It took quite a bit of research to uncover a good amount of these as I often try not to merely cater to the Spotify top ten and I’d like to extend some much given thanks to the audio drama subreddit for their excellent recommendations.

With a bit of assistance, I’ve found the new, the obscure, the scary, the silly, and the weird combinations of both. Here we have fifteen audio dramas that have caught my attention as of late all coming in a variety of tones, lengths, and genres spanning meaty, long-form mysteries, science fiction anthologies, or a short and sweet miniseries from the likes of newcomers and experienced vets.

As a note, all of these podcasts should be listened to from the beginning unless otherwise stated. Almost all of these podcasts are serialized stories with continuous narratives.

The Best Audio Drama Podcasts

Audio drama is certainly a subjective subject. What one person likes, another will hate. But we’ve gone to great lengths to ensure our picks for the best audio drama podcasts employ excellent storytelling, character development, and have the requisite plot twists that will keep you hooked.

So let’s look at the best audio drama podcasts the medium has to offer. At the end of the post we’ve included some bonus audio dramas that didn’t quite make the list of “best,” but are still pretty damned good and worth your time.

Without further adieu.

The Fourth Ambit

A slightly newer podcast debuting last spring of 2021, The Fourth Ambit is already a solid few hours in the length of their episodes and has got me hooked like malware on a hard drive. 

The Fourth Ambit is a dark, intelligently written sci-fi that weaves a fascinating futuristic landscape where the merging of advanced technology and the human condition take center stage. You won’t want to miss any of Gilles’ misadventures between virtual reality and reality-both of which seem to be equally dangerous.

Give Me Away

Give Me Away focuses on a crashed spaceship titled “The Ghosthouse” for the constant presence of ghastly screams from doomed extraterrestrial life trapped in its mainframe. The only way to end such eternal torment is to transfer their minds into willing human participants-permanently. 

This audio drama comes from the writers behind such favorites of The Message, Life/After, and Steal the Stars which ensures Give Me Away will be a gripping, methodical mystery built from the ground up on atmosphere and chilling discoveries.

It makes for a piece of amazing science fiction with a psychological core, dabbling into complex themes of identity and self worth. You’ll be deeply enamored with the journey of protagonist Graham Shapiro and an exploration into the value of one’s life, be it his own and those around him.

If you do like science fiction do check out some of the paranormal podcasts we’ve reviewed recently. Are they fact or fiction? Or a blend of audio drama?

The Program Audio Series

Joining my collection of favorite anthology series besides The Long Hallway and Theatre of Tomorrow is The Program Audio Series where we’re transported to a universe where Money, State, and God form into one entity governing over a future society. The Program Audio Series lets us into the lives of multiple strangers-some innocent, some not so much, all of them somehow affected by the might gonglamorith of technology. 

The Program audio series is an unapologetically cruel but undeniably creative collection of short stories about a terrifyingly possible future and a rapidly changing present.

PLEASURE MACHINE

It all starts when African American sound artist H gets a job offer from tech cooperation Librate–a once in a lifetime opportunity that wroughts on a number of personal conflicts. That’s the base plot of Colt Coeur’s PLEASURE MACHINE, a nine episode long thrill ride that’s a blend of Dear White People and Sorry to Bother You.

PLEASURE MACHINE’S writing is deeply provocative and smart yet simple in execution with its neat editing tricks, and atmospheric sound design that packs so much into so little time. Many struggling under the stress of freelance, social constructs, and societal pressures will adore this miniseries, these all being topics that PLEASURE MACHINE provides with a complex, adult perspective.

Margaret’s Garden

The Bloody Disgusting Podcast Network has carefully crafted the quaint American suburb of Everton, a picturesque suburban brimming with all-American charm, modern appliances, and opportunity…seventy years ago, that is. 

The American Dream becomes the American Nightmare in their show Margaret’s Garden, a suspenseful suburban audio drama fresh from the oven as of the fall of 2020. Margaret’s Garden is a nice blend of Greener Grass and 1989’s Parents, setting itself up as a piece of truly memorable and macabre Americana.

Greenhouse

Put your flower shop AU’s to bed because Atypical Artists’ Greenhouse is the kind of blooming romance you won’t want to miss. Cute, cozy, and awkwardly sweet, Greenhouse is To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before with deeper roots than your favorite Wattpad fic.

Watch from the shrubs as two wallflowers learn to overcome their fears and open up to each other one letter at a time. Our leads Abigail and Rose are as socially anxious as they are adorable and you’ll be ready for their love story to grow from the first “dear”.

Donald August Versus the Land of Flowers

Babysitting and bad gardening merge in this short audio drama comedy that packs plenty of personality (and pollen) in just under an hour. In this unlikely summer tale in Southern Florida we join twelve-year-old Donnie and his nanny Lex as they investigate the presence of a mysterious palm plant when their game of detective turns into a legitimate investigation.

At a brief five episode length, Donald August Versus the Land of Flowers is a simple, charming story with just the right amount of childhood innocence and the kind of summer fun that will lighten up any dreary day. 

Jack of All Trades

In search of work and a place to live, young and spry Jaclyn Seeglay, often known as Jack, gets hired at Fidus Achates as their new repairwoman, even if her own resume could use some tweaking in the truth department. 

Little to her knowledge, she’s signed up to be the company’s new paranormal hunter who must determine if the creaky floors and leaky faucets are the results of poor house planning or a poltergeist. 

Though I”m sold on the absolute disaster lesbian of a protagonist and her hilarious coworkers, Jack of All Trades comes with some surprisingly strong lore and unique takes on supernatural creatures that give its world immaculate depth.

What Can I Get Started For You?

What Can I Get Started For You? is a slice-of-life comedy mini-series that tells the story of four New York baristas passing by work days with hilarious banter and curating the perfect Spotify cue to survive the next lunch rush. 

Lucky Doll Productions has crafted the ultimate coffee shop story complete with seductive health inspector checkups and talent shows.

What Can I Get Started For You? gets by on the strength of its snappy writing, fun characters, and unique stage play framing that gives it the vibe of watching sitcom misadventures. Don’t even bother adding sugar to your coffee this morning, this show’s good vibes should be enough.

PodCube

No need to adjust your settings, PodCube is just as odd as it seems and the kind of alien experience you might be looking for if you have a taste for a weird workplace comedy. PodCube seems to be a semi-improvisation project though it might be the actors’ natural comedic flow with each other that’s got me recalling the Interdimensional Cable segments from Rick and Morty.

Despite its inherent weirdness, PodCube is a weirdly grounded look into the chaos of mainstream marketing and working under capitalistic restrictions. Between fake movie trailers and awkward press conferences, PodCube never once tries to explain itself. You should have been listening to this yesterday.

The Swashbuckling Ladies Debate Society

Now this is unfortunately a late arrival as The Swashbuckling Ladies Debate Society is on its third season as of this writing and as a fan of Barbie and The Three Musketeers I’m honestly a little sad no one told me about this sooner. 

Here we visit an alternate 20th century France in the seaside town of Massalia under the threat of brutal political corruption from a group that calls themselves The Six. It’ll take wits, cunning, and teamwork to fight the forces disturbing the peace and married lesbian couple Saffron and Zinnia are up for the challenge.

The Swashbuckling Ladies Debate Society is my greatest feminist fantasies come true complete with sword fights, fiery debates, and frilly outfits. It not only makes for some excellent historical fiction but has such contagious charisma and charm, it’ll have you rallying alongside these dashing heroines.

Maxine Miles

The newest brainchild of The Bright Sessions’ Lauren Shippen is Maxine Miles, a Nancy Drew by way of Clue audio drama with a choose your own adventure twist. Taking place in the late nineties of Hastings, New Hampshire in the eve of autumn, we join Maxine’s team in uncovering the mysteries of her town after the disappearance of one of her classmates. 

The uber-intelligent and precocious Maxine definitely has the wits to crack the case but will the secrets that plague her New England home be too much for one girl to handle? 

Maxine Miles proves to be wholesome fun with a twinge of suspense and intrigue that’ll have you nostalgic over tweenage mystery novels. You definitely won’t need a magnifying glass to see why this one is a gem.

Death by Dying

The life of an obituary writer isn’t exactly thrilling but in a world where the most unlikely of deaths come attached to haunted bicycles, evil farmers, and cats with a deadly appetite, it’s just one of few misadventures in the life of a rookie occult investigator.

Death by Dying is darkly entertaining in its bold writing choices and macabre yet hilarious subject matter, making it an excellent blend of Wooden Overcoats and Less is Morgue. You’ll enjoy Death by Dying’s smooth narration, solid comedic timing, and intriguingly insane mysteries. It’s grim yet uplifting, discusses the dead and is yet filled with life in each episode.

Hannahpocalypse

It’s the end of the world as we know it and Hannah is doing weirdly fine. From Red Fathom Entertainment comes Hannahpocalypse, a comedy/horror audio drama from the perspective of the world’s last unliving girl who has (un)survived a zombie apocalypse merged with a Terminator-style apocalypse.

Hannahpocalypse is a smartly written, tongue-in-cheek take on post apocalyptic tropes told from the perspective of the titular monster. Hannahpocalypse has weaved a funny and insanely charming piece of self aware comedy that’s a refreshing take on the usual piece of glum and gritty apocalypse fiction.

Who Killed Avril Lavigne: A Time-Traveling Pop Punk Podcast

Local teen edgelord Derek Walker has his head up in space and himself back in time when his substitute teacher sends him back to Warp Tour to investigate the disappearance of pop punk princess Avril Lavinge. From that premise alone, the best damn thing might be Who Killed Avril Lavigne: A Time-Traveling Pop Punk Podcast, a love letter to rock and the early 2000’s that will resonate with millennials and the average music fan. 

Who Killed Avril Lavigne is a nostalgic yet strangely modern piece of time-travel comedy that blends crackpot conspiracies and punk rock edge seamlessly. No reason to make things so complicated, you won’t find many things this stylistically gorgeous, absurd, and unbelievably original.

Bonus audio drama podcasts

These audio drama podcasts come from versions of this article past. We still recommend them! They remain some of the greats in audio drama podcasting.

