Pump up the volume

A look at the year through the five popular podcasts

December 28, 2014 04:03 pm | Updated 04:03 pm IST

Photo: special arrangement

Photo: special arrangement

1. Serial

Serial is a weekly series that follows the format of a good old-fashioned whodunnit, and receives a whopping 2.1 million listeners per episode. Produced and created by Sarah Koenig, the podcast plays out as an investigative long-form narrative that traces the trial of Adnan Syed, a teenager accused in a 1999 Baltimore murder, through the eyes of Koenig, a journalist. Each season tackles a non-fiction story that unfurls powerful commentary on the state of the American justice and police system, and deals with questions of objectivity in the journalist’s reportage. The stand-out factor remains in the host discovering clues and information, along with the listener, through each episode.

2. Welcome to Night Vale

In Night Vale, the bizarre is the normal, and the normal, bizarre. The podcast is a 20-minute long surrealist and absurdist take on community radio, set in the fictional desert town of Night Vale. Host Cecil Palmer reports local news stories in a deep, resonant voice while the show’s roster of eerie characters, such as a five-headed dragon and a child anarchist, call in. The idea of Night Vale was conceived as an inclusionary world where all conspiracy theories are likely, and its residents learn to live with the paranormal everyday. With a generous dose of dark humour and the air of a town trying to embrace mayhem, Night Vale adds fascinating mythologies to its show with each fortnightly podcast. 

3. 99% Invisible 

99% Invisible features stories behind the American love affair with the automobile, slot machines and the DIY spacesuit. A podcast on the unseen and overlooked marvels of design and architecture that shape our daily lives, it is titled after a quote by Buckminster Fuller: “Ninety-nine percent of who you are is invisible and untouchable.” The podcast, produced by Sam Greenspan, is in its fourth season, and manages to pack in half-hour worth of information in 10 minutes on a weekly basis. The show doesn’t appear watered down or superficial, even though the target audience is the general public.  Each bite-sized episode, which pairs perfectly with a morning jog, features great production value and engaging story-telling that’s less a capsule of research, and comes packed with drama and entertainment. 

4. All India Bakchod

Long before tasting viral video success, the edgiest comedy collective in the country started as a podcast in 2012. Hosted by Tanmay Bhat and Gursimran Khamba, the show features jokes, news satire and absurd conversations. Guests ranging from Usha Uthup to Russell Peters engage in Indian living room banter with the host, offering moments of biting sarcasm in each 30-minute episode. Irreverent, eccentric quips dominate the podcast, which initially proved a perfect medium for the collective to test the waters in terms of comedy that Indian audiences could and couldn’t handle. It’s ideal for unwinding after a day’s work. 

5. This American Life 

This long-running, multiple award-winning weekly podcast puts together the best essays, memoirs, short fiction and recordings, keeping to current topics. These topics (for example, Hurricane Katrina), which are recited in first-person narrative, are explored in various acts. Informative, ironic, dramatic and humorous, presenter Ira Glass brings to life stories from the field with his excellent voice-acting chops. The show has emerged a centrepiece for immersive radio journalism with individual portraits and reporting of larger issues as it has consciously focused itself on telling untold stories with as much, if not with greater, depth as the visual medium. This one deserves a Sunday sit-down. 

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