One of the things I’d like to do with this blog is highlight podcasts I’m listening to as examples of what does or doesn’t work in podcasting. I am adapting this from my personal blog, and the focus here will be a little bit more on the format, the production techniques, etc. As I did the review for this month, I was reminded of how open the podcast format is, and how many different approaches are available. For each podcast I share the links to the show and classify them by type of podcast, though that’s mostly illustrative and not meant as a hard and fast definition.
Feist – Pleasure Studies
Type of podcast: Essay/Storytelling
Feist is a great performer, full of charm and willing to take risks. I saw her at two separate concerts in college, once with Broken Social Scene and once solo, and they are among my fondest music memories.
I came across Pleasure Studies in one of Apple’s podcast app promo carousels, scanned the titles, saw they echoed the titles on her album, and thought ‘oh, cool! Not so far from what we’re doing on our podcast, going through an album track by track.’
Listening to the podcast subscribed me, then, because it’s nothing like that. Instead, the show takes a theme from a given Feist song, mostly off her last album, Pleasure, and then presents 3-4 interweaving personal stories, as spoken by guests. Feist’s voice only appears in the introduction and conclusion.
The format is in between an essayistic approach and storytelling. The production is high quality both in terms of the sound and in terms of the cutting from one story to another. The content hits hard as well. Young Up is about people ignoring their age, and is among the lighter episodes I’ve listened to so far (I’m six episodes through), and introduces us to the grindmother. “I’m Not Running Away” was about facing challenges whether related to fear, immigration status, or gender. “Lost Dreams” is pretty self explanatory and, in its way, brutal.
The format is like stage monologues, it feels like the theater. One imagines Feist strolling on, saying her piece, and then walking off, leaving each of the speakers in a different part on the stage, with the spotlight shining on them in alternating fashion. It’s not light listening or entertaining in the way a good conversational podcast is, but it’s fascinating and thought provoking. The show is also very concise, with each episode coming in under 30 minutes.
Strong Songs – by Kirk Hamilton
Type: Deep Dive
Links: Apple | Spotify | Google Play | Stitcher
Since I’m co-hosting a music podcast, and will do more of it, I’ve been looking to see what else is out there. My co-host Mike Taylor turned me on to Strong Songs. I’ve listened to two episodes so far – host Kirk Hamilton’s breakdown of Sufjan Stevens’s “Chicago”, and then his episode on Jeff Buckley’s “Last Goodbye”.
They’re really good.
Kirk does a few things especially well. He conveys excitement for the music. The deep dive format is a great one for him to share that excitement. He cares a lot for these songs (and I presume, the others he’s unlocked), which makes it easy for the listener to get excited. I was already big fans of these songs, and I will eventually pick out an episode about a song I don’t know well to see if this can bridge the gap for me.
Kirk also teaches the listener about the music, and in a way that requires little or no musical knowledge but also doesn’t dumb things down. I believe he made reference to being a music teacher, and he comes across as the smart band teacher who can relate to you and help you go beyond the notes to a better understanding.
Lastly, he really makes sure the music is incorporated into the episode, so you can listen and appreciate the music while also getting his commentary. The production is really sharp – sometimes the music lingers in the background, other times he talks over it or adds his own musical accompaniment to accentuate certain points, and he gives enough of a taste without
The discussions take a little bit of wind-up to get past, but once beyond that his breakdowns are really enjoyable. I can quibble on a couple things because it’s fun to do so – how do you talk about Stevens’s lyrics and not mention his religiosity; and the strings on Last Goodbye have a South Asian element to them, what is that? But those are all in the realm of things to talk about, not musts.
Boomtown – by Texas Monthly and Imperative Entertainment
Type: Documentary/Reporting
One of my other obsessions is finding podcasts about places. Something that can convey what it’s like to be from a place, to live in a place, what makes it tick and hum, what makes it special or different, worth seeing or worth knowing about.