Life With LEO(h)

The androids that don’t dream of electric sheep or are probably dreaming of long walks on the beach. From the same studio that brought you podcast darling The Bright Sessions comes Life With LEO(h), a lighthearted sci-fi comedy about the bond between girl and machine. 

In true rom-com fashion, it focuses on strict and serious Jeanine Bell whose active work life as a robotics intelligence lawyer has majorly crippled her chances at an active love life.

Luckily for her, she’s getting a relationship reboot if she wants it or not once she comes across the adorably dysfunctional, and highly illegal android LEO, Loving, Empathetic, Optimistic, and (only sorta) helpful. This show will never have you doubting if robots could ever know love. When Leo is involved, romance is always part of the equation.

Read more: Life with LEO(h): Atypical’s New Fiction Podcast About Living With a Sexy Robot 

Less is Morgue

Meet your fellow monster in this excellent comedy with a horror twist, Less is Morgue. Taking place in a fantastical Tallahassee, Florida where the supernatural is the norm, a grumpy ghoul named Riley and giddy ghost Evelyn host their own podcast from the comfort of their basement.

But this duo proves that being dead doesn’t make their days any less lively. 

Less is Morgue is smartly written, weird, and wonderfully charming with a great cast of characters, quotable dialogue, and some very solid chemistry from the main undead duo that makes every scene hauntingly hilarious.

Where The Stars Fell

From the creator of Inkwyrm comes a supernatural mystery audio drama written by Newt Schottelkotte of the always experimental Caldera Studios. It follows the not so average life of Dr. Edison Tucker, A.K.A. Ed, whose search for the paranormal might have to start with herself.

Where The Stars Fell is a story of truly biblical proportions twinged with all things existential, violent, and downright weird. Honestly, it might be best to go in blind to truly get the full experience yourself. Be not afraid and check it out. 

When Angels Visit Armadillo

Conspiracies ahoy in Christin Campbell’s When Angels Visit Armadillo. Get to know Magnolia Waters as she tells all through interviews and phone calls about a mysterious disappearance back in ‘88.

When Angels Visit Armadillo is an excellent piece of Americana, a deeply intriguing mystery with Southern flair and a sapphic story at its core. It’s a pleasant mixing pot of Alice Isn’t Dead and the previously mentioned Where The Stars Fell, and despite its short runtime, it’s got a real grit to its presentation that I can’t help but respect.

Spirit Box Radio

Set your stereos to supernatural with Spirit Box Radio, a weekly horror audio drama from Hanging Sloth Studios. When the original host, Madame Marie of Spirit Box Radio‘s Advice and Community Segment goes missing, plucky newcomer Sam Enfield will have to take her place.

But hosting a mystical radio show isn’t exactly a walk in the graveyard when the studio itself is host to terrifying secrets and its own history of hauntings. Spirit Box, with its interesting premise and wiccan vibes, should be a fun listen for anyone seeking out some new, lighthearted horror.

Seen and Not Heard

Our lead in this excellent audio drama is Bet Kline, a woman who is now legally deaf and must navigate herself around such an unexpected curveball. Seen and not Heard is a brutally honest look into living with disability that doesn’t spare a good sense of humor to get its message across.

Those who have struggled with anything be it mental health or hospital stays will find a lot of catharsis in the show’s sincerity and delicate yet bold approach. (Discloure: Caroline Mincks has written for Discover Pods.)

Read more: Seen and Not Heard: On Hearing, On Listening

Ronstadt

Spooky yet weirdly sentimental, mystical yet down to earth, cool as ice and yet hot as hell-that’s one of many ways to describe Ronstadt, a severely undepreciated supernatural noir comedy taking place in an alternative Los Angeles. Meet Rhett McLaughlin, AKA Ronstadt, a snarky, dysfunctional phone jockey thrown headfirst into the dark underbelly of L.A., here known less for its sandy beaches and overpriced coffees and instead it’s otherworldly events.

Combining the aesthetics of The Meat Blockade with the general, effortlessly cool vibe of a Juno Steel adventure, Ronstadt’s strong voice acting, crisp sound editing, and solid storytelling makes a great find for mystery and magic fans looking for that urban twist.

Only Sketches About Podcast

If you’re looking for a less linear podcast experience, you’ll definitely find it with the Only Sketches About Podcast, a grab bag of topics ranging from the mundane like camping trips and gift shops to the more abstract tales of UFO’s and clams. 

Only Sketches is always weird and always funny with a nice twinge of satire to boot. Regardless, Only Sketches is a delightfully unpredictable time with a small but strong cast delivering wonderfully weird stories in this collection of memorable skits.

The Luchador: 1000 Fights of El Fuego Fuerte

Do you ever read the title of something and immediately be sold on its premise? Well, that was the case with picking up The Luchador: 1000 Fights of El Fuego Fuerte, and luckily a pretty solid adventure comedy podcast happened to be attached to it. 

El Fuego Fuerte is a thoroughly original, bombastic joy ride filled to the gills with combat and camp you probably can’t find anywhere else. Creator Daniel Valero Fletcher shows a real love and passion for the art of masked wrestling and the series is pure passion from start to finish.

Mars’ Best Brisket/Midnight Burger

From your local restaurant comes Mars Best Brisket, a short and snacky sitcom by Ponders Productions. Join this eclectic couple as they create the first ever vegan restaurant on Mars, navigating food critics and new hires. Mars Best Brisket is cute, homey, and lovably original with strong writing and the unmistakable wholesome center of visiting a family diner to support its short runtime. 

In fact, why don’t we sandwich a similar recommendation into this with a heaping helping of Midnight Burger, the story of a seemingly normal Phoenix diner that’s actually a time bending, dimension hopping restaurant. Check out either one of these or maybe develop a craving for both. Regardless, you’re bound to leave here smiling and satisfied.

Patient 33

The podcast where the protagonist is in a coma. To be completely honest, that premise alone has sold me on Patient 33, a splice of comedy and medical drama that deconstructs the very nature of podcasts with its clever use of dissecting listener agency with this unorthodox but very creative choice of perspective.

Patient 33 is genuinely engaging with its ongoing plot and dysfunctional cast of characters, making Hope’s Memorial Hospital the hospital that never sleeps.

OBSIDIAN

Ever since checking out Adventures in New America from Night Vale Presents, I’ve been on the prowl for more afrofuturism. Luckily, speculative fiction podcast OBSIDIAN has seriously been scratching that itch for me lately in this truly excellent sci-fi anthology collection. 

OBSIDIAN is delightfully bizarre and insanely smart with inspired settings and one of a kind world building that dabbles into ideas of space travel to simulations, making for an intense, psychological romp that may spark only a minor existential breakdown.

Beautifully constructed from the ground up, OBSIDIAN is an easy yet engaging listen for anyone who wants to get lost for a while.

Kalila Stormfire’s Economical Magick Services

Fans of Alba Salix, Royal Physician will probably get a kick out of this ongoing lost gem from 2018, Kalila Stormfire’s Economical Magick Services. In this modern take on witches navigating the working world, local witch Kalila Stormfire makes a living as a one-stop shop for fixing magical (magickal?) mishaps. 

You won’t just get tarot card readings and healing crystals here because Economical Magick Services is conjuring up astral projection and speaking to the dead all at an adorable price. And, luckily for you, you can check out this excellent audio drama free of charge. 

We Fix Space Junk

A long time favorite of mine, We Fix Space Junk specifically appeals to my favorite brand of science fiction: the down on their luck, ragtag working class variety like you find in shoes like Wolf 359. 

Here we join repairwoman Kilner and her A.I. partner in crime as they take on any variety of odd jobs while narrowly avoiding being blown into space dust. We Fix Space Junk is a hilariously written, tongue-in-cheek satire that cinches its story with some great acting chops and editing all while being an impassioned love letter to the genre.

If you’re a fan of quirky space comedies like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you’re bound to enjoy this.

Community Cat News

Oh the things you’ll find if you dig just deep enough, and in this case, my journey concludes in the litter box. Community Cat News is exactly what it appears to be on the surface, an adorable glimpse into the minds of neighborhood cats and what makes them tick in their personal cuddly corner of the world. 

Composed entirely of short episodes, Community Cat News will make up only about five minutes or less of your day and with it sponsored by the prestigious Meow Meow Puffytail, Feline Rights Attorney, you know it’s bound to be a pur-fect entertainment for you and your own feline friend.

Brimstone Valley Mall

As a soda-chugging, pizza-munching, Twitter-account-owning degenerate who feels entitled to the kind of liveable wage a part time mall job simply can’t provide, a black comedy podcast about demons in a rock band working at a suburban shopping mall during the late nineties is a little too up my alley. 

Though my Goth phase is long past me, a show that encompasses Goth aesthetics is such a rare and incredibly welcomed facet to the considerably less Goth podcasts lying around. No time for prissy preps here, Brimstone Valley Mall is truly the epitome of what old people think rock music does to the youth-Satan worshipping and a sudden taste for leather included.

The Godshead Incidental

(Disclosure: Cole Burkhardt, who plays Lorem Ipsum, is a Discover Pods contributor.)

It usually doesn’t take much to impress me so The Godshead Incidental passing the test within a mere few seconds of its first episode is actually high praise. In this urban fantasy that’s a nice combination of The Wicked and The Divine and an episode of Parks and Recreation, comes one of the most unique takes on modernized mythology I’ve heard in years.

Get to know advice columnist Em as she tries to find her missing sister after a sudden run in with the God of Memory, throwing her into a risky partnership with the charmingly mysterious Lorem Ipsum. Witty dialogue, fantastic world building, and solid acting chops makes for a one of a kind experience. 

Read more: New Religion: “The Godshead Incidental” Review

The Magnus Archives 

As the kind of person who still gets startled by bread coming out of a toaster, I’m probably not the kind of person who should be getting personally invested in horror shows. Too bad The Magnus Archives has already sunk its teeth into me and hasn’t let go for the better half of last year. 

