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Your next favourite podcast · The Front

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  Speaker 1: We've closed.
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  Speaker 2: Are you ready? Okay?
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Great?
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: If you're anything like me, sometimes you'll look at your
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  Speaker 3: list of regular podcasts and think I hate all these
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  Speaker 3: shows except the Front. Of course, when that happens to me,
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  Speaker 3: I turn for advice to Kristen Amiot, who sits next
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  Speaker 3: to me at work and is the producer of the Front.
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  Speaker 3: She also happens to be a bona fide podcast expert.
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  Speaker 3: She writes our podcast a review column in The Australian
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  Speaker 3: every Saturday, and today she joins me to talk about
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  Speaker 3: the best podcasts of twenty twenty four and the best
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  Speaker 3: of all time. What were the big trends do you
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  Speaker 3: think in podcasting in twenty twenty four?
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  Speaker 1: Twenty twenty four was the year that podcasts really emerged
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  Speaker 1: as a bona fide political force. I think that's significant
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  Speaker 1: because podcasts pop culture adjacency, I think has caused them
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  Speaker 1: to be discounted by traditional media, but also to be
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  Speaker 1: lumped in with social media in the sense that there
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  Speaker 1: was a belief for a very long time that anybody
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  Speaker 1: could whack on a voice memo and call it a podcast.
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  Speaker 1: We do know that podcasts are an incredibly intimate medium.
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  Speaker 1: You're quite literally in people's ears. You're with them while
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  Speaker 1: they're gardening or cooking or doing the school drop off.
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  Speaker 1: And we know that people retain and comprehend information differently,
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  Speaker 1: not necessarily better, but differently when they listen to a podcast.
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  Speaker 1: All of those things are the reason that we saw
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  Speaker 1: podcasts in particular have such a significant impact or presence
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  Speaker 1: in the recent US election. We saw Donald Trump on
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  Speaker 1: Joe Rogan's podcast, which has been and still is one
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  Speaker 1: of the biggest podcasts in the world.
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  Speaker 4: All right for Roland, here we go.
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  Speaker 1: We saw Kamla Harris appear on Alex Cooper's podcast, called
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  Speaker 1: Her Daddy, Daddy, Madam Vice President Alex welcome to call
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  Speaker 1: her daddy. It is good to be with you. And
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  Speaker 1: that has perpetuated a really interesting conversation I think about
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  Speaker 1: who gets to be in the media, who gets to
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  Speaker 1: participate in politics, and curiosity around why these particular titles
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  Speaker 1: resonate with such a huge number of people to the
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  Speaker 1: point where they are arguably having an impact on the
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  Speaker 1: democratic process.
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  Speaker 3: In the evolution from radio to podcasting, it seemed like
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  Speaker 3: everything was going to be a bit more intentional. You know,
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  Speaker 3: you've made the choice to click on a podcast rather
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  Speaker 3: than the radio just kind of wittering on in the background.
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  Speaker 1: It would be that.
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  Speaker 3: We were all choosing to listen to things that were
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  Speaker 3: created just for us, and it was full of great content.
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  Speaker 3: In fact, I think the Joe Rogan influence has been
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  Speaker 3: that some podcasts are very bloated. You know, there's a
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  Speaker 3: lot of just chit chat, particularly in some of the
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  Speaker 3: famous Australian podcasts hosted by women.
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  Speaker 1: I must say it's filler in your Labia Majora.
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  Speaker 3: They just put where they're kind of talking about their
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  Speaker 3: vaginas for an hour and a half.
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  Speaker 1: And it's to rejuvenate the.
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  Speaker 3: Vulva without I would think any kind of journalistic imperative.
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  Speaker 1: So that's intriguing, isn't it.
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  Speaker 2: What is that?
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  Speaker 3: Is it sort of comfort food for the audience?
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  Speaker 1: I think. So there's something that people say about podcasts
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  Speaker 1: and about their particular effectiveness and their ability to engage people,
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  Speaker 1: which is that a lot of people listen, as I said,
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  Speaker 1: when they're gardening, cooking, cleaning, and they say, that's because
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  Speaker 1: you've got busy, hands free mind. Television, I think is
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  Speaker 1: going through a similar moment in that there is the
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  Speaker 1: rise of something called ambient TV, which is you know
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  Speaker 1: your Emily empois you pop it on, you can look
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  Speaker 1: and scroll on your phone for three hours and still
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  Speaker 1: not miss a single thing that happens in that show.
