Despite a tough year for the industry, the podcast world remains vast in its pleasures.
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Lets not sugarcoat this: 2023 has been a bad year for the podcast world.
But it would be misguided to think that this sustained downturn is ultimately anything existential.
This year welcomed strong narrative releases from established teams and newer voices alike.
We saw the full return of a veteran, and a long-running operation rising to meet the cultural moment.
We continue to enjoy an independent space that never fails to be endlessly interesting.
And of course, there is the increasing intersection between podcasting and the greater entertainment ecosystem.
Brutal as 2023 has been, the podcast ecosystem remains vast in its values and pleasures.
Here, Ive tried to build a list that reflects that.
10.The Scandoval Podcast-Industrial Complex
10.
Yes, this is a weird pick, but we must embrace the truth.
9.Popcast(New York Times)
9.
Two factors informPopcasts appearance on this list.
8.My Perfect Console(Independent)
8.
7.Louder Than a Riot:Season Two (NPR)
7.
There is very little quite likeLouder Than a Riot.
6.Skyline Drive(Kaleidoscope and iHeartMedia)
6.
As a sweetener,Skyline Drivealso features some killer music supervision, courtesy of Hattikudur himself.
5.Murder on Sex Island(Independent)
5.
Bless Jo Firestones quiet, mad genius.
She has to solve the case while appearing on the show.
ReadNicholas Quahs interview with Jo Firestone.
4.If Books Could Kill(Independent)
4.
3.Search Engine(PJ Vogt, Audacy, and Jigsaw Productions)
3.
ReadVultures full review ofSearch Engine.
2.You Didnt See Nothin(USG Audio and the Invisible Institute)
2.
Theres a mythical quality to the premise ofYou Didnt See Nothin.
Years later, he returns to that instigating story, looking to settle a spiritual score.
1.The Retrievals(Serial Productions with the New YorkTimes)
1.
The Retrievalstackles a real-life nightmare.
But here, Susan Burton and Serial Productions go for something more subtle, more complicated.
Brilliant, unforgettable, and the best thing Ive heard all year.
ReadNicholas Quahs interview with Susan Burton.
Many of those selections appear above in our top ten.
But lets unpack that.
This is the exact right time to make this series, too.
But her uncles intent to honestly capture how it felt coming of age in that world didnt survive Hollywood.
But it was also the product of a specific time and place the Pacific Northwest of the early 90s.
As a result, the predominant faces embodying Riot Grrrl ended up mostly being white.
(Such is the nature of podcast discovery: Word of mouth still reigns supreme.)
And you know what?
Its kind of incredible.
Nightingales commitment to her curiosity and love of strange individuals is electrifying.
Things went well for a while until they didnt.
Thats a pickle, of course, because these are individuals who radically shape American life on the regular.
Read Nicholas Quahs fullreview ofHoly Week.
But its still an utterly compelling piece of nonfiction crime storytelling.
Questions about the unreliability of memory, the subjectivity of truth, and the gravitational pull of closure arise.
Read Nicholas Quahs fullreview ofThe Coldest Case in Laramie.
ReadNicholas Quahsinterview withJo Piazza.
Created with frequent collaborator Ryan Dann and produced with Grant Farsi,Drifting Offisan effective example of shifting mediums.
Read Nicholas Quahsinterview with Joe Pera and Ryan Dann.
(iHeartMedia)
you could hold a lot againstSvetlana!
Listen, Id be perfectly happy to get hundreds more of these.
In the Scenes Behind Plain Sight(Radiotopia)
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