What starts as a loosely connected compilation of one-off horror stories becomes a densely personal psychological horror peppered with just the right amount of existential dread and body horror galore. If you can stomach what it has to offer, it’ll prove to be as satisfying as it is scary.

The Long Hallway

Perhaps blame my short attention span or growing fondness for Black Mirror, but there’s something I inevitably enjoy about anthologies. There’s definitely an art to be appreciated in the nature of a short story, how quickly we’re introduced to characters and ideas until we’re forced to jump to another one with the fate of our last gallery of heroes left completely abandoned. 

Anthology shows are in no short supply in audio drama but there’s just something about The Long Hallway that really caught my attention. Its methodical pace, its slightly eerie atmosphere, and its love for twists and subtle theming all packed in episodes that never go over eleven minutes makes it an excellent entry level podcast.

The Theatre of Tomorrow 

While still on the topic of anthologies, the first collection I found myself smitten by was easily 2017’s The Theatre of Tomorrow by Midnight Disease Productions. There’s just something so fun about shows that are wacky for wackiness sake and it takes a delicate hand to make these kinds of shows charming instead of obnoxious.

The Theatre of Tomorrow is silly but inspired by its love of retro, old-timey radio plays, granting it a sort of 1950’s aesthetic pleasantness. It’s random but never incoherent which is helped by some positively solid casting and editing, making it as hilarious as it is fabulously put together. Nothing quite tickles my fancy the way a good scripted comedy does and The Theatre of Tomorrow is a severely underappreciated relic.

Fuck Humans

Audio-fiction erotica is in itself quite a rare genre. Not that podcasts can’t talk about or include sex or sexually active charaters, but many of which can hardly call themselves legitimate smut. And for the lonely adults in the world in need of some more sizzly soundbytes comes Fuck Humans, a fantasy romance for the eighteen and older audience.

Fuck Humans manages the art of combining both smut and story and doing so with expert consistency. All around, it’s the kind of show you can enjoy with a bit of privacy…or out in the open if you’re into that sort of thing. What could have been a mere monster mash is a rather simple tale about overcoming prejudices with a sexy twist.

The Penumbra Podcast

Be it you’re tuning in for the suspenseful cyber noir of private eye Juno Steel or the medieval misadventures of many a dreamy knight at The Second Citadel, The Penumbra Podcast is one of the more popular selections to have come out in years but has certainly earned its position among the greats. Excellently crafted with great characters and even greater mysteries to uncover, any path you choose guarantees hours of wit, whimsy, and wonderful angst.

Read more: Plug in, Press Play: Reimagining Podcasts as Games

Dark Dice

I personally feel like I’m still barely toddling into the realm of DnD podcasts which is a shame given how incredibly popular they are. An easy format thanks to the improvised storytelling aspects and the wholesome company of good friends with wild imaginations, but it takes far more than just setting up some sound equipment in your mother’s basement to make a session podcast worthy.

That’s why I highly recommend Dark Dice, a grim fantasy adventure following a lovably flawed party banding together to find the missing children of a nearby village while being pursued by a shapeshifting monster. Fool and Scholar Productions creates a solid atmosphere with the kind of interesting creatures, mysterious lands, and high stakes you find in the likes of Thrilling Adventure Zone and Critical Role. So roll for initiative and check it out.

Rover Red: Alone in the Apocalypse 

As someone so hung up on their own nostalgia that they still have Adobe Flash installed on their computer purely out of spite, it’s no wonder I’m still not over Rover Red: Alone in the Apocalypse, a gloriously short-lived science fiction thriller that debuted in 2017 and, much like a sentient implant drilled into my ear canal, hasn’t left my mind since. 

In this rather intense show we follow the adventures of Leah as she navigates the ruined remains of a post-apocalyptic world with only an artificial intelligence and the motivation to find her brother pushing her through increasingly difficult trials that a mysterious council, i.e. listeners, were able to vote on.

Even if there’s only so few episodes to spare, it’s worth a peak regardless for its iron hard tension, excellent world building, and blend of psychological horror and science fiction adventure that makes Ender’s Game look like Little Einsteins.

THE INFINITE NOW

As far as non-linear, artsy shows go, THE INFINITE NOW  is a short and sweet but certainly fun little detour. To describe the show’s premise is a bit of a tall order as it’s more or less a random selection of spacy monologues narrated by the show’s creator Richard Penner. But if you have a taste for surrealism, existential horror, and some atmospheric music, it’s an excellent selection to backtrack your next blunt rotation with some close friends.

The Meat Blockade

High-brow surrealist comedy with singing pirate frogs and lamb scrotum isn’t the kind of thing you’d be bragging about in your next book club but somebody’s gotta break the ice, especially if you’re in the similar company of Kafka enthusiasts. 

The Meat Blockade by the Hennesy brothers is a thrillingly absurd look into the unlucky life of Karl Berenger as he desperately tries to crawl his way back home after one single choice lands him in the gaping maw of Nighttown. Gorgeously edited, fabulously acted, and never slacking in surprises, it’s a wonderfully bizarre romp that wears its inspiration on its sleeves.

SAYER

A favorite, always going to be a favorite, and is still a favorite to this day. SAYER is the science fiction horror audio drama debut of Adam Bash who has weaved a positively fascinating if terrifying futuristic dystopia. And it’s through the eyes of the titular SAYER, as well as a number of other equally dysfunctional artificial intelligences, that we learn about the dark secrets and darker tragedies befalling the citizens of Typhon.

Hadron Gospel Hour

Hadron Gospel Hour is the kind of show your dad would like, maybe even my dad would like, but that hasn’t stopped teenage me or adult me from being insanely fond of easily one of my favorite audio drama sci-fi comedies.

With its wacky dimension hopping, reality bending mishaps, and chaotic duo of a mad scientist and average joe, Hadron Gospel Hour was Rick and Morty before Rick and Morty was cool, so it’s worth a listen simply for that level of hipster street cred.

Return Home

Small towns with big secrets is common ground to tread for many fiction series with varying levels of success. There’s something just so oddly humble about the hidden secrets of an average community being brought to the forefront and it’s things like Return Home that reminds me of the potential they have to be fun, wonderfully bizarre experiences. 

Though it may not be for everyone, Return Home is one of those shows that has a little bit of everything: comedy, strange supernatural forces, and romance all wrapped up in a package that’s so unashamedly authentic.

With a loveable trio as the leads and an interesting slew of monsters to pick from, this long trip to Melancholy Falls is a nice blend of creative and campy.

Adventures in New America

Night Vale Presents is nothing short of a seal of quality around these parts so it’s no wonder that shows like Within the Wires and Alice Isn’t Dead are such beloved audio drama favorites that still have just the slightest DNA of our favorite desert town in its veins. And though those shows are darling to me, Adventures in New America feels like a truly unique entity.

Branching off from the more Americana-esque vibes of Night Vale Presents other works, this show decides to walk in the pond of political satire with a cyberpunk twist. In this “Afrofuturistic buddy comedy”, tag along with best friends IA and Simon Carr as they wind up in increasingly more absurd heist missions on the dangerous streets of New New York City for the deliberate goal of landing in jail for the benefit of free health insurance. 

Be it you’re in the mood for social commentary or foul mouthed and funny exchanges, you’re bound to be seeing things in neon after one listen.

Steal the Stars

Written by Mac Rogers, Steal the Stars is the story of Dakota “Dak” Prentiss, a government worker on a secret test site. She and her team are tasked with looking after Moss, the comatose body of an alien named for the moss-like substance growing on its body, and its baffling ship that emits deadly waves.

The project is so dangerous that Dak’s higher-ups have completely forbidden the team from becoming attached to each other. No friends. No confidants. And definitely no hookups–which becomes more difficult when the painfully attractive Matt Salem is hired. What starts as a pulpy romance slowly turns into a political intrigue thriller, a heist, and one of the most memorable final episodes in audio drama to date.

Harlem Queen

Audio drama is known for being heavy on the sci-fi and horror, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t great realistic fiction. Based on the true story of “Numbers Queen” Madame Stephanie St. Clair, mobster and gambler, Harlem Queen is a historical fiction podcast set during the Harlem Renaissance. Harlem Queen is jazzy, glamorous, and exciting–but it also doesn’t shy away from the realities of being black, and especially being a black woman, in the American 1920’s.

Wolf 359

Wolf 359 was an audio drama space opera, set in a massive space station orbiting the eponymous red dwarf star. What starts out as a lighthearted story about the lackadaisical protagonist Doug Eiffel being bored in space eventually becomes an action-packed, dramatic, heart-wrenching story about the cost of the greater good, the path to redemption, what it means to be human, and overcoming trauma. Wolf 359 concluded its four-season run at the end of 2017, making it a perfect completed story to listen to without worrying about staying current.

The Big Loop

The Big Loop is a somewhat sci-fi, somewhat magical realism anthology series created by Paul Bae of the well-known horror fiction podcast The Black Tapes. Each episode of The Big Loop is a different story, meaning you can skip around and jump in whenever you’d like. Each episode also feels like a different genre: “The Studio” is a sort of ghost story, “YOU” is about an astronaut and her AI, and “All God’s Children” is somewhere between comedy and Lovecraftian horror. If you’re in for a supernatural story with some heavy emotional punches, though, “Goodbye Mr. Adams” is a great place to start.

CARAVAN

A product of audio drama cornerstone The Whisperforge, CARAVAN is a buckwild journey into a story about demons, vampires, banshees, and the caravans that slay them. Protagonist Samir is a play on a typical nerdy everyman genre fiction hero, with the important differences that he’s queer, Desi, and explicitly not thin. As Samir falls into an otherworldly, weird west canyon, he teams up with a traveling group of demon hunters but winds up seeing how he can change their ways to be more ethical. CARAVAN plays with genre, the hero’s journey, and eroticism in one big, unabashed, thrilling bundle.

36 Questions

If you’re looking for a realistic fiction story you can get through in an afternoon and you’re not against the idea of musicals, 36 Questions is a great first foray into audio drama podcasts. This 3-part limited series is a full musical about a husband and wife who are recently separated and their attempts to rekindle their romance–or snuff it out for good. The songs are gorgeous and catchy with lyrics that balance profoundness with authenticity. It’s a fiction podcast you won’t be able to get out of your head, whether because of the songs or the incredible characters singing them.

Alba Salix, Royal Physician

Alba Salix is a comedy audio drama about a royal physician in a fantastical realm, trying her hardest to make her patients understand common sense. It’s one part Scrubs, one part Monty Python, one part Robin Hood: Men in Tights. It’s an easy listen even with an overarching plot that delivers fast-paced jokes and ridiculous characters. If you want to get an introduction to audio drama podcasts but maybe without so much drama, Alba Salix is delightfully whimsical, light-hearted, and hilarious.

The Amelia Project

The Amelia Project is a comedy audio drama about a company that helps clients fake their deaths and start anew, complete with faked identities. Each episode is a consultation with the prospective client to find out why they want their death faked, how they want it do be faked, and how they want to come back. The comedy is absurd and twisted without ever being to gritty or macabre. The level of creativity in The Amelia Project is already enough to make it a great listen, but the acting and sound design are both just as impressive.

For more on The Amelia Project, make sure to read Morgan Hines’s interview with its creators.

Greater Boston

Greater Boston feels like the Mike Schur equivalent in the podcast world. Like Brooklyn 99 or Parks and Recreation, Greater Boston takes place in a hyperbolic version of a real place. Like The Good Place, that level of hyperbole is sometimes brought to bizarre high-concept episodes with an almost supernatural feel. Greater Boston takes place after the world’s most boring man dies on a roller coaster, and the podcast only gets more surprising, hilarious, and intriguing from there.

Fan Wars: The Empire Claps Back

Rom-coms are finally returning to popular culture, including in podcasts. Fan Wars: The Empire Claps Back is a romantic dramedy about two fans on the opposite sides of many debates in the Star Wars discourse. It’s a classic setup: two hot-headed opponents make assumptions about each other, expect the worst from each other, and then consistently surprise themselves when they find common ground and maybe even common attraction. Wrap the premise up in some cosplay and give it a lightsaber and you’re in for a great listen.

Limetown

Limetown is an audio drama that straddles the line between science fiction and horror. Framed like an investigated journalism podcast a la Serial, Limetown follows a reporter trying to find out what happened to a town where everyone suddenly went missing ten years ago. Limetown packs so much character development into its first season, with most episodes following a specific interviewee, but it balances character with one of the most riveting plots I’ve ever heard. After several years, Limetown is returning with its second season on October 31st–yes, Halloween–2018, as well as releasing a prequel novel set when Limetown was founded.

The Bright Sessions

The Bright Sessions is a character-driven audio drama about people with superpowers going to therapy. Don’t shy away if you’re not a fan of big superhero blockbusters, though–The Bright Sessions is much more Friday Night Lights than The Avengers. It’s a gorgeous character study, but it also has a plot that focuses on government conspiracies, well-researched discussions of mental health, and some beautiful love stories. The Bright Sessions is also being adapted as a TV show and three spinoff novels, so make sure to catch up first.

Marsfall

Marsfall is a newer addition to the audio drama world, but it’s already being regarded as one of the best in the scene. This science fiction audio drama follows a different character’s perspective each episode as they land on Mars for an expedition. The changing point of view adds depth to each part of its somewhat large cast while also complicating the ethics so often discussed in the plot. Marsfall also proves that large-scale action sequences are not only possible in audio, but can also be beautiful.

Station to Station

Station to Station is a horror audio drama that turns the audio medium on its head. Plenty of audio drama podcasts give a reason for their story to take place in audio, but Station to Station subverts this with internal monolgues and changing perspectives. This fiction podcast follows a researcher on a massive ship whose research partner never showed up for the voyage–but did leave the protagonist some audio recordings. Station to Station is an audio drama that you could listen to casually, but it’s best when given the time and attention one might give Lost or Westworld, and it merits just as much theorizing.

The post 15 Audio Drama Podcasts to Get You Hooked on Fiction appeared first on Discover the Best Podcasts | Discover Pods.

My relationship with horror is an odd one. I’m the kind of person who can recall the events of Harlan Ellison short stories and will pass a compliment to any cute girl I see in a Junji Ito sweatshirt while in the same breath admitting I couldn’t sit through SAW. 

One of my favorite books is House of Leaves and I’ve got a massive soft spot for Perfect Blue, Black Swan, and the 2018 remake of Susperia but even I still need to use my phone flashlight to walk to the bathroom at night. And it’s just not Halloween until I’ve had a back to back marathon of The Love Witch, The Craft, and Jennifer’s Body but throw Tusk in the mix and the night is ruined.

Horror is such a subjective topic with audiences often leaning one direction or the other on what they consider good, let alone scary so confronting someone with the question of what scares them can vary from the inevitability of death and the possible bleakness of the afterlife or being rampaged by skeleton pirates. 

As a fan of consuming multiple pieces of fictional media I can say I’ve never seen more ups and downs than I have with the horror genre and I can confirm the same goes for podcasts. 

The Usual Suspects

We’ve all heard it at least once: A crackly found audio occult study done by an ambitious twenty-something exploring some sort of mysterious rural area. Along the way they come across a batch of eclectic strangers, some foes but mostly friends who either encourage or discourage our protagonist’s belief in the supernatural. 

Because this abandoned town could be host to a multitude of demons/ghosts/cults/serial killers/monsters or possibly all five because a town with multiple secrets is always better than one.

This is the setup of the typical horror docudrama, something of a stalemate in the podcasting world. And my, how stale it truly is.

It’s Small Town Horror, it’s The Black Tapes, it’s The Last Movie, it’s TANIS, it’s Diary of a Madman, it’s Limetown and Rabbits and it’s making me very bored.

The Public Radio Alliance podcasts (Rabbits, TANIS, The Last Movie) pretty much cornered the market on these types of shows and though I’m always a fan of a juicy mystery, something about their content, as well as those who try to emulate their style, just fails to be scary–which I imagine is a major thorn in the side of something in the horror category. No matter how polished, no matter how expertly produced, the horror docudrama setup has always been such a slog to experience. 

Not to be a snob about these things, but something about the formula just reeks of a sort of Blair Witch Project level of predictability, even if you want to liberally call it a homage to the found footage genre. 

Trends are inevitable in art no matter the medium and even audio drama is no stranger to piggybacking off established success.

Do you remember that time when all horror video games were about zombies and then after PT (the playable trailer for a since-canceled Silent Hill game to be titled Silent Hills) made a splash before getting erased from play stores worldwide, indie developers were renting out one endlessly looping childhood home after the next? And don’t even get me started on horror movies by directors who have only seen Poltergeist and Paranormal Activity in the last ten years and still think the next big thing is haunted houses and creepy kids possessed by demons. 

Horror podcasts don’t have many zombies but they certainly have the mysterious identity/mysterious town/mysterious mystery routine down pact. I just feel like horror can be more than just amnesiac discoveries of oneself, of waking up in abandoned rooms with blood under your your fingernails, or creepy strangers and fuzzy, mic interference. 

Why is it almost always places heavy with fog and rain and big lumbering trees that have all the ghosts and ghouls? Ever been to a suburb? Wouldn’t the contrast of an idyllic picnic spot or luxurious golf course be all the more interesting if there was a gory murder mystery hidden beneath the surface? A bit of narrative contrast can go a long way and frankly one show taking place in Oregon and the other in Nowhere, Washington is a road trip certainly not worth my gas money. 

Give me details about the corpse floating in a fountain at a California strip mall then we’ll talk.

Die Laughing

While still on the topic, I can’t help but mention shows that are still nestled into the horror genre but are defined more as comedies inspired by the aesthetics of slasher films and ghost stories. Combine gore with good laughs and you can produce some interesting results.

Why do you think things like Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Addams Family, and Scooby Doo still thrive even in this climate? If you can’t be the next new scary movie, you can always try to be the next Scary Movie.

Horror is scary, but horror can also be stupid, campy fun, just ask anyone whose seen a Christopher Landon movie. We wear rubber masks and eat our fill of candy not because it freaks us out but because it’s a good time and honestly it’s the shows with spooky hosts rather than spooky circumstances that’s really caught my attention as of late. 

Kind of like the second coming of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, it feels like a commentary on horror tropes while still embracing why exactly we even like this kind of stuff in the first place. (Editor’s note: I simply cannot see an Elvira reference in 2021 without taking time to say congratulations to Elvira for coming out and sharing 12 years with her girlfriend. We queers have always loved you and we love you all the more now.)

Less is Morgue has a kitchen sink of undead and otherworldly beings, Haunted House Flippers combines Extreme Home Makeover with Ghost Hunters, and Death by Dying and Brimstone Valley Mall places a lot of the perspective on the titular monsters. If anything, I’ve found I’ve been deeply enamored with horror shows that take the perspective off of the usual human everyman and works to humanize the beasts we’d normally be avoiding all together. And the results are often just so hilarious that you wouldn’t have it any other way. 

How to do Horror 

Long time readers might know about a past article of mine where I discussed scary moments in otherwise non-horror based audio dramas. 

Even podcasts that don’t specifically focus on horror can utilize common fears to generate more authentic stakes. Wolf 359 deals with the psychological effects of isolation and paranoia, I honestly really enjoyed the bite-sized thrillers done by The Long Hallway and the ways the tension just absolutely grabs you in stuff like The Penumbra or Girl in Space is unbeatable.

Then there are more traditional horror shows like I Am in Eskew and The Magnus Archives that approach their concepts from an angle of existential dread with a nice sprinkling of body horror to keep things interesting. 

I feel found audio horror podcasts have tried and tried again to zero in on the horror of discovery, of man knowing things man simply shouldn’t know, but it always falls flat as it’s dragged from lab to home to empty town to recording booth over and over again instead letting the impact of the reveal do the talking for them.

And with the primary usually being some sort of monster or event that the whole series is building up to, it often runs into the problem of over-explaining and ruining any potential for a gray area for our imagination to wander. 

This breaks such a big rule in audio storytelling where the lack of visual input is entirely the point. Nothing is scarier than nothing, after all.