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  Speaker 1: So perhaps that's what people are kind of engaging in,
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  Speaker 1: is feeling maybe less alone, feeling like you have company.
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  Speaker 1: And maybe it's not the way that they're talking about it,
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  Speaker 1: or even what they're talking about. It's just having a
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  Speaker 1: voice that you relate to, that is there playing while
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  Speaker 1: you are going about your life.
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  Speaker 3: That has now become so ubiquitous that now there's a
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  Speaker 3: trend for not doing that. Dudes on planes doing what
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  Speaker 3: they call raw dogging, which is just kind of staring
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  Speaker 3: at the seat in front of you. And while hot
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  Speaker 3: girl walk was an earlier TikTok trend, now there's a
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  Speaker 3: trend to be a hot girl out for a walk,
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  Speaker 3: not listening to a podcast.
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  Speaker 4: I've started going on what I call silent walks, and
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  Speaker 4: that's basically where I go for a walk. I'm listening
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  Speaker 4: to my surroundings and I'm not constantly listening to a
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  Speaker 4: podcast or music or on a call with someone.
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  Speaker 1: As a person who if I'm not working on a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: I'm listening to a podcast, and when I finished listening
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  Speaker 1: to a podcast I'm writing about a podcast that sounds
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  Speaker 1: like my nightmare. I'm one of the people who love
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  Speaker 1: to have something playing when I'm just living life.
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  Speaker 3: I would love to just get into the ambient ones,
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  Speaker 3: but I find myself listening to ones that I feel
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  Speaker 3: are going to improve me in some way about history
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  Speaker 3: or cooking or whatever, and I'm constantly hitting the fifteen
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  Speaker 3: seconds back button.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, right, you're kind of having the audiobook experience.
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  Speaker 3: It always amazes me with say, our audience for the
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  Speaker 3: Bromwin podcast, which we've both worked on, Headley Thomas's investigation
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  Speaker 3: into a missing woman, how many people tell us that
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  Speaker 3: they listen while they're falling asleep because Headley's voice is
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  Speaker 3: kind of soothing. But yet they're also paying a lot
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  Speaker 3: of attention to the detail, aren't I.
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  Speaker 1: We have a Facebook group where there's I think now
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  Speaker 1: over twenty two thousand people, and the questions that people
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  Speaker 1: are asking in there, We've had moments where we've gone, oh, actually,
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  Speaker 1: that's a really amazing observation and yes, in the same
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  Speaker 1: breath saying oh, I heard this while I was listening
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  Speaker 1: to it on the third go as I was falling asleep.
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  Speaker 1: It's maybe that unique ability of podcasts to create this
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  Speaker 1: community and for people to feel like they're participating in
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  Speaker 1: it when they are just relaxing and going to sleep.
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  Speaker 1: But I did have a funny conversation with Headley recently
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  Speaker 1: where he had observed that people say this to him,
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  Speaker 1: that he puts them to sleep, and he was having
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  Speaker 1: a night where he was struggling to get to sleep himself,
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  Speaker 1: and so I thought, I'll listen to this edit that's
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  Speaker 1: come in from our brilliant engineer, A Slade Gibson, and
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  Speaker 1: he said I was out like a light in about
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  Speaker 1: five minutes. So there's something to it if even Headley
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  Speaker 1: is putting himself to sleep.
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  Speaker 3: Coming up the podcast power player who's got big ambitions
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  Speaker 3: in old school media. Kristen, You've listened to an awful
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  Speaker 3: lot of podcasts in your life and in twenty twenty four.
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  Speaker 3: So I'm going to go through some of the big
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  Speaker 3: categories and I'm going to ask you what's your best
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  Speaker 3: ever and what's the best of twenty twenty thought.
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  Speaker 1: Let's start with true crime.
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  Speaker 3: This statement is as best as I can remember. One
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  Speaker 3: of the best I've ever listened to is sweet Bobby.
