Yea, I’m basic. I’m a podcast listening Millenial, and I love it. I make no apologies for enjoying these as much as I do. Here’s a list of some of my favorites, hopefully ones that you might have heard of but not yet taken the plunge. Subscribe and rate; give em five stars, cause if you give them four, I’m inclined to believe that you are a hater.

  • The Right Time with Bomani Jones - I first started listening to Bomani in 2015 when 101 ESPN in St. Louis began broadcasting him. It came on right as I was headed home from coaching youth football and I had never heard anything like it. Bomani and his producer Shannon were smart and humane in a way that every other “sports” centered show weren’t, and they were funny to boot. I was hooked from the jump. Since then, Bomani has only gotten bigger - moving the right time to a twice weekly podcast format, and cohosting his own half hour daily on ESPN, High Noon with Pablo Torre. If you like smart, you will like this. If you like the culture and music, you’ll like this. Hands down my favorite. (I’m also a fan of The Morning Roast, which is on hiatus during the NFL season, and Mina Kimes new show Bootleg)
  • Make Me Smart with Kai and Molly - a side project from the hosts of Marketplace, it covers topics at the intersection of technology, democracy, and economics. Plus they have the kind of rapport I have with my friends, and don’t shy away from either tough questions or disturbing conclusions. If you have an Amazon Echo, ask Alexa to “Make me smart” and you can get a small taste of what the show is like.
  • We Live Here - this show is all about issues of race and class in St. Louis, as a microcosm for the rest of the country. If I had one podcast I wish people in power listened to, this would likely be it.
  • Backstory - this is a cool show; Thanks to my fellow nerd Alex for pointing me toward it. Each week, a new dive into timely topics through American History. I was a History major in college and so I still get a huge kick about learning what life was like or how we got to where we are.
  • Burn It All Down - another sports podcast, but one 100% diametrically opposed to bro-culture. It’s produced and hosted by women, and highlights stories about women in sports. It’s a great show because they are talking about things no one else is covering and in ways the other people would never think to talk about it.
  • Harry Potter and the Sacred Text - this one is great nerd fun. They employ the techniques they learned in Divinity School to looking at the chapters of the Potter books as if it were a Sacred Text. There’s a huge fan base for this one and the insights are often really interesting and its nice to think about.
  • Revisionist History - Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast series about the stories and ideas that have been mistold, misremembered and misunderstood. If you like Malcolm Gladwell, this is him at his most Gladwellian.