I started listening to Boomtown without necessarily looking for that – I thought it might be a good story about the oil sector. And it is. But what I think makes it more worth hanging onto is the personal perspective Christian Wallace, the host, brings to it. He’s from West Texas, he’s worked on an oil rig (pronounced oll rig, apparently the accent out there), and he cares about the industry even as he’s aware of the problems with oil and fracking.
Documentary podcasts are the hardest to pull off, and not only did he and his team pull this off, they did it in a different way. This wasn’t a serial story, with one narrative that brings things to a boil. Instead, the podcast goes into different corners of the oil patch – how tough it is to work there, how dangerous it is, what the sex economy surrounding an oil camp looks like, what the economics look like, and so on.
The production is really solid, integrating music and ambient sounds into the discussions, and the set up for the interviews and narrative was good. It felt a little lo-fi in a deliberate way, Wallace’s interviews were transparent and natural. And then when slipping in an interview episode with Bethany McLean, he adapted to the different format with a great deal of deference for his guest – and Bethany is an expert in the area. The one thing I would note is that the ads came on without any warning, and without any change in Wallace’s voice, which was a little startling. But it’s a minor thing and I got used to it.
The podcast was released over the winter, right before oil collapsed once and then again amidst the covid-19 issues. So the timing for talking about a boom was ironic, though the show is laced with both the downside of a boom and the inevitability that every boom begets the next bust.
But the economics were the less interesting part of this to me, since I spend more time in that part of the internet anyway. Learning about the issues in West Texas and hearing from people, that was what stuck with me from this show.
Servant of Pod with Nick Quah
Type: Interview
Links: Apple | Spotify | Stitcher
Nicholas Quah has been writing the Hot Pod newsletter, a podcast industry write-up, for a while, and I’ve been reading it for a year or two, all told. He is immersed in podcasting, and I’ve learned a lot reading him, including some good recommendations – Welcome to LA is another great place-centered podcast, e.g.
His new podcast, Servant of Pod, builds on the newsletter format. He interviews podcast people of all sorts – people who make podcast music, leading hosts, industry types – and they’re just good conversations. One thing interesting to me is that the theme music and the way he goes in and out of ads reminds me more of public radio than podcasting, though usually by the end of his interviews things have loosened up and fallen into the podcast flow.
There Goes The Neighborhood Miami
Type: Reporting/Documentary
One more place podcast. I found this when digging through the listings on Apple, I think. It’s a three-part series – again, an example of a slightly different format – and I wish it was longer. A few different hosts – Kai Wright, Nadege Green, and Christopher Johnson – take us through Liberty City and Little Haiti. The angle is on how gentrification and pushing around minorities has gone in different directions, with the interstate displacing one population and now the irony that these neighborhoods are on the high ground, and thus more attractive as Miami sinks into the ocean. The show does a great job bringing different voices to the story, and though it’s only three episodes it covers a lot of ground.
I don’t know why certain cities attract me – New Orleans, Detroit, Memphis in the US e.g., – and others haven’t grabbed my eye, including Miami. But hearing more about the history of the place has reminded me that there’s a lot more to the city than South Beach. Some post pandemic day, I’ll have to visit.
Land of The Giants
Type: Reporting/Documentary
Links: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher
And we end up in the business world, with Vox Media’s Land of the Giants. I have been listening to season 2, which covers Netflix’s rise and current position. Peter Kafka and Rani Molla got a lot of great interviews with Netflix execs, industry experts, and directors, and they frame the story well. The consumer voice is missing, but I’m not sure how you would represent that here.
What I like most about the series is that it has fun with the narrative, and doesn’t treat it as overly dour, titans of the industry sort of stuff. Business reporting is sometimes overly serious, exalting towards its subjects, or else scathing. This show praises Netflix where need be, but also points out where they got lucky and has fun with the story. This is about entertainment and media, and there’s a lot of fortune and sliding doors that has come into effect.
So far in listening I’ve learned about the company’s rise, been impressed with their focus and their fortune, and enjoyed the narration meanwhile.