🍭Audio Delicacies: The Best Audio of the Year Chosen by People Who Know Best 🍭

❤️ The "best-of" list that's truly made with love ❤️

Bonjour.

Listening to podcasts is my job and my passion and I listen to a lot of them. (Last year I listened to more than 75 days worth in the Pocket Casts app alone.) At the end of the year when the “best-of” lists roll out I prepare myself to see the same shows making each one. Some of the lists are written by writers who aren’t podcast makers or listeners. I always appreciated Bello Collective’s 100 Outstanding Podcasts, which ended in 2021, because it was always a list of true diamonds in the rough—the stuff recommended by people who were listening to literally everything, stuff even I had never heard of. When Bello closed its doors audio lovers felt the void. In 2022, Tink launched Audio Delicacies, not to replace it but to honor it. (See our lists from 2022, 2023, and 2024.) The 2025 list is full of recommendations from people who listen to the most stuff and the best stuff. It's also the biggest and the best list yet. I pulled a few for this issue of Podcast the Newsletter, below.

What excites me about this industry is that despite all the hardships there are still people making quality stuff they care about, though it might take some extra digging to find. Audio Delicacies helps good stuff get discovered. This list gives me hope. We mourn the loss of narrative. We’re traumatized by the phrase “pivot to video!” We roll our eyes at the abundance of celebrity-hosted shows. We have been told the industry is dead. But look at these beauties. There are insanely talented audio makers spinning gold out there—imaginative dramas, bold investigations, diverse perspectives from underrepresented voices, homemade labors of love. These creators can’t be stopped. Keep making, keep listening. And enjoy this year’s Audio Delicacies!

xoxo

lauren

ps. here’s my pick for Debt Heads…

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🍭Vintage Annals Archive Podcast

Showrunner Rich Wexler is an incredible digital archivist of “people and histories considered to be the other or Outsider”, whose Instagram account chronicles cultural ephemera that helps tell the story of NYC culture and Americana. The podcast features creatives and culture makers in art, comedy, music, film, activism and beyond from sub- and counter-culture, much of which he has documented on his IG account. Wexler’s lens is expansive, inclusive and deeply observant - I appreciate his less intrusive interviewing style, which allows his guests to tell their stories. I’m always reposting visuals from his IG account and discovering another cool person making important art on his podcast. Maybe someday I’ll be on there!

- Amanda B. (she/her)

Recommended episode: Ep.152: Marsha The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson by Tourmaline

🍭The Bad Articles

The Bad Articles is a comedy audio drama following a ragtag team of supernatural investigators in 1990s Ireland, produced by Felbryn Studios in Belfast, Northern Ireland. This is an actual play podcast which uses the structure to perfect effect. There are lots of pre-scripted and planned elements, and a clear sense of where the story is going, but there is still plenty of room for improv. And the improv and voice acting are excellent: Carry Postman, the Milkman is one of the funniest characters I’ve heard in any medium this year! The occasional dice roll intervenes just enough to keep things chaotic and fun. It’s all brought together with a careful attention to the sound design and some fantastic music (I love the intro voice overs). A wonderful, absurd, hilarious podcast - I can’t wait for the next Article!

- Conor Reid (he/him), HeadStuff & The Podcast Studios

Recommended episode: S1E1 Welcome to Wight’s

🍭Not a Very Good Murderer

A juicy and bizarro listen that I tore through in one afternoon. Months later I’m still thinking about the central character, a former Miss Arizona who may or may not have plotted more than one husband’s demise. It’s not a comedy podcast but it’s hilarious. It’s not political but it’s about politics. Mostly, I’m in awe of the host’s ability to tell this story without giving up. Born out of a multi-year investigative reporting project, it’s one of the few new shows that really feels like the team left no stone unturned in pursuit of a tricky, elusive truth from an unreliable source.

