12 of the Best Podcasts to Listen to While in the Bath

Pod Save America is a freewheeling pod about all the latest White House news, co-hosted by four former aides to President Barack Obama, who are occasionally joined by political activists, journalists and politicians. If you’re interested in the inner trappings of the White House, or want to find out how you can get involved in politics and challenge the Trump administration, then this pod is for you. Listen to it here.

The Week Ahead is a weekly news and politics podcast produced by the The Economist’s editorial team. Every week, editors and correspondents are invited to speak about important issues likely to make the news in the coming week for about twenty minutes. Speakers tend to contextualize news stories and conversations, so you don’t feel left out if you happen to not be very knowledgeable about a particular story. You can listen to it here.

With a new episode virtually every day, Trumpcast covers the Trump administration. In it, Slate’s editor-in-chief Jacob Weisberg, speaks to experts, journalists, Democrats and moderate Republicans about all the latest White House news for insightful analysis and commentary. Listen to the podcast here.

Thanks to a new generation of sport podcasters, sport analysis broadcasting has very little in common with the dreary, cliched commentating which still plagues some TV and radio channels.

Started in 2007,The Football Ramble is basically the quintessential hipster podcast about football. None of the show’s four co-hosts have any media or football connections whatsoever. They’re just regular blokes with a shared passion for sport and banter, who meet every week to dissect the latest in football news. Listen to the pod here.

Men in Blazers is a weekly one-hour podcast about football, or soccer, aimed at a primarily American audience. Co-hosted by the British journalist Roger Bennett and TV producer Michael Davies, the show has seen very special guests like Drake (yes, you read that correctly), US full-back DeAndre Yedlin and FC Dallas player Kellyn Acosta. Listen to the podcast here.

The Bill Simmons Podcast is a popular bi-weekly relaunch of Bill Simmons’s old HBO podcast, still to this day the most downloaded sports podcast of all time. Simmons, who founded The Ringer, has a very idiosyncratic style which mixes sports geekery with pop culture. Listen to the podcast here.

In her very well-researched podcast You Must Remember This, film critic Karina Longworth takes the listener backstage, revealing the juicy and long-forgotten intrigues of old Hollywood. Start with Episode 5: Jane vs Barbarella. In it, Katrina Longworth looks back on Jane Fonda’s rocky marriage with Roger Vadim and the actress’ budding political consciousness, which came to the fore during the shooting of Barbarella, a cult film in which she played the part of a randy space warrior. Listen to the podcast here.

Next on our list is the New Yorker: Fiction podcast. Every month, the New Yorker Magazine invites a writer to read their favorite New Yorker story and discuss it with the fiction editor Deborah Treisman. Start with Episode: Colm Tóibín Reads Mary Lavin, in which Colm Toibin reads Mary Lavin’s In the Middle of the Fields, a tragic short story about a widow’s personal struggle with loneliness against the bleak backdrop of rural Ireland.

Hrishikesh Hirwa’s music podcast Song Exploder has featured big names like Iggy Pop, Alt-J, St. Vincent, Solange and the Magnetic Fields, and it’s not hard to see why. The concept is fairly unique. Twice a month, a musician is invited to dissect one of her own songs, explain how it came to be and specific decisions that went into the composition. A revelatory experience. You’ll never listen to music in the way ever again. Check it out here.