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  Speaker 2: This story the one that you're about to hear. Thank you,
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  Speaker 2: it's a love story.
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  Speaker 3: I meant it from the bottom of my heart. That
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  Speaker 3: was Tortoise Media's investigation into what had happened to a
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  Speaker 3: young english woman when a romance had apparently gone really
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  Speaker 3: badly wrong. The twists and turns in that one were
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  Speaker 3: absolutely amazing. I won't ruin it for the audience, but
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  Speaker 3: it took you to places that we didn't expect to go.
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  Speaker 3: Tortoise Media is quite remarkable, aren't they.
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  Speaker 1: They are. They're really emerged as a power player in podcasts,
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  Speaker 1: and yes, I would rank Sweet Bobby as probably my
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  Speaker 1: favorite true crime podcast of all time. As you said,
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  Speaker 1: their ability to take you on this journey and to
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  Speaker 1: do it really sensitively, I think, and that's a big
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  Speaker 1: part of the evolution that I think has gone on
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  Speaker 1: in podcasts over the last decade or so. Is at first,
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  Speaker 1: particularly in true crime, it was a little bit salacious.
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  Speaker 1: Now it's a lot more victim centric and it's a
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  Speaker 1: lot more considerate of the experiences that people have had
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  Speaker 1: and the people around them as well. Tortois Media has
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  Speaker 1: this year been in negotiations to buy The Observer newspaper
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  Speaker 1: from the Guardian. That's been something that staff of both
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  Speaker 1: The Guardian and The Observer have objected to really wildly.
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  Speaker 3: It's a really interesting example of new media consuming the old,
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  Speaker 3: isn't it, and the new power structure emerging.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely. I suppose for us here we've gone the other way,
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  Speaker 1: as many other publishers have in terms of incorporating audio
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  Speaker 1: into an existing ecosystem which started with print then moved
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  Speaker 1: to digital. But yes, watching it go back the other
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  Speaker 1: way and seeing journalists in particular engage in that conversation
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  Speaker 1: about why it's a good idea or a bad idea
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  Speaker 1: is really interesting. One to queen of domestic violence claiming
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  Speaker 1: that she's a victim of violence is the biggest options
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: does a violent predatory one tortise series that we both
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  Speaker 1: listened to and that we have discussed at length in
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  Speaker 1: the office. Here is who trolled Amber.
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  Speaker 2: The scale of the attacks was staggering. Between twenty sixteen
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  Speaker 2: and twenty twenty two, more than eight hundred thousand tweets
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  Speaker 2: were posted with the hashtag amberhard is an abuser Only.
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  Speaker 1: It's another six episode series hosted by Alexi Mostros, who
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  Speaker 1: was the host of Sweet Bobby and the journalists who
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  Speaker 1: investigated that it was about the highly publicized court case
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  Speaker 1: between Amber Heard and her ex husband Johnny Depp.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: What I loved about who trolled Amber was that it
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  Speaker 3: ignored the historyonics of the court case and did real
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  Speaker 3: journalism about what was happening around that court case, in
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  Speaker 3: particular why Amber Heard was being bombarded with huge volume
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  Speaker 3: of hatred on social media and everything she said was
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  Speaker 3: being amplified in a negative way. They came up with
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  Speaker 3: some quite terrifying conclusions and it.
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  Speaker 1: Did feel a lot like Sweet Bobby in that way,
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  Speaker 1: a completely different story, completely different circumstances. I wrote in
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  Speaker 1: my review for the paper that wherever you think you
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  Speaker 1: know this story is going, you could not be more wrong.
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  Speaker 1: Where it actually lands is miles away from where it begins,
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  Speaker 1: and it's done in that same really careful, considered way.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, Another category is lifestyle. My husband, like a lot
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  Speaker 3: of men, is absolutely obsessed with car Talk and American
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  Speaker 3: podcast with two Italian American guys talking about cars.
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  Speaker 1: Hello on a log with the Car Talk from National
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  Speaker 1: Public Radio with us click and clack the tap. That
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  Speaker 1: was a pretty Hello, robust, wouldn't you say? Robust?
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  Speaker 3: More?
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Than robust a week.
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  Speaker 3: One of them has been dead for several years, but
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  Speaker 3: he still listens to the back catalog.
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  Speaker 1: But this car has a carburetor. Yes, it has a carburetor. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: you have carburetor icing an operator as yeah, and it's
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  Speaker 1: caused by a mixture of cool air.
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  Speaker 3: I can highly recommend it for the men of a
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  Speaker 3: certain age out there.
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  Speaker 1: What about you?
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  Speaker 3: What was your best lifestyle podcast ever?
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  Speaker 1: And maybe off twenty twenty four? My favorite lifestyle podcast
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  Speaker 1: ever is Maintenance Phase by Michael Hobbs who is a
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: journalist and Aubrey Gordon who is a blogger. And what
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  Speaker 1: they do is debunk what they call junk science and
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: quote unquote legitimate science.
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  Speaker 2: Man.
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  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what all I ever want to drink
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: when we're recording is like phizzy things. And it's the
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: worst idea I know, because you're phizzy. Each week, one
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  Speaker 1: of them will pick a topic, or they might pick
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  Speaker 1: a particular diet book or just a concept that's been
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: in the culture for a long time. One of their
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: very early episodes was about snake oil and how that
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: transitioned from being a legitimate Eastern medicine to something that
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: we used to describe somebody who's a little bit dodgy.
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  Speaker 1: Their ability to research and to synthesize and explain in
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  Speaker 1: an entertaining, funny and succinct way is I think, really engaging.
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  Speaker 3: That reminds me of an Australian one that I love
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  Speaker 3: called do You Fucking Mind? Hosted by Alexis Fernandez. I
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  Speaker 3: think I've tried to get you to listen to this
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  Speaker 3: numerous times. I think you're too busy with maintenance face.
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  Speaker 3: But Alexis Fernandez is a young Australian woman who went
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: and did a neuroscience degree because she was intrigued by
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  Speaker 3: how the brain works. So each episode is a combination
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: of brain facts, how the brain works, and then her
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  Speaker 3: incredibly foul mouthed but very clever and very entertaining take
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  Speaker 3: on relationship issues, you know, whether it's how to deal
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  Speaker 3: with toxic parents in law, and there's something about her
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  Speaker 3: generation's fluency in the language of mental health and the
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  Speaker 3: fact that they're dealing with the problems that everybody throughout
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  Speaker 3: him history has dealt with. I'm loving hearing all of
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: this from a woman in her twenties perspective, although I
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  Speaker 3: must say whenever it comes on in my car. My
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: children object to the swearing in the title, so you've
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  Speaker 3: it's something to be aware of. Okay, what about comedy
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: and humor. Something that I love is no such thing
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: as a fish. It is from the British television store QI.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: If you haven't seen it, it's a panel show. On
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  Speaker 3: that show, they have QI elves.
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  Speaker 1: They are the researchers and so four of them come
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  Speaker 1: together and they bring their favorite fact. It can be
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  Speaker 1: about absolutely anything, and as the show has gone on,
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  Speaker 1: they've got more and more obscure. And of course there's
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: no such thing as a fish is one of the
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: first facts that were surfaced in this series way back
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: when Comy Bush. So we're measuring by the number of
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: items sold rather than by the value. And VW sells
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: more sausages than cars. So they come to Australia and
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  Speaker 1: they sell out the Sydney Opera House. That is how
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  Speaker 1: popular this is. And you do learn things. I find
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  Speaker 1: myself constantly saying, oh I heard this on an episode
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: of No such Thing as a Fish? That did you know?
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  Speaker 1: Blah blah blah. It makes me really good at pub
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  Speaker 1: trivia if nothing else. And if you've got kids in
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  Speaker 1: the car, probably fine for them to listen to as well. Kristin,
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  Speaker 1: thank you very much. Thank you.
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  Speaker 3: Kristin Amiot is producer of the Front and she's The
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  Speaker 3: Australian's podcast reviewer. You can read her column every weekend
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: in our review section and check out all the country's
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: best arts and entertainment journalism anytime at the Australian dot
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: com dot au slash review. Thanks for listening to the Front.
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  Speaker 3: Our team is Kristin Amiot, Lea Samaglue, Tiffany Dimac, Joshua Burton,
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: Stephanie Coombs and Jasper Leek.