Apologies to Beyoncé; Earth, Wind & Fire; Cardi B; LCD Soundsystem and Lizzo.
Even though Spotify claims you were my top artists of 2022, there’s something that topped you all.
I dug into my Spotify Wrapped report and found yes, my daughter’s love of the song “September” blew up my algorithm. Bigger picture: Music was only a small slice of my streaming. About 90% of my time on that platform went to podcasts, not music.
Podcasts have made me laugh and cry while driving the back roads of Lancaster County. They make me yell while I’m cooking. They make me better understand the world.
Not everyone gets it. A few years ago, in my own world under my headphones, somebody asked me what song was playing. She looked at me blankly when I said I was listening to a podcast. It’s like a radio program, I explained.
“You should see that movie ‘Seabiscuit,’ ” she said slowly. “You would like it.”
For people who think radio is something from the ’30s and everybody else as well, here are my top podcasts from last year.
On the Media
“On the Media” sometimes is like Charlie Brown with the permanent cloud overhead, negatively pointing out all of the bad things surrounding us. Sometimes, the conversation is so dense, I back it up to hear it again. But I can’t stop listening.
Here, one of the writers of the Pentagon Papers looks back on what we missed. A journalist explains why covering gun violence needs to go beyond mass shootings. A recent six-part series, “The Divided Dial,” explores why talk radio is so right wing.
Maybe it’s a bit depressing at times but this podcast is packed with fascinating conversations about how media shapes how we view the world.
Dressed: The History of Fashion
Why do we wear what we wear? In “Dressed: The History of Fashion,” two fashion historians explore this question through time and place.
Some favorite recent interviews include a photo detective who uses clothing to solve genealogy mysteries. There’s a conversation with Elena Kanagy-Loux (from Pennsylvania!) about the often-overlooked lacemakers of the past plus people embracing the craft today. I’m not a big royal fan, but I still loved the two-part episode about how Princess Diana used her clothing as a way to communicate without saying a word.
Longform
Even if I don’t have time to read all of the amazing longform journalism coming out, “Longform” is a great way to learn about these stories plus the people who write them. The podcast started as a website curating must-read stories. Last year, the website stopped adding new story picks but the two writers kept up with the weekly podcast.
A winding conversation might cover how someone got her job, how she pitched the big story, what’s her writing process and how she makes a living. In one episode, Andrea Bernstein explained how she combed through oral histories to find background, context and inconsistencies about famous family members. In another episode, Taffy Brodesser-Akner talks about writing a novel, “Fleishman is in Trouble,” which she turned into a television series where she was the showrunner.
Cultivating Place
Jennifer Jewell describes “Cultivating Place” as conversations on natural history and the human impulse to garden. It’s more why we garden then how to garden. This is the slow gardening companion to the I-can-grow-that podcasts like “You Bet Your Garden.”
Each guest’s personal and professional projects are huge, from managing large arboretums to reimaging community gardens and re-matriating seeds. A winter solstice episode dug into our relationships with plants, a conversation full of wonder from Maria Popova, the woman behind Brain Pickings. Another conversation, Florist Louesa Roebuck shares how she makes ikebana punk.
This American Life
Each episode of “This American Life” is downloaded by 2.5 million people so it’s not a secret. I’ve stuck with this show through the TV version, the live shows and the spinoffs, “Serial” and “S-Town,” because of the great storytelling. Boy, they know how to tug your heartstrings with a song or even just a few notes.
Earlier this month, writer Etgar Keret fills an episode with eight short stories about his mother, Orna, a Jewish girl in Poland during World War II. The stories are violent, tender, terrifying and funny. One about the last time she saw her mother is almost too much to bear. That doesn’t make it less gripping.
+5
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