February 28 - March 5, 2016

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RankPodcastEpisodeLowdown
1CriminalJolly Jane (#38)When the most culturally arresting podcast of the modern era is a true crime investigative deep dive, why isn't Criminal more widely lauded. One of the key tenets of Serial's success is it's depth, but Phoebe Judge imbues each subject on her show with a gravitas that drives home the centrality of crime and justice in a democracy. The latest episode explores the life of little known 19th century serial killer "Jolly" Jane Toppan. A deep probing nonfiction recounting of these stories could fill a lengthy book, and Judge deftly cuts the drama into a succinct recounting of the most essential bits of the narrative.
2Song ExploderKT Tunstall (#66)KT Tunstall and her hit single 'Suddenly I See' didn't exactly thrill me when it echoed across radio waves several years back. In a way, that's just the kind of woeful ignorance host Hrishikesh Hirway preys upon to produce the most insightful episodes of Song Exploder. Hirway's tireless editing pares brilliant behind-the-scenes moments from each track he dissects, but my favorite episodes tend to come from artists that are unfamiliar to or previously unappreciated by me. The backing vocals section on this particular episode is great, and I never would have guessed at the inspiration behind the seemingly vague lyrics.
3The Longest Shortest TimeKicking Ass While Pregnant (#76)Parenting podcasts are like self-help books - both sound like rather opportunistic and shallow. But after listening to several such shows for NO specific personal reason, they turn out to be much more reflective of wholly human experiences. For someone who is not currently a parent, The Longest Shortest Time rises to the top - sometimes causing me to ponder what each installment has to do with parenting before inevitably realizing the connection. I loved the unique job featured in this episode, and enjoyed that the featured couple married young but didn't have kids for a while. While I could probably dig a little deeper and take issue with the gender politics presented by a male writer manning the narrative behind a pregnant super hero, it's apparent that there is a strong female voice literally whispering in the ear of the man in question.
4Hidden BrainOriginals (#22)Initially Hidden Brain struck me as a podcast with a compelling topic (pop-psychology) and a rather bland delivery (tried and true NPR news casting - solid, if a bit bland). I've faithfully listened to all 22 episodes, and while they are a little hit-or-miss I've come around to accepting the show on it's own terms. It's good journalism and the guests Shankar Vedantam brings on are pretty reliably interesting. This episode may have resonated for the reasons that I was not bowled over by Hidden Brain itself - NPR is a leader in audio and so perhaps my expectations of this particular show were set too unrealistically high at the start (This American Life doesn't grow on trees, am I right?!). That aside, Originals also dug at someting more personal. I like to think I'm an original-ish person, but often it feels like I simply parrot out information tinged with the flavor of culture I consume. Perhaps the very realization that I can only be so unique in such a large world speaks to my outlier status on the uniqueness scale...or maybe I just need to acknowledge how the rules I follow dictate my self worth.

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