Read more: The Parapod: The Haunted House Investigation That Lied

For example, one of my favorite minimalist horror shows to this day is SAYER which is nothing like a docudrama but a sci-fi story characterized by its dense, oppressive atmosphere and told from the perspective of an A.I. And though it starts off as this self-contained glimpse into the future, it’s growing cast of characters and world building serves to develop a conflict of conflicting powers, devising a sort of mechanical Cold War.

There are so many ways to create authentic tension and fear that you may not even need the horror label to sink your narrative claws into listeners. After all, not all horror media needs a big scary monster pushed into the forefront, there are already plenty of human fears lurking around our everyday lives.

Horror is Not Hopeless 

I’m not implying horror shows can’t accomplish what they set out to do, it’s just that the avenues horror podcast writers take can feel so trodden and overdone to the point it all starts to blend together. 

Serial killers and cults and memory loss-those are inherently freaky concepts, but when one show after the other is playing that same tune we’ve heard a million times before it’s not even worth dimming the lights for. 

Pacific Northwest Stories makes good, high quality work but it’s reliance on comfort zones has created a template too many people are eager to fill. Horror is hard to pull off but people aspiring to be the next Stephen King need to stop borrowing overused tropes and start looking deep into the kind of scary ideas that will leave listeners speechless, not asleep. 

And besides, a lack of originality? Well, that’s simply terrifying.

(Editor’s note 10/15/21: Edits have been made to distinguish the differences between Pacific Northwest Stories, or PNWS, and the Public Radio Alliance, or PRA.)

The post The Stale State of Horror Podcasts appeared first on Discover the Best Podcasts | Discover Pods.

First things first: what’s a Renaissance? 

For something to be deemed a renaissance era, it must deploy an air of new discovery, new philosophies explored in every angle possible and, above all, introduce us to new art and the new artists that made it. The era of the first Renaissance in Europe covered the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries, which gave us the likes of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo–and maybe some other ones the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles weren’t named after.

If you know basic art history, you know The Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, fantastical and yet distinctly human perspectives of religion, beauty, creation, and strife. The Renaissance aimed to understand the very core and purpose not just behind art but why we make it in the first place, and I can’t help the feeling that podcasts had a very similar era between 2014 and 2016. In fact, a major help for this article, Newton Schottelkotte of Inkwyrm and Where The Stars Fell, neatly categorized this as the second phase of the audio drama era.

I’ll admit I’m using very flamboyant terminology here. The quality of art is a very subjective topic, so throwing out the word “renaissance” so loosely beyond the aesthetic appeal further paints me as the pretentious enthusiast. I already know I am. But if Disney gets to call the years from 1989 to 1999 their “renaissance” then why can’t I employ the term?

To put it simply, a renaissance is simply a time when great artists made great art, and during those two years I’d be lying to myself if I said that exact thing didn’t happen in the audio drama community.

Okay, what’s the Audio Drama Renaissance?

I personally like to call this period a “renaissance” because I feel like the shows published around this time set some sort of standard of quality for years to come while never trying too hard to emulate a preexisting style. There’s nothing wrong with a template, but it’s breaking out of that “Night Vale but with a twist” spectrum that let these shows go from good to great.

Read more: A History of Night Vale Presents

You could say that the existence of Titian’s Venus of Urbino coupled with Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus justifies the existence of the other, and there are similar depictions of masculine nudity in both Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man and Michelangelo’s David. 

Mark Twain put it best when he wrote in his autobiography, “There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope.” And the same could be said for audio drama that shifts between the most outlandish of concepts to repackaged versions of things we’re already familiar with.

Kind of like how Half Life inspired a league of innovative first person games, Welcome to Night Vale and Thrilling Adventure Hour are undeniably our Medici Family. Beating on about Night Vale’s influence on audio drama is a dead horse that I don’t even poke into, but going through a whole article without mentioning the impact the show had on the existence of podcasting as a whole would be a major disservice to the podcast community or whoever reads this far.

And besides, it’s the power of having multiple muses that makes any Renaissance really matter.

“Of course, what’s interesting about making something like this show is that you don’t just bring in your influences from one genre into something like this – inevitably your writing gets filtered through all the pieces of fiction you love and carry with you,” Wolf 359 writer Gabriel Urbina told me during an interview I had with him in February of 2015.

“So I’d say that Wolf 359’s primary influence is Farscape, but there’s also a lot of, say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Stephen Sondheim musicals, and Catch-22 kicking around in there. Heck, if you know where to look, there’s a lot of My So-Called Life in Wolf 359. So you’re always bringing in outside perspectives to your favorite genre. That’s half the fun.”

Let’s take a moment to discuss science fiction, a genre that has birthed the likes of giant sandworms and lightsabers and even after all this time still has a massive hold on audio drama fiction.

2014 to 2016 had an absolute plethora of sci-fi audio dramas, but each one cultivated to a variety of tastes. EOS 10, Ars Paradoxica, SAYER, and Wolf 359 are all under the same umbrella, but they each have polarizing differences that appeal to a variety of people. 

EOS 10 is a quaint hospital drama, Ars Paradoxica is intelligent and complex time travel narrative, SAYER is an unapologetically terrifying glimpse into a sterile dystopia, and Wolf 359 is an excellent blend of comedy and tragedy with a down-to-earth cast of misfits.

All audio dramas, all under the space/science fiction genre, all with distinctly different DNA that make their identities clear from the first episode.

Though dramatically different in terms of humor, style, and plot, these shows do have quite a few similarities in a meta sense.

All of these shows at some point shared the following: successful crowdfunding, a surge of audience creations ranging from art to fan blogs, and the liberty of at least one or two live shows. I can’t help the feeling that this time frame showed that there was not only a creative outlet for smaller artists to pursue, but a (somewhat) profitable one at that.

In fact, my interest in audio drama wouldn’t even exist if I hadn’t been sneaking peeks of my podcast app feed in between my high school classes, completely captured by this new world of art I’d been oblivious to for so long.

A feeling stirred in me right then that this was what the community was capable of: art that was both a technical feat and had real depth to their stories. I felt I had a duty to discuss it in more detail the same way philosophers would dissect William Shakespeare and Picasso.

Though it certainly happens now, I do know that podcast fandoms were becoming much more of a common occurrence. So much so that I could attend a convention gathering with the Wolf 359 crew at 2015’s DragonCon where I got to talk to the writers and actors myself in a giant patch of grass outside the building with fellow fans.

If I had the confidence I would have asked Doug Eiffel’s voice actor Zach Valenti to autograph my forehead instead of my notebook.

When can we call a podcast successful?

The question remains for a few people: why a podcast instead of a proper TV series or movie? And is choosing audio drama as the format of choice considered settling for the easiest, most affordable option instead of choosing the platform you truly want? Well, yes and no.

During my talks with podcast producers, I’ve seen that plenty of them view their works as something that functions best as audio dramas first and foremost. Not that dialogue heavy shows like these can’t be converted into comics or books, but to assume podcasting is just a last resort for storytelling feels like such an insult to what the medium can provide.

Not to mention that building off inspiration from the likes of big time movie franchises and television is all part of the inspiration process.

I remember gossip going around about podcasts being adapted into films or TV shows, clearly a byproduct of all the hype, but I think Urbina said it best when describing the duality between audio based entertainment versus more traditional formats like live action TV:

“. . . it’s very important to us that we’re not just making Wolf 359: The TV Show and then hatcheting that into a radio format. We want to feel like the stories are consciously made to fit with radio, not like you’re just listening to a TV show someone is watching in the next room. And a big part of that is the stories you go to . . . audio dramas are very dependent on the fact that you’re being denied a lot of information about what’s happening in a situation . . . You’re constantly behind, then you’re catching up, then elements you didn’t know were there are pointed out, etc.”

Gabriel Urbina

Urbina cited iconic season one episodes like episode nine’s “The Empty Man Cometh” and episode eleven’s “Am I Alone Now?” as standout examples. “Your entire understanding of what’s happening is constantly being adjusted and revised as the scenes go forward,” he added. “And you want stories that revolve around that.”

This comment sticks out to me specifically because I think it squashes the assumption that television adaptations are the definitive way of “making it.” In reality, some art forms work best how they currently exist. Podcasts rely so heavily on the product of imagination in ways that television doesn’t accommodate.

The Bright Sessions producer Lauren Shippen had a similar sentiment when I interviewed her in February of 2017. “The reason for making The Bright Sessions an audio drama was two-fold,” Shippen said. “First, there was the practical reason: making an audio drama is far less expensive than making something for film. I needed to be able to do every step myself – the writing, the recording, the post-production – on a tight budget.”

And even with limitations on the physical appearances of the characters, art interpretations were at an all time high. Trying to guess the base physical descriptions of main characters had become a game of sorts and certain headcanons became popular among fandom spaces.

There’s definitely something to be said about the relationships between creator and audience that’s been bred from the innovation of social media and purely fandom based spaces like Tumblr and Twitter. After all, with no real marketing budgets or traditional ads, so interesting fanart was the next best thing when it came to getting the word out about an interesting new show. 

For audio drama creators, a fandom contributor with a decent following is the equivalent of a commercial–if not far better than any old ad. These shows weren’t made by the biggest studios, seldom ever going beyond recordings in a friends padded sound room with the AC off, creating this sort of closeness that unknown artists like myself found incredibly endearing. 

These were small actors, low budgets, closely knit creative groups of roughly five or so friends working together to make the ultimate passion project with maybe a slight chance they might get some revenue out of it.

Is there a Renaissance happening right now?

I feel that entirely depends on who you ask. With podcasting becoming such an accessible art form, it did inspire a bit of an overabundance problem. I’ve studied audio drama trends for years now and I’m barely up to date on all the new shows debuting every month. 

Every week it’s a new horror show, in the next two days some sort of improv comedy, and the years after that we always see someone’s take on the cryptid/paranormal hunting genre . . . or maybe something in space. The barrier to entry on podcasting is a whole other ballgame. In the traditional entertainment industry, it’s all about who you know; in podcasting it’s usually who finds your casting call first.

