Podcast Corner: Four shows from the world of popular culture
Larry David and Jeff Garlin in Curb Your Enthusiasm.
To coincide with the reportedly final season of Curb, this rewatch podcast, hosted by two of its stars, talks to cast, crew, and superfans as it seeks to run through every episode of one of the best comedies of the century. Rewatch pods like Office Ladies and Talking Sopranos have been hits in their own right, and serve as brilliant companions to the shows - we’ll see if the History of Curb hits a similar sweet spot. At the very least, it’s a great reason to go back to early Curb.
This American show, from North Carolina Public Radio WUNC, has been running since mid-2020 and has chronicled seemingly every facet of relationships over some 140-plus episodes since, from sexting to porn to being child-free by choice. A special three-part series is running this month, to coincide with Valentine’s Day. Hosted by Anita Rao, it’s focusing on love and AI, covering topics like chatbot relationships, sex robots, and AI afterlife, where “grief bots” are trained to emulate loved ones who have passed.
Director Peter Bogdanovich, who was immortalised by CMAT on her debut album, died in early 2022, aged 82, but in his final months, he spent time talking to some of the biggest directors around about their own favourite directors, for this series. The first two episodes, released last week, feature Guillermo Del Toro on Alfred Hitchcock and Quentin Tarantino on Don Siegel. It’s an interesting format. The loquacious Bogdanovich has talked to them all, and the episodes vacillate from the modern interviews to chats with the masters from decades previous. Del Toro talks about the humour of Psycho, for example; Hitchcock confirms as much in the following clip. For a film buff, it’s gold. Bogdanovich passed away before the project could be completed, so his ex-wife, Louise Stratten, acts as host and guide. And Del Toro himself will host the final three episodes. Guests to come include Greta Gerwig and Ken Burns.
It seems like the business of music is almost as discussed as the music itself lately. From Spotify’s payouts to Taylor Swift’s rerecorded back catalogue, there’s no shortage of topics. BBC 6 Music presenter Steve Lamacq hosts The Price of Music alongside Stuart Dredge from the business website Music Ally. In the couple of episodes to date, they’ve discussed the closure of grassroots venues around the UK - a topic close to Lamacq’s heart - and the fascinating tete-a-tete between Universal Music Group (UMG) and TikTok, which has seen the label take down its catalogue from the social video site, leaving its artists in limbo.
