Talking points
Horror studio Blumhouse, the force behind Get Out and The Purge, is trying its arm at a political podcast with The Oval Office Tapes, which will be hosted by filmmaker RJ Cutler and follow the goings on in the Trump White House. Other planned shows include an adaptation of the Gabriel Sherman book The Loudest Voice in the Room, which follows the rise and fall of Roger Ailes and another book about someone close to Trump: Joshua Green’s Devil’s Bargain which looks at Steve Bannon’s relationship with Trump.
This week Gwilym Mumford spoke to Leon Neyfakh of Slow Burn about the show’s second season which digs into the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. “Our show tries to tap into what everyone already knows, and surprise them with things they don’t,” Neyfakh explained. “We want to provoke them to think about something in ways they haven’t thought of before and, most importantly, try to capture what it was like for people to live through events in real time.” You can read the interview in full.
On Saturday Rukmini Callimachi of the New York Times revealed the process of putting together her hit podcast Caliphate, while talking to Emma Brockes. “That’s the peculiarity of the beat I’m on,” she said. “I cover a bunch of killers, who vary in the level of disgust or empathy that they evoke in me.” It’s a harrowing and fun read that gets into the difficulty of trying to infiltrate and report on Isis.
Picks of the week
“Our minds are full of rabbit holes,” says the New York Times’s Pagan Kennedy as she introduces this powerful new podcast about mental illness. It focuses on neurologist Alice Flaherty, whose grief for the twins she miscarried led to mania, delusions and the urge to write down her experiences. Flaherty looked to the case of William Styron, the Sophie’s Choice author who had also written about his depression, to make sense of her thoughts. It can be hard to listen to at times, but it does offer hope. HV
Life on the EdgePodcast
This hard-hitting podcast, sharing “the hidden struggles of ordinary people,” covers minimum-wage campaigns, single parenthood and nocturnal workers. Each episode features a wealth of warm, likable characters who tell their stories in an engaging way, from Jayne Dickinson, who was thrown into the benefits system when she suffered a head injury after a theatre set fell on her, to Waleed Akhtar, who illustrates the inequality in universities and beyond when students embark on unpaid internships. HV
In focus: why are there so few good music podcasts?
At least among the nerds I follow on Twitter, one regular topic of discussion is why there aren’t more good music podcasts? Rights issues might be one practical explanation. But then, what makes a good music podcast? Plucking a theory from the ether, I wonder if it comes down to whether you believe in separating the art from the artist – an aesthetics-first approach – or that context is crucial. I’m for the latter, which is perhaps why I find the forensic approaches of the profoundly popular Song Exploder, Switched On Pop and Dissect dry compared to the rich seams of discussion and history available elsewhere.
On the former tip, there’s the New York Times’s reliably comprehensive Popcast, which pulls apart the week’s biggest music news story. (As with many music podcasts, it can be annoyingly bro-heavy – it’s best when pop music editor Caryn Ganz joins the fray and they introduce guests, as on one exemplary episode about Rita Ora’s controversial Girls, titled: “Who gets to make a gay love song?”). Also at the New York Times, Still Processing regularly dedicates whole episodes to music, including Janet Jackson, Beyoncé (specifically her Coachella performance), Kanye West and Lauryn Hill. In the UK, the New Statesman’s pop culture podcast Srsly often includes appealingly detailed music segments.
Then there’s the history option: Red Bull Music Academy’s Couch Wisdom is simply audio uploads from their live lectures, but each episode feels like a mini documentary: I loved the Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis episode for the producers’ anecdotes about Prince and Janet Jackson. Even more in-depth is Chris Molanphy’s superb Hit Parade for Slate, which pulls apart the story of the US’s most interesting No 1 singles. Laura Snapes
Readers picks: reptile fancying and spinning yarns
It was the humour that made me keep coming back; the hosts are clearly having a lot of fun talking about their favourite subject: reptiles and amphibians.
Recommended by Will Farren
Yarn Story features true(ish) short stories and essays including an episode called The Siren that explores the tumultuous history of the narrator’s home town. It includes witch trials, Oliver Cromwell, nuclear bombs and the IRA.
Recommended by John Roche
Guardian pick
Your favourite twice-weekly football pod is back... approximately three minutes after last season ended. Host Max Rushden, former Soccer AM presenter and the voice of Gaviscon, is joined by a rotating cast of journalists (including the one and only Barry Glendenning), pundits and broadcasters to discuss, analyse and poke fun at the beautiful game. Episodes released on a Monday are focused on the weekend’s games, and any stories or funny moments which occurred along the way, while Thursdays can often be focused on specific issues, ideas or people connected with football, from Swansea City-obsessed comedians to statisticians setting out how they could revolutionise the way football clubs are run. If you like what you hear; make sure to check out their review of the Premier League’s first weekend.