There’s naturally something to be admired about art that deliberately tries to step outside a mold that’s already been proven to work. Yes, we’ve seen that Lovecraftian horror towns are a shoe-in for a roaring fanbase, but who’s to say a slipstream interpretation of Boston won’t work?

At the time, no one had pitched dystopian A.I.’s running worker bee cities, a secret organization that fakes deaths, or dysfunctional superpower therapy, the latter of which not only turned out amazing but had such overwhelming support creator Lauren Shippen has continued and expanded the world of The Bright Sessions as novels.

I have a very fond but distant memory of when Shippen contacted me when I started up the first ever edition of Podcake, pitching me her audio drama idea back when The Bright Sessions was only barely a season long, looking for my input as a “podcast virtuoso” (her words, not mine). And to think I can see her name now, gracing the sides of a Barnes and Noble bookshelf is the kind of surreal experience I never thought I’d get to have.

The point is, audio drama could easily be the first step to even bigger and better things. I think it was that two year Renaissance that triggered a spark in everyone. Though it might be personal tastes, it’s that strike between style and substance appearing in such a period of time that made it feel like this bold artistic movement that had potential to grow–and grow it did.

There may not always be enough room for the best podcast but a considerably good one isn’t too far off from starting the trend all over again. Enough breakout artists make their debut today or tomorrow, and we might have a second Renaissance on our hands.

(Editor’s note 10/15/21: Edits have been made to correctly attribute the research on audio drama errors to Ella Watts via the BBC.)

The post The Audio Drama Renaissance appeared first on Discover the Best Podcasts | Discover Pods.

And the best part is that almost all of it is free. An entire series can be downloaded to your phone in mere minutes, granting you hours of entertainment no matter where you are. But despite such an easy gateway to entry that’s allowed podcasts to be a casual listening experience even for beginners, it’s certainly made things less glamorous, and by “less glamorous” I mean less physically tangible to the average collector.

As an avid anime fantastic and all-around media archivist obsessed with acquiring anything that has the word “limited edition” slapped on to it, I’ve definitely developed a taste for flashy packaging that represents my dedication to a brand or franchise-a statement that my loved ones and ailing bookshelves are depressingly self aware of.

In an alternative setting where digital distribution didn’t peak around the same time podcasting did, I’d like to imagine a time and place where collector’s editions, box sets, and prestigious, over the top displays of capitalistic conquest can be filling the digital halls of eBay bidding wars or the most niche of niche Twitter giveaways.

For a moment, I’d like to imagine a scenario where podcasts aren’t limited to phone apps, streaming services, or glitchy Tumblr audio uploads, but a strange combination of personalized works that truly embody the soul of the work they’re based on. 

1. Wolf 359 on Walkman

Invoking a certain Guardians of the Galaxy vibe, Wolf 359 on a Walkman just kinda fits that brand of grungy, underdog space fiction with an urban twist. The age of the Walkman was practically extinct by the time I was even a fetus but definitely something early-thirties Doug Eiffel would probably have laying around his cabinet drawers.

Nostalgia is a cruel mistress and perhaps the awkward fiddling and painfully unstylish headphones doesn’t quite fit everyone’s definition of old fashion coolness, but it’s an undeniably fitting one that fits the nature of the show a little too well. Bringing back what was once obsolete is something of a trend nowadays and maybe one day Sony could consider a brand deal for a customized line of Wolf 359 players and tapes for the new generation to enjoy.

2. The Infinite Now on Vinyl

I waxed poetically about the science fiction podcast THE INFINITE NOW, in my most recent review and mentioned briefly how it scratched this itch for aesthetic pleasantness, namely the uncharted territory of vinyl records. Though far past my generation, even farther than Walkmans for that matter, I can still see the value in the scratchy, authentic ambiance vinyls create. 

THE INFINITE NOW seems to borrow some inspiration from Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” in terms of visuals and seeing its ominous pyramid painted a bright turquoise against a descending night background just screams 70’s to me. Imagine that on a vinyl sleeve and the mood speaks for itself.

3. Inkwyrm on CD

If there’s anything Inkwyrm reminds me of it’s an interesting combination of my feminine Y2K sensibilities pushed through the filter of a playful science fiction setting. As someone who lives and dies on their aesthetic, regardless of how impractical or unnecessary, I feel Inkwyrm would definitely feel the same about my pick.

Inkwyrm has the kind of sass that feels in place in The Devil’s War Prada or Mean Girls and there was just something about the reliance on CD players still being in full force with the budding popularity of IPods during the early 2000’s that really matches Inkwyrm’s pace.

Some cute cover art to grace the disc with and it would honestly be doing your underused car stereo a favor. Or, if you really want to get stuck in the 2000’s, a full blown boombox baring the podcast’s insignia. 

And in terms of alphabetical order, they’d be bumping shoulders with Ingrid Michaelson in the music store so at least they’d be in good company. Perhaps I’m projecting my own personal obsessions onto this, but they were the ones who decided to make a show about fashion in the first place. 

4. Brimstone Valley Mall on Virgin Records Listening Stations

Brimstone Valley Mall is definitely a show that has its general vibe figured out from the get-go and that vibe is that of gothic retail shenanigans that could only possibly be appreciated by the most authentic of mall window shoppers.

And if there’s anything that sparks to memory when listening to Brimstone Valley Mall it’s spending my adolescence visiting the Virgin Records in Southern California’s Ontario Mills and sampling CDs by this sort of special section along the right wall. 

Those at least twenty or up probably know what I’m talking about, the real draw of the store’s layout beyond the collection of colorful music paraphernalia, books, and pricy merchandise your mom wouldn’t let you buy.

Many a demo from the 2000’s was available here-She Wants Revenge, the Gorillaz second studio album, Demon Days, and somewhere between Avril Lavigene and Breaking Benjamin would be Brimstone Valley Mall with its wonderfully stylized cover art and an attitude that perfectly encapsulates the hey-day of the mall shopper.

This would also technically allow it the same position of CD with Inkwyrm by default-and I would never pass up the opportunity to have a Brimstone Valley poster or a tracklist with titles like “Goth as F*ck” and “Little Singing Monster Machines” gracing the back of a plastic case-but the real fans would be all over fully embracing the show’s 1999 atmosphere.

5. ROVER RED: Alone in The Apocalypse on Flash Drives

ROVER RED is the kind of audio drama experience that was gone too soon and perhaps executed too brilliantly to truly reach a conclusion right when a burning question was presented to the narrative. I suppose it already qualifies for its own special category of accessibility seeing as how you have to scurry over to their YouTube channel to get your fill of the episodes, but let’s take it a step further.

Befitting its uncomfortable, dystopian setting that’s an excellent blend of Ender’s Game, The Hunger Games, and Portal, there’s something in my head that keeps imagining a collection of flash drives to really get into the spirit of things. 

And not the kind found in your local Best Buy, but a number of password protected websites and a series of word and number puzzles that made the grind worth it. Maybe competitive online games of Pong to win a personalized EVIE laptop that would make Cortana reconsider her line of work. Overly complicated and contrived? Absolutely, but I’m sure the OTHERWHERE wouldn’t have it any other way.

The point here is that the options here are plenty: Hadron Gospel Hour via an outdated model of Windows software, The Bright Sessions stored on those cards that play audio whenever you open them-it’s all about living and dying on the aesthetic which is something I personally find nothing but endless satisfaction in.

Impractical, yes, but I’m sure someone somewhere once thought the whole radio audio drama thing wasn’t really going to take off either.

The post Reimagining 5 podcasts on old audio formats appeared first on Discover the Best Podcasts | Discover Pods.

Escapism comes in many forms and seeing as how video games and podcasts are some of my personal favorite time-killers, it’s no wonder I found myself contemplating what a merging of formats would like.

Call it a tall order, but with the off and on success of translating beloved books into movies or television series, I’d definitely imagine audio drama getting the same treatment if someone was willing to put in the effort. 

Wolf 359: Sci-Fi Survival

Less Mass Effect and more Alien Isolation, but Wolf 359 does have the merits for a very intuitive and narratively rich science fiction game. With its interesting cast of characters and claustrophobic environment, any number of scenarios the heroes end up wrapped up in could make for a great series of levels. 

But an idea that comes to mind is a style inspired by the indie darling Observation, wherein you take on the role of a failing ship’s artificial intelligence and try to keep track of a lone survivor after the rest of the crew ends up missing. Keep the original Hephaestus crew in the cast, switch the main role over the Hera, and that would provide a challenging and very personalized look into what it’s like to be in her hardware.

After episodes like “Memoria”, Hera has more than earned a chance to flex her abilities first hand and that extra gut punch of emotional trauma the player would have to experience would just make the experience all the better. Maybe a gameplay style vaguely akin to the Bioshock pipe hacking minigame you’d have something very visceral that lets you be a slightly less sadistic version of Portal’s GLaDOS.

The Penumbra: Mystery and Crime Drama

The adventures of Juno Steel would make for some cool, science fiction exploration where you hop from case to case, helping random clients and uncovering a bigger, much more meaty mystery overtime. As far as a template goes, The Wolf Among Us comes to mind with maybe a sort of Dangan Ronpa style of fast pace, mini-game investigation.

In-between, maybe the occasional shoot out or stealth mission with the help of Juno’s handy laser gun, giving this particular game just a touch more hands-on action in between all the deductive reasoning.

Archive 81: Psychological Horror 

Horror podcasts aren’t exactly a dime a dozen and horror games even less so. That’s why an execution of a video game that encompasses Archive 81’s unique take on found-footage supernatural horror would be a welcome challenge.

Personal favorites like the sadly canceled Silent Hill PT with just a pinch of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard would be the ideal starting point, favoring atmosphere and tough decision making with often grizzly consequences, something Archive 81 is more than familiar with.

Dark Dice: Dark Fantasy Role Play

Okay, this is an awful redundant description for what’s already a dark fantasy themed dungeons and dragons podcasts, but in practice, I imagine Dark Dice would be wonderfully different with a controller in hand.

