | Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | PodChaser | Overcast | Not sure where to start? Start with this one: Algorithm, M.D.
Toys Were Us
Hilarious, nostalgic, thoughtful, well researched, and entertaining. Those are just a few of the superlatives I’d ascribe to this podcast. If you were born anywhere in between the late ’70s and early 90’s – you’ll find a treasure trove of nostalgia wrapped in entertaining background info on toys you most likely grew up with.
Website | Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | PodChaser | Overcast | Not sure where to start? Start with this episode: Episode 53: The Ouija Board
Cautionary Tales
Fairy tales are often designed to teach children important lessons. In-fact the other day I was trying to teach my daughter about the Boy Who Cried Wolf… but this podcast focuses on a different kind of cautionary tale. The type that adults should heed more often. With stories of boneheaded human error, tragic catastrophes and all variety of hilarious and consequential fiascos, this podcast, although relatively new should provide you with some level of entertaining education about the kind of follies to perhaps try to avoid.
Website | Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | PodChaser | Overcast | Not sure where to start? Try this episode: How Britain Invented, Then Ignored the Blitzkrieg
The Secret Room
Everyone has secrets, but not everyone submits them to a stranger on the Interet, to be shared in a podcast no less. That’s what the entire premise of this podcast is. It’s the same concept as PostSecret, where people would send in their secrets on postcards, except this podcast is the long-form version. Some secrets are shocking, others are tantalizing, but no matter what secrets people reveal, we love to listen to them, because deep down inside we’re all a bunch of voyeuristic pleasure-seeking monkeys aren’t we?
Website | Listen on: Apple Podcasts | PodChaser | Overcast | Not sure where to start? Try this episode: I Was a Teenage Catfish