The 50 Best Podcasts of 2018
Editor’s Note: Find all of The Atlantic’s “Best of 2018” coverage here.
The word podcast has by now become completely untethered from its namesake—the iPod. Analytics that were once uncapturable have become fairly comprehensive (downloads from Apple Podcasts surpassed 50 billion this year) and specific (Chicago streams more podcasts on Spotify than any other U.S. city), which has brought new money and possibility to the form. Recipes for how to create a decent series were invented through trial and error, and thousands of producers now understand what makes our ears stand up: cults, cold cases, politics, feminism, relationships, but—most of all—stories.
Last year, S-Town blew our minds by taking a novelistic approach to its fascinating characters, plot, and setting. This year, playwrights and journalists came out from behind the page in droves. Podcasts are now regularly adapted for television (Homecoming, 2 Dope Queens, Pod Save America, Dirty John, to name a few). They became more niche and even self-referential: The Onion’s A Very Fatal Murder satirizes true-crime podcasts. There’s even a podcast (Before It Had a Theme) about a radio show that is now also a podcast (This American Life). Podcasts, it seems, are the new black hole (a concept that’s explained very well on HumaNature), because they feed and feed on whatever is around them.
The shows on this year’s top-50 list highlight innovation where it collides with craft and entertainment. They are the ones that answer the call, “Make it new!” They made space for new voices, ideas, and methods of connecting with and harnessing audiences, the Internet, and the material world. They are the ones that don’t require advanced preparation, the ones you’d recommend to your adult friends. Here’s to the best podcasts of 2018, and to what they’ve made resoundingly clear about digital audio: So much more is yet to come. (As usual, we’ve recused The Atlantic shows from the list.)
50. The Truth: The Off Season
The Truth’s Jonathan Mitchell has been doing experimental, fictional art audio since what feels like the beginning of time (for more than 20 years, actually). The Off Season begins with Bruce Alvarez, a fictional TV host, interviewing a prominent female journalist. They start taking callers, and the first one accuses Alvarez of sexual harassment. As his network investigates the allegations, Alvarez heads to Montauk, where he has an unlikely encounter with an aspiring journalist named Erica Hernandez. The plot becomes implausible—but the conversations that take place between the two allow listeners to process some of the major news events of 2018 without reliving the falls of Matt Lauer and Harvey Weinstein, both of which seem to have inspired the show. The Off Season is, in part, an exploration of the mind of a man who feels helplessly, inexcusably, trapped by ingrained sexism. The show’s writers, Marina Tempelsman and Niccolo Aeed, manage to offer poignant social criticism without reducing Alvarez to a caricature of evil. The Off Season may hold up a mirror to life, but it also reflects back some light—some optimism—at listeners, too.
Gateway Episode: “Banished to the Hamptons”
49. Death, Sex & Money: Hot Dates
Demystifying romantic relationships, especially complicated topics such as consent and online dating, is a wellspring with seemingly endless mass appeal. The Death, Sex & Money host Anna Sale kicked off a summer series by introducing listeners to a group of people at different stages in their lives, with wildly different goals and dispositions, as they attempted to find love. Most of the episodes are short, serving listeners with a quick shot of dating gossip without veering into anything too indulgent. The vignettes are meaningful, but they likely won’t trigger a sensation of emotional vertigo. Listeners take in the hope and hesitation that one man describes as he attempts to turn a close friendship into something more. One woman discusses the reasons why, even as a virgin, nonmonogamy made the most sense for her. Another man wonders aloud, in light of the #MeToo movement, “Am I losing my masculinity by asking too many questions?” as he tries to suss out when, if ever, it’s okay for him to make a move. Sale puts participants at ease and dignifies them without shying away from asking pointed questions. Hot Dates is intellectually stimulating but not taxing, and in the podcast space, this level of sophisticated simplicity hits a refreshing sweet spot.
Gateway Episode: “Hot Dates: Romance Right Now”
48. This Is Love
Phoebe Judge has been making audio narrative in her popular podcast Criminal since 2014. Here, she turns her gaze to love, which her show argues isn’t just a feeling—it’s also something you do. Even if the stories in this series don’t frame love as one-dimensional or predictable, they sometimes still evoke movie magic. “The Run,” for instance, starts off as a meet cute at a park; but when a man’s wife dies, his affections morph into a goofy, even sloppier, form when redirected at his children. “Nothing Compares to You” highlights the passion for one’s profession and for those who make that work possible (this one features Prince and resurrects him through stories from his sound engineer). The episode is about what we project onto other people and their expressions of care, and about how we need love in all its forms. Even if we don’t feel it or when we forget about it, Judge’s series is there to help us remember that love is as much an action as a frame of mind.
Gateway Episode: “Something Large and Wild”
47. What’s Good With Stretch and Bobbito
Stretch and Bobbito have the cachet to interview guests such as Dave Chappelle, Eddie Huang, Regina King, and Jonah Hill. After all, in the ’90s, the duo introduced a New York audience (and so, the world) to Eminem, Jay-Z, Biggie, and about the duo. Despite all this, Stretch and Bobbito maintain the regular-man vibe on their show. The two-on-one technique they have creates an advanced conversational style—not chaotic or rambling—that makes you feel invited to a party you have no business being at. Listeners experience nostalgia through mood and ambience rather than via the reminiscences of back-in-the-day stories. Radio shows have a different calling than podcasts—they tend to be more rooted in a specific time and place—but proves that the democratization of audio can make room for those projects, too.