A game like this might be akin to Dark Souls or Skyrim where you take on a character in the party, or perhaps integrate an online multiplayer to fully utilize the whole group, and pursue the quest to find the missing children. 

Decision making is already an essential part of role play be it tabletop or digitally, and seeing Dark Dice’s taste for morbid yet strangely beautiful world building fleshed out with art would really succeed in setting the mood and stakes. 

Alternatively, taking a sort of omniscient role in the gameplay as the dungeon master would grant full control of the story while still letting certain consequences, deaths, and mistakes fall on the shoulders of the player, probably a dream come true for veteran DnD fans.

The Bright Sessions: Visual Novel

Combine complicated emotional intimacy with superpowers and you get The Bright Sessions podcast by Lauren Shippen, and in my opinion, the same formula translates nicely to an interactive, branching path visual novel. 

Now, I’m certainly showing my anime fan side with this entry, but visual novels are an interactive fiction video game that originated in Japan. 

The subversive psychological horror, Doki Doki Literature Club! might be more familiar to western audiences and shows like Clannad, Steins;Gate, and Fate/Stay Night got their start this way before becoming full blown franchises. 

I feel this sort of emotion driven, text heavy game would befit The Bright Sessions’ general appeal, even strengthening parts of the narrative with the help of beautiful art and emotive character sprites. 

Ideally, I’d imagine taking on the role of Dr. Bright, picking and choosing dialogue options for each of the clients and ultimately setting them on different paths depending on your decision making. With the cast of characters, it be easy to separate them into individual routes or even seeing them clash with only yourself to blame or congratulate depending on if anyone gets a happy ending. 

The post Plug in, Press Play: Reimagining Podcasts as Games appeared first on Discover the Best Podcasts | Discover Pods.

Though the horror podcast genre is in no short supply for audio drama, there are many who are able to capture the magic in their own special ways. Even shows that don’t brand themselves as horror can be scary in their own ways. No matter how brief or personal the experience, here is a small selection of moments from non-horror podcasts that I found especially chilling.

Wolf 359: Box 953

While Wolf 359 is certainly a series that values suspense in its later seasons and the concept of being abandoned in a barely functional spaceship is terrifying in its own ways, it’s really season one’s eighth episode, “Box 953” that shows what kind of creative potential the series is capable of with scary scenarios.

Though season one is relatively lighthearted with plots dedicated to hoarding toothpaste and wondering if space suits are itchy, “Box 953” feels like its own separate entity completely divorced from the show’s central plot, something that lead writer Gabriel Urbina confirms himself. 

It follows our protagonist Doug who, in an attempt to avoid his commander’s crew bonding talent show, sneaks off to an isolated room far off in the ship and finds a row of massive creates on his journey. 

While the rest of the crates’ contents are provided on a sheet of paper-a crate full of L-shaped lego blocks, shrunken heads, and another holding full sets of armor being one of few-we never learn what this create might be containing. To add to the mystery, the guide only informs us that the create is “reserved for Douglas Eiffel” and should not be opened under any circumstances. Doug also never uncovers the mystery by the end of the episode which leaves things out in the open with no follow up.

Some fans say it’s an empty casket, and, if not, possibly something with the same level of vague ominous energy as 2001: A Space Oddity’s The Monolith. A possible homage seeing as how Doug Eiffel seems to communicate exclusively through pop culture references and yet the lack of a joke or ever referencing the sacred box in later episodes just makes its discovery more intense.

This episode also predates “The Empty Man Cometh”, an entire twenty minutes dedicated to psychological trickery but “Box 953” is worthy of its special mention since, at least to this fan, it truly represents the tipping point into dark territory for Wolf 359.

MarsCorp: Learning to Live Correctly

There’s something very off putting about the ever growing weight of capitalism and this topic and how we can artistically represent it appears just about everywhere nowadays. 

In this prelude and the first real impression of science comedy MarsCorp comes this calm, quiet and bizarre monologue from Bonnie Clark.

The title of the episode alone,”Learning to Live Correctly” already preys on deep psychological fears and Bonnie only presses on with question after question as she tests the listener about their actual self worth and that their contributions as a worker is what truly matters.

“Having an opinion on anything is completely meaningless,” says Bonnie more than half way through the episode, and it’s here that you realize the low backtrack and her smooth voice makes the whole experience feel like brainwashing, dronification specifically.

Even if the episode is specifically made to condition drones, this does take place in the future after all, it still feels like the writing is woven with personal attacks on the listener. Bonnie is prone to say at least something that strikes a nerve be it about your work, your appearance, or your ability to hold a meaningful relationship-ultimately bullying you into submission if you’re a drone or not.

It’s not as scary as it is depressing but comparing this grim opening statement compared to an otherwise upbeat sci-fi comedy is always such a whiplash. There’s nothing else quite like this in the rest of Mars Corp, even if it does lean heavily on black comedy satire with many of its jokes, so one must wonder if we were spared a more cruel telling of the audio drama to match the likes of SAYER.

2298: Guiding Hand

Themes of isolation, sense of self, and relevance in an otherwise broken society are a common trend in podcasts and one that has done the theme exceptionally well is “2298” by A.R. Olivieri.

In its bite sized episodes that make up a brief single season, it introduces a future society that seems entirely rooted in a social media network that spans the whole world. Like Twitter with a sleek iPhone aesthetic, its core themes and what make it such a memorable and creepy listen is a combination of “TERMS & CONDITIONS” and, to a greater extent, “GUIDING HAND” that lays out the groundwork of the otherwise vague yet menacing setting.

The need to censor, monitor, and push harmful ideologies onto the masses to better control them is not only a relevant topic in today’s political climate, but also a cautionary look into a future where these kinds of people seeking that control succeed.

“2298” leaves much to the imagination with its dedication to minimalism and a single perspective, and it’s not too long until we realize our narrator has become entirely subservient to his oppressive overloads while we the audience can tell something is clearly wrong. The main character is not only part of a system he calls The Network but that he himself has fallen into their oppressive trappings and encourages their hostility.

“Could you imagine being so selfish?” Says the narrator in response to a controversial social media post pushing for individuality in the consumption of content that acts as the real centerpiece of the episode. A rebel with a cause being punished for speaking out is an equal parts true and tragic event that occurs in this episode but those who stand by idly and let it happen allow such horror to prevail.

Hadron Gospel Hour: “This Particle, Doomed!” OR “The Incident At Universe 603-X”

If it weren’t for it’s goofy execution and Douglas Adams’ style world building, Hadron Gospel Hour made by comedy duo Richard Wentworth and Michael McQuilken would be an epic cosmic horror story. On most days it isn’t but on others, it’s episode seventeen’s, “This Particle, Doomed!”

Picking just one example is already a bit hard seeing as how Hadron Gospel prefers long form episodes that packs a lot of story, overarching plots, and returning characters. Many of the one off episodes are rooted around Openheimer coming to face his failures of trying to weaponize the Hadron Effect and seeing what horrors and chaos sprung from it. 

One of the main characters is permanently stuck in a wall, there’s a corporate entity called Product Corp that owns literally everything right down to abusing their employees for 24/7advertisments, and my personal favorite detour being episode sixteen’s, “The Ballad of Freddie Plastic” which has a man becoming malformed after being merged with melted plastic but coming out the other end a superhero.

“This Particle, Doomed!” starts off slow with Mike, voiced by Michael McQuilken himself, going to a convention in hopes of meeting a crazed recluse he admires called Googar-Zoozar.

The episode takes a turn when Mike is promptly brainwashed over the course of one conversation with Googar, complete with a transidelic sound effect and Googar’s echoing voice,  and almost tricked into commiting suicide by drinking poison. Commander Funk, a side character who also makes an appearance half way through the episode, can’t even use his cosmic funky power to avoid the sonic hypnosis and becomes another one of Googar’s servants.

Googar seems like a bumbling idiot but also a bumbling idiot who will stoop to such lows to spread his message, even if it involves getting others and himself killed. Hadron Gospel Hour is a lot of things but a cautionary tale about cult ideologies and not trusting crazy men at conventions certainly isn’t what I expected out of them.

The Amelia Project, “Alicia Carin”

The Amelia Project is a show that directly markets itself as a calm and calculated dark comedy that takes death about as seriously as Wooden Overcoats. The opening narration before an episode even has the narrator encouraging the listener to pick up a cup of coco before tuning in, further honing itself to its coffee shop aesthetic.

The Amelia Project is a show about a mysterious but nonetheless warm and classy business that specializes in faking people’s deaths. The whole show is as silly as it is witty and clients can range from cult leaders to The Lochness Monster and Santa Claus in just a few episodes.

But one episode that’s one of my personal favorites and the qualifier for this list is season one, episode three’s “Alicia Carin.” In it a reality show celebrity of the same name must find a way to completely distance herself from her successful but nonetheless oppressive life of stardom, especially when the company she works for states that her continuing to exist as herself can prompt a lawsuit as they now own her entire being.

The solution offered for her predicament is when things take a darker turn as The Interviewer proposes Alicia go under extreme cosmetic surgery from their private doctor, Dr. Kozłowski.

“We’ll get Kozłowski to replace your liver, your kidneys, your heart, your lungs, your intestines, your pancreas, your blood, your facial tissue, your ligaments,” The Interviewer rattles off with a sort of displaced happiness “…replace everything with synthetic parts.” 

It’s only after Alicia is confused and disgusted by the idea that they settle on a brain transplant between her and her eerily identical understudy, not that this solution is any less bizarre.

The post In Frightful Corners: Exploring Horror in Non-Horror Podcasts appeared first on Discover the Best Podcasts | Discover Pods.

Sometimes, what you need to feel better is a great comedy podcast. Sometimes, though, let’s be real: you just gotta look dead in the eyes of your sorrows and cry a little.

Here’s a collection of 7 tear-jerking podcasts that will help you do just that. They’re not in any particular order. I was too busy feeling my feelings to rank them (and besides, they’re all great).

