Talking points
Once a one-hit wonder with his track Pump it Up, Joe Budden has found a more fruitful follow-up career in podcasting. The Joe Budden Podcast sees the 37-year-old rapper tackle the biggest subjects in hip-hop and has proved a sizeable hit, regularly topping the music section of the iTunes podcast charts, and landing Budden an exclusive deal with Spotify.
One of the most popular true crime podcasts around returned for a second series this week. Created by Payne Lindsay, who also made controversial true crime podcast Atlanta Monster, Up and Vanished focuses on cases of people who have gone missing. After investigating the disappearance of a Georgia schoolteacher last time around, its new season looks at the case of a missing mum in Colorado.
The battle over podcasting platforms is intensifying, with Google wading into the market. Last month the search engine giant launched Google Podcasts, a new platform that seeks to do for Android devices what Apple Podcasts has done for the iPhone. Now comes news that Google has registered a trademark for a second app called Shortwave. There is little information about the product, but the company says it will help users “discover and consume spoken-word audio in new ways”.
Picks of the week
Satirical TV series News Thing left its home on Russia Today earlier this year and is flourishing in its new guise as a podcast. Sam Delaney and Andy Dawson (one half of Athletico Mince) live up to their promise to chew the week’s news stories up into a “disgusting mushy ball and then spit them right up in your ears”. Who is the most hated character in Balamory? Does Boris Johnson have an eclectic collection of mugs? These are the burning questions that find irreverent, pleasingly rambling answers. Hannah Verdier
The Guilty Feminist’s Jessica Fostekew presents a podcast about eating, joined by guests including Aisling Bea, Viv Groskop and Fay Ripley. Of course, as the gossip flows in an unguarded way, it becomes much more than a foodie podcast. An episode with Sunday Brunch chef Simon Rimmer is a particular delight as he dishes up stories about Richard Blackwood’s unique lemon-grating technique and his teenage son’s monkfish-cooking skills, as well as his attitude to work and salt-and-vinegar crisps. Hannah Verdier
In focus: football podcasts
This early stage in the season, when most football fans are still optimistic about their team’s chances (QPR aside), is the perfect time to tune into the latest football podcasts – you may feel less eager to tune in when things are looking bleak come the start of May.
Certainly there are plenty to choose from, and going into the many club-specific podcasts – from Liverpool to Leyton Orient – would require more space than we have here. For general coverage, many of the national broadsheets have their own weekly or bi-weekly efforts, from relative old stagers like the Times’s The Game podcast, now hosted by former Sky Sports presenter Natalie Sawyer, to more recent additions like the pleasingly cerebral Indy Football Podcast. And, of course, let’s not forget the Guardian’s redoubtable Football Weekly, still going strong in its 12th year.
Away from the papers, newcomer The Totally Football Show continues to expand, with spin-off podcasts on the Football League and Italian football, while Irish effort Second Captains continues to benefit from the droll delivery of Ken Early. BBC Radio 5 Live’s Football Daily and the Sky Sports Football Podcast offer a slightly more back-to-basics approach, though both are able to boast input from their roster of ex-pros.
For those looking for more of a long-view approach to football, David Goldblatt’s The Game of Our Lives considers how the sport relates to the wider world, from immigration debates to arthouse cinema, while Jonathan Wilson’s The Barcelona Legacy Podcast looks at the impact of the Catalan club on modern football. And for a more anarchic approach to the beautiful game, there’s Bob Mortimer and Andy Dawson’s hugely funny Athletico Mince. Gwilym Mumford
Readers’ picks
THE definitive Alan Partridge podcast. If you know little of Alan but enjoy comedy, this podcast will introduce you to a brilliant character – get listening!”
Recommended by Ross Carpenter
Every episode explores a different candidate you wouldn’t have thought was either Evil or a Genius in the first place. Favourite episodes have included John Lennon and Albert Einstein.
Recommended by Will Nash
Guardian picks
On this week’s Books podcast, we head to the island of Majorca, where the conductor Paul Kildea goes in search of the composer Frédéric Chopin. Then we go to 17th-century Madrid with the novelist Amy Sackville, who explores time, truth and death with a novel about the artist Diego Velázquez.
If you’ve got a podcast that you love, send your recommendations to podcasts@theguardian.com
