I'm lucky that I can listen to music all day as I work. But sometimes I need to mix it up, and there's no better way than a podcast. For those of you who haven't tried this yet, it's basically just pre-recorded talk radio. Here's a list of 5 podcasts that I listen to every week, give it a shot!
1. Snap Judgment. This is my favorite. It's like This American Life with an edge. It's street, international, more youth oriented perhaps, Glen Washington is the host, and he's just as good as Ira Glass.
2. This American Life. This is pretty much the original Podcast. I'm sure it wasn't the first, but it definitely made podcasts popular. It's like watching a good documentary, except you're listening to it unfold. There's 566 episodes, so if you've never listened to it you've got 33,960 hours of amazing story telling ahead of you.
3. Serial. So one of the producers of This American Life struck out on her own and did a single story over 12 episodes. She investigates a murder, the killer is behind bars, but she waffles back and forth between his innocence and guilt. I did too. This was the podcast of the year for 2014, very compelling.
4. Ted Radio Hour. I'm sure you've heard of TED talks, Technology Entertainment and Design. This is a great weekly podcast that takes clips of popular TED talks that have a similar theme. I like it because if I hear a piece that I really like I can go onto the TED website and look up that persons TED talk. Make sense? It's just good, that's all you need to know.
5. Here's the Thing with Alec Baldwin. This podcast is just Alec Baldwin interviewing artists in the entertainment business. The Biz. You definitely have to pick and choose, but if he's talking to someone you're a fan of, he does a great job at getting their back story, how they made it and I always find out some fascinating detail about them that I didn't know before. Well done Alec.