The 50 Best Podcasts of 2019
The scales have finally tipped: As of 2019, more than half of all teens and adults in the U.S. have listened to at least one podcast, according to one consumer survey. It has been a time of tremendous growth for the medium. This year, the industry welcomed new streaming services, such as Luminary and Spotify, the latter of which acquired Gimlet. Companies including Sonos and Sony sponsored or created original content that took sound design to new places. Oscar and Tony Award winners performed in audio dramas. More shows moved away from the traditional weekly model, with some publishing once or even twice a day and others being released as binge-ready collections.
This year, how a story came together was regularly featured in a podcast’s plot. Creators processed grief, anger, and the nature of memory by using tape that felt refreshingly raw and gave listeners the space to draw their own conclusions. It became less rare to see a show land an interview with a famous or powerful person it was critiquing (think of Mitch McConnell in Embedded and O.J. Simpson’s recalcitrant lawyer in Confronting). These trends point to one expectation listeners now have for podcasts: pulling back the curtain and revealing how people come to understand the truth—or, at least, one version of it.
Producers also turned their gaze toward people who transfixed the country pre-Internet: Tupac and Biggie, Dolly Parton, and Mister Rogers, to name just a few. Others centered on seeking reconciliation or justice for people who had been hurt by family members or by entire institutions. For example, 1619 looked back to the beginnings of the U.S. slave trade, while Man in the Window delved into the decades-long hunt for a prolific killer.
The shows below are emblematic of the year 2019, each a different version of what humans sound like or of what preoccupies our minds. Each has, in its own way, raised the bar for excellence in audio storytelling. Here’s to this year’s Top 50—and the 51 percent of Americans listening. (As usual, we’ve recused The Atlantic’s shows from the list.)
50. StartUp: The Final Chapter
StartUp might be one of the most meta podcasts out there. Since 2014, Gimlet Media’s CEO, Alex Blumberg, has used the show to document the blunders and successes of the audio storytelling company, which sold to Spotify earlier this year. The final season chronicles a period that seems like it might be the beginning of the end for Gimlet. Tensions between Blumberg and his co-founder, Matt Lieber, radiate in interviews with Gimlet producers, and Blumberg records his own anxious musings during bouts of insomnia. The best part of the show is listening to Blumberg and Lieber talk through their feelings about art and money, and what valuing one over the other—especially when you have people’s careers in your hands—says about the kind of person you are. It’s just StartUp at its best.
Gateway Episode: “Our Company Has Problems”
49. Freaknik
One of the defining events in Atlanta’s history as a musical mecca and an oasis for black culture was the legendary Freaknik festival. The annual gathering, which began humbly as a spring-break picnic organized by and for students from historically black colleges and universities, expanded throughout the 1980s and ’90s into something akin to Woodstock—until it got so big that the city shut it down amid reports of sexual violence, and pressure from business owners. The host, Christopher Frierson, is a geeky, profane, unparalleled chronicler of the festival’s rise and fall, uncovering its history and exploring Atlanta alongside listeners. Freaknik is an ode to a unique city, and an elegy for one of the greatest music festivals that ever existed.
Gateway Episode: “Prologue or: The Abominable Discretion of Youth”
48. The Last Days of August
The Last Days of August creator Jon Ronson has written both a book about online humiliation, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, and a podcast about the porn industry, The Butterfly Effect. That work led him to August Ames, an adult-film star who died by suicide a few days after receiving massive backlash for a contentious tweet. As Ronson investigates her death, a slew of contradictory interviews with Ames’s family, friends, and fellow actors don’t give any conclusive answers about exactly what led to her suicide, but do reveal some facts about her short life and her reasons for working in porn. At the very end of the series, sublime analysis of one of Ames’s scenes from the podcast’s producer, Lina Misitzis, brings the key insight of the project into focus: Porn is a brutal industry, and it’s not equipped to support people who have mental illness or have survived abuse.
Gateway Episode: “The Last Days of August: Episode One”
47. Tell Them, I Am
The stories in Misha Euceph’s are all told by Muslim voices, admits that he relishes saying “I told you so” to people. Reza Aslan, the religious scholar who’s also known for calling President Trump a “piece of shit” on Twitter, talks about rule-breaking and authority. The episodes, which are less than 20 minutes each, came out every weekday of Ramadan, celebrating their guests’ individuality during a month of reflection observed by millions of American Muslims.
