God only knows what I'd be without you
'you' is podcasts in this situation, I guess (not my best)
Gosh, delightfully 275 of you have now signed up for this nonsense. What a lovely thing. One of the best things about doing this email has been that everyone wants to talk to me about podcasts now and recommend things. So here’s the deal: when we get to 300 I’ll do an email based entirely on recommendations from others that I have enjoyed. So please do send me your favourites and I’ll drop you a shout out and share the love with everyone else. In the meantime, have some podcasts:
Series
The Disappearance of Nuseiba Hasan (Gimlet Media)
A true crime podcast? Groundbreaking. What will they think of next? Okay. Fair. But bear with me.
Ever since Serial came along and basically invented podcasts as A Thing, the industry has been beset by a tragic case of true crimeitis. Most true crime podcast sound the same, and tend to feel pretty dicey on the old ethics front.
But much like your friend introducing her to her latest terrible boyfriend, I promise you this one is different. The investigation is followed through the eyes of Nuseiba’s daughter. After discovering she is adopted, she sets about to find her birth mother, finds out her mother is Nuseiba, and then finds out that Nuseiba is missing.
This story sounds fresh, is sensitively handled, and manages to speak to broader social issues in a way that I’ve never seen a true crime podcast manage successfully before.
Episode
Soul Music - God Only Knows, The Beach Boys (Radio 4)
Oh man, someone recommended this one to me a few years ago and I probably listen to it once every few months. It consistently makes me cry, and I am not one of life’s cry-ers. Basically it is just a series of people talking about the role this song has played in a major event in their life. I’ll leave it at that so I don’t spoil it for you. Go, bask, wallow.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b01jsk
Something topical
The Slow Newscast - The Lost Ark (Tortoise)
Is this topical? I guess questions of culture and identity are always topical nowadays in the era of permaculturewar. And slow news is these guys’ entire thing so I feel justified including it even if I don’t have a proper hook for this week. Bit lazy of me (it’s a Friday afternoon, let me live) but I think the teaser the producers have put on Spotify I think is the best way to sell this to you: ‘What happens when a museum possesses a group of objects so sacred that they can never be seen in public or studied in private – and the original owners want them back?’ Sounds good, right?