- Caila Litman (she/her), iHeartMedia

🍭Home of the Brave

Scott Carrier - many radio/podcast producer’s favorite producer - only published a handful of Home of the Brave episodes this year: a few excellent radio documentaries from his personal archive (e.g. his first TAL story, a radio drama most people have never heard) and also some short reactions to current events. Carrier published “Imagine“ in mid-September. It’s just a few minutes, but it’s a haunting and profound bit of audio featuring an excerpt written and read by the late writer Charles Bowden. His voice has been rattling in my brain for months now.

- Alex Lewis (he/him), Rowhome Productions

Recommended episode: Imagine

🍭Bitter/Sweet

The older you get, the more food becomes a memory keeper. That’s a small kernel of the magic ingredient to Natasha Miller’s serene memory palace of a series, Bitter/Sweet. Combining breadcrumbs of personal memoir to cue stories of pain, hope, and longing, Miller and guests share the ways a meal inadvertently impacted their lives. The tone and production are pristine with an eyes-closed kind of warmth that only intimate audio storytelling can offer. And that theme song—what a balm of mellow pleasure, man.

- Mark Pagán (he/him)

Recommended episode: Natasha’s Sunday Dinners

🍭Jockular

Jockular is a comedy sports podcast that focuses exclusively on women’s sports. It’s hosted by three very funny queer comedians and they celebrate female-identified athletes, and have in-depth conversations about which athletes they’d invite to ‘power slap’ them, and whatever else is happening in women’s sports. The three hosts are always respectfully raunchy, and this episode is a good example of how they are able to simultaneously elevate and debase themselves, while not taking themselves too seriously.

- Laura Swisher (she/her), Maximum Fun

Recommended episode: Respectfully Raunchy with Anya & Madison Packer

🍭Hearthbound

Hearthbound is a gorgeous, sun-drenched, queer, lyrical untelling of The Odyssey. More and more we are seeing queer people and people of colour untangling the myths that loom so large in our collective imagination and rewilding them, and this beautiful road trip through a post-apocalyptic American basin is no different. The writing, performances and the music are all pitch perfect, and I’m sure you’ll fall as deeply in love with Odessa as I have.

- Ella Watts (she/her), Candle and Bell

Recommended episode: Episode 1: Telemachus

🍭Premeditated

Hosts Graham and Neil sit down with some extremely funny people to talk about things that truly don’t matter and it’s an escapism delight. They have recently launched video episodes too for those who need the visuals of them in robes and wigs as they pass judgement on things like soft launching breakups on Instagram, proper ball throwing, and spreadable cheese. It’s a great show if you also want to discover upcoming comedic voices and delightful appearances by established folks as well. It’s a delight! *Bangs Gavel*!

- Myrriah Gossett (they/she), Good Get

Recommended episode: Marquis The Honey Bear v. Soft Launching Break-Ups

🍭Well There’s Your Problem

A leftist podcast about engineering disasters hosted by a former civil engineer, his ride-or-die best friend, a transfemme professional shitposter, and a silent nonbinary editor doing their best to cut out anything that’d get the show sued. For all their dark (often crass) humor, the hosts consistently bring humanity and dignity to the real people involved in disasters (old and new) that deserve discussion. Spoiler alert: the root cause of most of these disasters is capitalism in a trench coat. Train good, car bad.

- Gavin Gaddis (they/them), Sounds Profitable

Recommended episode: Episode 175: The Marlboro Unlimited

🍭Murderhobos

Murderhobos is neither about murder nor is it about hobos — at least not directly. So please don’t be fooled and tune in to this unique look at the past. It’s a solo-hosted history show that digs into concepts and people through the lens of masculinity and gender expression. I came for the exploration of Ernest Hemingway as a “manly” author and stayed for the crisp, thorough analysis that host and historian Adam Franti so effortlessly lays out.

- Arielle Nissenblatt (she/her), Founder of EarBuds, head of community and content at Pinwheel

Recommended episode: Ernest Hemingway, 1899 - 1961

✨ I love you!