1. Terrible, Thanks for Asking

Terrible, Thanks for Asking is the most accurate imagined response to the question, “How are you doing?” From American Public Media, this podcast in an unabashed look into stories of things that have gone truly, fundamentally wrong–and reminding the listener that sometimes, when your life feels like it’s falling apart, you’re not alone. Its brazen, unapologetic look at mental health completely subverts the trend of sensationalizing depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc., instead deciding to tell peoples’ stories with a deep empathetic core.

Listen: Apple | Stitcher | Google

2. The Bright Sessions

The Bright Sessions is an audio fiction about a therapist to the strange and unusual: people whose mental health intersects with their superhuman abilities. The concept sounds X-Men, but it’s much more along the lines of a beautifully-told character study, similar to Friday Night Lights or The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The listener gets to hear each character grow and change through their arc, and each of those characters’ stories is complicated and messy in the way that everyone’s story is complicated and messy. It’s a piece of fiction that will leave you in tears both in empathetic agony for the characters, and in absolute pride–and it’s being adapted not just for TV, but also as a trilogy of novels.

Listen: Apple | Spotify | Stitcher

3. Wolf 359

Wolf 359 might start out silly and fun, but it slowly becomes one of the most dramatic, emotional pieces of audio fiction to date. Wolf 359 follows Doug Eiffel, a crew member aboard the U.S.S. Hephaestus, orbiting just outside of the sun Wolf 359. The more the listener learns about Eiffel and his crew, the stranger and more dire their situation seems, until everything starts going awry. Wolf 359 allows no character to feel too precious and pulls no punches. It takes sharp twists and turns, often leaving you gasping several times an episode. It might not seem like it hits those emotions hard in the early episodes, but trust me, it gets there.

Listen: Apple | Google | RSS

4. 36 Questions

36 Questions is a musical mini-series by Two-Up, the same team that produces Limetown. The story follows a wife trying to reconnect with her estranged husband using the tool that made them fall so completely in love on their first date: the New York Times‘s 36 questions to fall in love. With stunning songs each episodes and phenomenal performances, it’s hard not to fall in love with these characters as they try (and resist trying) to fall back in love with each other. The details about why the two are separated and the wife’s history are tear-inducing enough, but pair that with the question of whether or not they will, or even should, get back together heightens everything.

Listen: Apple | Google | Stitcher | Pocket Casts | RSS

5. The Hyacinth Disaster

The Hyacinth Disaster is an aptly-named audio fiction set aboard the MRS Hyacinth, a mining vessel with a crew stuck in the middle of corporate rivalries for resources–which is made more dangerous and dire when a ship’s captain is kidnapped by a rivaling corporation. In this mini-series, you get to know each crew member before everything goes horribly, horribly wrong. It’s a story that prepares you for the worst, but you still won’t be ready for how hard so much of the plot hits.

Listen: Apple | Stitcher

6. The Adventure Zone

Looking at this recommendation on this list might seem strange. “Isn’t The Adventure Zone a podcast on the comedy network Maximum Fun? Isn’t it hosted by those good good McElroy boys?” Yes. Both of these things are true. It’s also one of the podcast that has made me cry the hardest.

The Adventure Zone is an actual play podcast in which three brothers and their dad play Dungeons & Dragons (or, in more recent episodes, a tabletop platform called Monster of the Week). It’s a hilarious podcast with goofs aplenty, but then suddenly in its third arc, it starts hitting some devastating story. By the time the first campaign ends, it’s hard to get through an entire episode without sobbing, and it becomes something stunningly beautiful. Start it for the jokes, stay for the tears.

Listen: Apple | Stitcher | Spotify

7. The Shadows

The Shadows is Kaitlin Prest’s first project after ending The Heart. In partnership with CBC, this podcast that blurs the lines between fiction and nonfiction is a harsh inquiry about the modern idea of romantic love. Every facet of how we discuss love is called into question, and while the podcast asserts it exists to prove love doesn’t exist (somewhat jokingly), it does something much more complicated, gripping, and heartbreaking along the way. The story follows a fictionalized version of Kaitlin, a puppeteer who falls in love with another puppeteer who she has little in common with other than an incredible chemistry. You can read our full review of The Shadows here.

Listen: Apple | Google | RSS

The post 7 Tear-Jerking Podcasts To Pull at Your Heartstrings appeared first on Discover the Best Podcasts | Discover Pods.

2017 has been widely regarded as the year of the podcast and it doesn’t seem like industry growth is slowing anytime soon. VentureBeat reviewed the progress of podcasting over the last year and suggested that 2018 could be another landmark year in the field.

Last year an estimated 112 million people across the US listened to a podcast at least one time according to a government report commissioned by the New York City Mayor’s Office. NYC’s podcasting networks alone have an estimated national audience of 42 million listeners on a weekly basis and podcast networks such as Gimlet, Wondery, and Panoply have become household names.

Though there have been very positive trends in podcasting over the last year and the well-celebrated success of networks, a large portion of the podcasting world is still struggling. Podcasters who make content on their own time as a hobby or passion project, without a network providing funding or advertising, are having a difficult time monetizing and building a large audience without access to the resources that network-backed podcasts enjoy.

Some independent podcasts have still been able to achieve prominence in spite of challenges they face. Wolf 359 is one of just a handful independent podcasts that have been successful without the backing of a network.

It’s a biweekly, science fiction audio drama podcast that recently wrapped up its fourth and final season. According to their website, the show is about the “advantages of floating, tiny and alone, in the middle of nowhere.”

Sarah Shachat, a writer and producer on Wolf 359, said that making the podcast is frustrating, maddening and a ton of fun.

“It involves a lot of caffeine and late-nights, pacing and muttering back and forth. But then you get something into the hands of this incredibly talented cast and crew, and everything after that is pure joy,” she said.

The kind of influence that Wolf 359 has gained is impressive, and that’s putting it mildly. The podcast, much to the surprise of the cast and crew, has had more than six million downloads, amounting to about 30,000 per episode. Their audience has grown organically, without advertising or any type of backing. They were also nominated for a Webby Award.

“I don’t think any of us properly understand the reach it’s had, although getting to see all the fan art and responses to the show is both humbling and gratifying,” said Shachat.

Wolf 359 boasts a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, and has been reviewed by more than 1,000 listeners. These numbers, which are similar to those of larger network-backed podcasts, would seem to suggest that the Wolf 359 audience is as passionate and large as those of shows on major podcasting networks like Gimlet and Wondery.

However, it is out of the ordinary for an independent podcast to have a listener base that is comparable to that of a network-backed podcast.

Podcasters supported by networks like Gimlet have had the privilege of their podcast turning into a full time job — with funding for studio time, a wider reach with network support and a paycheck. These networks also have the capability of cross-promoting their shows by placing ads for one podcast inside of another.

Networks’ ability to internally transfer listeners from podcast to podcast has allowed them to quickly grow listener bases and generate reviews to gain enough popularity that they are able to monopolize the top of the Apple Podcast charts.

Apple Podcast is one of the best places for podcasters to grow their listener base, and as a result of podcast network growth, the top of the Apple Podcast charts is almost entirely occupied by their content. At the time of writing, only a little more than one third of the top 100 podcasts on Apple Podcast were independent.

Without access to the type of commercialized-backing that a network provides, Wolf 359 has not had the same network-provided opportunities that help with listener growth and monetization. Instead, Shachat said that podcasting is still more of an “abusive hobby” than a job.

“The advertising we did was very minimal, and also – I think all three of us [she, Gabriel Urbina and Zach Valenti – other Wolf 359 team members] would agree – very much us fumbling in the dark,” said Shachat.

Word of mouth is what really helped them to grow an audience. Fostering relationships with fans and podcasters was really important to their success in terms of cross promotion and helping each other out over time.

“Engaging with fans, wherever we found them – mostly on Tumblr at first, Twitter and Instagram later – really upped the enthusiasm around the show, and added ‘the creators take the time to interact with fans’ as a dimension of why people might give the show a try,” said Shachat.

“You weren’t getting just a story, but a community of people who cared about it,” said Shachat.

And that was enough for more than 1000 fans to monetarily support Wolf 359 on Patreon and spread the word about their show.

Despite Wolf 359’s success, the biggest battle for most independent podcasters remains their ability to grow an audience. This is particularly the case as the podcast landscape becomes more and more commercialized and the podcasts with the best marketing have been able to garner the most visibility with new listeners.

The good news is, there is a growing number of new podcast apps that are trying to work for independent podcasters — specifically, those not already topping Apple’s podcast charts– that need help with audience growth and funding, while still catering to the larger podcasts.

This opens a door for the independent podcast community to reach listeners in a more evenly balanced landscape, where networks can’t monopolize podcast enthusiasts’ ears. Instead, listeners are able to focus more on the content podcasters are creating rather than listening to podcasts based on messaging they see or hear from large-scale marketing initiatives by larger podcast networks.

That drive to create good, passionate content is what keeps independent podcasters in the game and with apps like Podible coming out, podcasters working without any kind of backing will have a better chance at growing their audiences.

For now, regardless of the strain that comes with an “abusive hobby” like podcasting. Shachat is happy to be exploring her talents for podcast writing and producing.

“Podcasting is the perfect place to experiment, to build your creative muscles, and to do it surrounded by a community that’s supportive and interested in what you have to say. There’s a lot we all learned about writing audio through making Wolf 359, but we were able to learn by making – and have one hell of a time doing it. That’s what I’d tell someone new to podcasting: just dive in.”

Now that Wolf 359 has wrapped, she’s thinking about what to do in the space next.

“Something that isn’t science fiction, I think,” said Shachat about possible next endeavors. “It’s amazing that there’s so much sci-fi and horror in the audio drama space – we’re spoiled with riches, really – but I’d be curious to figure out how to make a podcast compelling that didn’t lean so heavily into mystery and suspense.”

Podcasting has been a platform for passions to spread, less prominent voices to be heard and knowledge shared for more than ten years. Now that it’s becoming commercialized, it’s important to make sure that people have the ability to continue participating and achieving growth in podcasting even if they’re doing it independently. Otherwise, some of the best content could be lost.

The post As Networks Grow, Independent Podcasters Face A New Challenge appeared first on Discover the Best Podcasts | Discover Pods.