AUTOMATIC LISTEN

Post Reports: Washington Post version of The Daily, little more amateur-ish and tossed off but still good
Giant Bombcast: Video game news and impressions
The Bill Simmons Podcast: Though I do usually skip the football pods and some celebrity interviews, this is the OG pod and I tend to just listen out of habit
The Lowe Post: Basketball pod from Zach Lowe, writer that helped revitalize my love of the sport
My Brother, My Brother and Me: A mockery of the advice column (RIP Yahoo! Answers) and just ridiculous at its peak (Jean Grae was recently a guest!)

Baseball BBQ: The Ringer's sorta humorous baseball pod, good analysis but not overwhelmingly stat driven
The Ringer MLB Show: Basically the opposite, stat-driven but sneaky funny at times
The Daily: Just puts me in a real "I'm waking up and caring about my day" vibe
The Press Box: Kind of a media ombudsman type pod, I've always been weirdly interested in the HOW of journalism which is all this pod is
The Besties: Comedic video game podcast from two Polygon editors and two of the McElroy brothers

Sway: Kara Swisher's NYT podcast, LOTS of big time CEOs on this one and Swisher is hilariously blunt with them
Nextlander: Three former Giant Bomb editors, fairly new but hey, been listening to these dudes for over a decade, why stop now?
Triple Click: Three former Kotaku writers rotate through various styles of video game conversation each week; interesting perspective since one is Jason Schreier from Bloomberg and one of gaming's true "newsmen"

Chapo Trap House: Only just recently got into this pod, always assumed it might be a little too far left for me but it's mostly just stupid fun
The Watch: TV news and analysis, usually one or two shows on watch along rotation as well
Bodega Boys: YKTFV
Fire Escape: Uh, yeah, another Giant Bomb-adjacent pod about that child's play stuff...
The Big Picture: Like The Watch, but movies - the Movie Draft episodes they've been doing in quarantine are particularly excellent
How Did This Get Played?: Three comedians talk the worst video games of all time - and sometimes the best!

OCCASIONAL/SITUATIONAL LISTENING

Unspooled: A common theme around these pods is they are about specific subjects and I usually want to refamiliarize with them - Amy Nicholson and Paul Scheer dissect classic movies, very entertaining but I need to see the movie first

The Rewatchables: Same deal, just Bill Simmons and some combo of The Watch/Big Picture/random guest (Tarantino's been on)
Popcast: NY Times' music pod, I'll usually listen but every once in a while Caramanica picks a topic too niche for me to care
How Did This Get Made?: Truthfully almost never listen because these movies usually aren't the easiest to find, but always a treat when I do

Dissect: As a non-theory music fan, always learn a lot, but this dude is kind of insufferably dry and earnest, it can be hard to hear him at his most RapGenius-like
Still Processing: Jenna Wortham is A LOT, but I really, really like Wesley Morris so if the subject matter doesn't imply too much astrology and essential oils talk I'm game
60 Songs That Explain the 90s: Cool little white guy nostalgia tour, but I don't need 50-70 minutes on certain songs, you know?
The Ringer Music Show: I love Grace Spellman, but Charles Holmes proudly declared Illmatic "one of the most boring albums of all time" so this pod can quickly become a hate listen and I need breaks

WTF W/ Marc Maron: Used to be an automatic listen, back before I discovered all these other podcasts and developed a serious problem...
AV Club Film Club: I like these guys, they just wound up on my secondary tier due to time constraints
The Mismatch: Ringer NBA pod, I usually listen to every episode during the playoffs, transaction season and pre-season but let it slide a bit during the regular season
Restaurant Tales: Hosted by three friends of mine, fun to actually have some people you know in your ear sometimes...but their guests can be hit-or-miss, or I already know all the stories, so not an every pod listen
Restaurant Hoppen: Goofy dude who kisses a lot of industry ass and writes glowing puff pieces about almost every place he goes, yet somehow made himself a bit of a must listen for local service industry folk
Waypoint Radio: Ridiculously woke perspective on video game news and analysis with some fairly niche interests, but I really like these guys generally so when I know the game, am curious for their perspective on a news event it can be some of the more enlightening listens of my week

Effectively Wild: FanGraphs baseball pod that is exceptionally numbers oriented, it's not at its peak when Sam Miller was on but helps me predict trends for MLB The Show's Diamond Dynasty cards and translates daily baseball into actual narratives for me
The Ryen Russillo Podcast: Too much NFL, even in the off-season, for me to listen consistently, but I'll always skip ahead to Life Advice at the very least for a window into lives I couldn't relate to less

SINGLE USE PODS
Binge Mode: Incredibly exhaustive examinations of Game of Thrones, Star Wars, Marvel, etc.
What Had Happened Was: Sort of longform, episodic, hip-hop version of Maron's WTF
Boom/Bust: The Ringer special production examining the rise and fall of HQ. Remember HQ?! Surprisingly interesting and engaging story here
The Wire Way Down in the Hole: Jemele Hill and Van Lathan go episode by episode through The Wire. They're not always right or correct, but their personalities carry this strong
Music Exists: Chuck Klosterman and Chris Ryan lock themselves in a cabin for a weekend and ramble on and on about music fandom and critical analysis - not for everyone, but personally fucking fascinating





~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz