WHAT THEY SAID: THE TOP 100 PODCASTS EVER MADE ACCORDING TO THE PEOPLE THAT MADE THEM

When a conductor leads an orchestra, a cohesive piece of music emerges from one hundred-odd different musicians. Although it sounds like a single melodic narrative, underneath are dozens of layers. Whether it’s fourth trumpet or first cello, the soloists need to be engaging and fresh, the musicians need to understand if their part is foreground or background, and the percussion must set the pace and stay constant. 

That is the image I take from this list, The Essential Listening Poll, voted on by 300 working producers, creators, academics and writers. The job was to pull out 100 shows to illuminate the wider narrative of this genre. What are the defining concertos, melodies, operatic moments and memorable soloists? 

What shows that were influential, unmissable, iconic? Which ones do you remember when you think back on 15 years of listening, even if you haven’t gone back in years? It’s not about popularity, or favourites, what show gets the most downloads or has the biggest corporate empire. For that, you can look to the weekly charts--which also play an important role in this industry. 

Rather, let’s use this list as the way to help curate a list for what has lasting power, what broke the mold to stay memorable years later? What stories, or voices, or themes, do we still reach for, long after they were made? 

Let’s think of this as a working definition of narrative greatness. Afterall, this was the response from people who spend their days (and probably nights as well), listening and making audio. This is who they quietly measure themselves against, who they look to for guidance…what they call on and conjure while they work. This is an industry that has made itself in the last thirty years; this poll shows that we both look inward and backwards to look to the future.

What’s the first thing I see? The top five scream loyalty. Even if you’ve only listened to two This American Life episodes in this past year, its importance is implicit. The fact that it was ahead of Serial is reverent--poetic even-- because Serial is undeniably the singular show on which a wide and grand audience was built. But here’s where the poetry comes in: even Serial was built on the back of--and by the people who made--This American Life. 

It seems a bit silly to split hairs here between what was radio-first (This American Life and RadioLab), and what was podcast-first, (The Daily and S-Town); what it does is explain the blurry beginnings. It’s interesting to note that the next five shows are all clearly podcast-first concepts. Reply All and StartUp were launching pillars of Gimlet in 2014, closely followed by Heavyweight in 2016. Song Exploder and Love and Radio part of the launch of the seminal independent collective of Radiotopia in 2014 (although Love and Radio actually began a decade earlier, and has ties to both college radio and early public radio support). The outlier here is WTF with Marc Maron, which actually began in ye-olde RSS days of 2009, and has just announced its retirement this fall, after more than 15 years.

North of the Top 10, things start to become more fragmented. But if you follow the trail of cookie crumbs, there are some interesting ideas to highlight. 

The influence of public radio is evident here (WNYC, BBC, NPR, ABC, CBC, KQED, NHPR). But by volume, public radio is clearly eclipsed by the private companies, start up ventures and other moonshot studios that achieved mergers and buyouts. This also follows budgetary trends. So many of these creative enterprises have since folded or been cancelled: (Gimlet, Pineapple/Audacy Street, Short Cuts, Invisibilia); this also shows the grey hairs starting to emerge. This industry is now old enough that retirement--forced or voluntary--is happening.

This list also reminds me how innovative and indefatigable some podcast productions are. Many here have created their own mini-industries, defined what and how to be an independent, and became a force unto themselves (Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History, The Ringer, On Being, The McIroys, DOAC, Joe Rogan, Ologies, Kara Swisher, Huberman Lab, The Rest is History). 

This list also illustrated many of the companies that began early and are still going, despites so many changes and setbacks inside this industry. Forza! (Slate, Vox, Wondery, iHeart, NYTimes, Earwolf, Pushkin, Lemonada, SiriusXM, PRX).  

I also see here that audio fiction is not fringe, but essential, inside the wider podcast community. Many of these titles are either long-running serialized audio fiction (The Bright Sessions, Welcome to Night Vale, Imaginary Advice, Wolf 359 and The Truth, or breakout one-off hits like Moonface).

Although this list only features five non-English-language podcasts: Drinnies (German), De eso no se hable (Spanish), La Raras (Spanish), Fest und Flauchig (German), and the OG Radio Ambulante (Spanish) which began in 2012, it’s a reminder that while English is the dominant language of this list, the internet is a wide and watering planet, there are still many opportunities for the taking. If you look closely, the influence of the UK scene can be felt (Football Weekly, Strangers on a Bench, My Dad Wrote A Porno, Short Cuts), or Canada (Under the Influence, Uncover, Hunting Warhead), in otherwise a very American-focused bunch of shows (which closely mirrors my comment on the wider industry).

It’s particularly vindicating to see that those one-off wildly creative, not-like-anything-else, expensive and hard to monetize shows are indeed memorable, and live on in the consciousness of listeners (Floodlines, Cement City, Everything Is Alive, 1619, Dead Eyes, Ear Hustle, Mystery Show, Dolly Parton’s America, You Didn’t See Nothin, Have you Heard of George’s Podcast?). The fact that these shows actually got made, got published and distributed, and then went on to wide acclaim is the very magic of this industry. 

Interesting to see that audiences are still loyal to the second marriage club here: the podcasts that left or were cancelled, and then got picked up on another network or broadcaster. Pivot - with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway (Vox Media to New York Magazine), Death, Sex & Money (WNYC to Slate), In The Dark (APM Studios to The New Yorker), Love and Radio (Indie, Radiotopia, Luminary, Indie), Heavyweight (Gimlet to Pushkin), Disgraceland (Indie to Audacy), Stolen (CBC to Gimlet/Spotify), Criminal (Radiotopia to Vox) 99% Invisible (Radiotopia to SiriusXM). Loyalty to the pod is clear.

And can we just tip our hats here to these OG folks, who have managed to stay in the game, remain independent, viable, creative and compelling? (Twenty Thousand Hertz, Snap Judgement, Ologies, Ear Hustle, Scene On Radio, The Heart/Mermaid Palace, Rumble Strip, Sam Harris, Blank Check, and the fact that Radiotopia still exists and continues to publish creative and innovative works). Also congrats to the recent mentions who seem to have captured the imagination (Our Ancestors Were Messy, Inconceivable Truth, Normal Gossip, Bone Valley), and then buried in here are the repeat critically-acclaimed and hit-makers (Dan Taburski, Jonathan Goldstein, Connie Walker, John Biewen, Kaitlyn Prest).

When I look at the list as a whole, the top five were least surprising to me. I would expect This American Life to be first, and Joe Rogan closer to last, because although he’s undeniably The King of the Charts, his slope towards video and exclusivity, his allergic reaction to editing and his outsized political influence are at odds with many people in the industry. This also shows that greatness is immune to fads and trends. 

Each of these shows bears the creative soul of this industry. Look closely and each of them holds a layer for the blueprint for the future; both in how to keep the spirit alive, and how to keep innovating this age old storytelling format to stay fresh and current, decades on. 

Samantha Hodder is an audio creator, educator and critic. Her newsletter Bingeworthy is a home for narrative podcast criticism, a study in the art and the craft of audio.