Episode 17: Consuming culture
How do you decide what tv shows to watch? What album to download? Which movie you're going to go see in Theatres — and which one you'll wait til it's out on Netflix.
There is a lot of arts and culture information to sift through and staying on top of it all can feel like a full time job.
This week on Podcast Playlist, we bring you five podcasts that will do the sifting for you by cutting through the noise to tell you, "Hey! THIS? This you can't miss!"
Culture Gabfest
"I kind of think of Robin Thicke and this song as the one night stand America wants to forget." — Chris Molanphy
Slate's Culture Gabfest is a whip smart, funny, zeitgeisty podcast that takes whatever the big story is in arts and entertainment, and stares it down through a cultural lens.
The episode we've chosen is a perfect example — Robin Thicke's song Blurred Lines was arguably the biggest song of 2013.
It was on the Billboard Top 100 for 32 weeks.
If you listen to Robin Thicke's music pre-Blurred Lines, it's no secret he's a Marvin Gaye fan. Inspiration from Gaye's soul and Motown vibe can be found throughout Thicke's discography, but Blurred Lines drew particular attention for its similarity to Gaye's song Got to Give it Up.
Because of this, Robyn Thicke and the song's co-writer Pharell Williams landed in court.
In this episode of Slate's Culture Gabfest, panelists Julia Turner, Dana Stevens, Jessica Winter and Chris Molanphy discuss the Blurred Lines jury verdict.
Theory of Everything
"In 2005, if you'd told me at that time that Kodak was going to go bankrupt in six years I would've said 'You're crazy.'" — Robert Burley
In the past decade we have all become photographers — and the shift from film cameras to digital cameras has completely changed our culture, turning us all into archivists at best, and unrelenting narcissists at worst.
For those whose culture was film -- the shift from analog to digital has hit at a deeply personal level.
Photographer Robert Burley is one of these people. He has been documenting the end of the film industry in his analogue photography book The Disappearance of Darkness.
Sound-rich and bittersweet, Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything tells his story in the episode "Artifacts."
All Songs Considered +1
"[Hamilton] reminds us how 'American' hip-hop is … almost every element of hip hop — from the good to the bad is straight from the American DNA." — Timmohotep Aku
All Songs Considered is a massively popular radio show out of NPR is the States — but for those who want their culture on demand, there's the All Songs Considered +1 podcast.
The podcast is in the classic behind-the-music tradition, with every episode digging into the story behind a song or musician — or in this case, a musical.
Hamilton is set in the 1700's and tells the story of the founding of the American financial system. It's two and a half hours long and the story is set to hip-hop music.
It might not sound like it would work, but it's a mega hit — critically acclaimed and selling out night after night.
Telling the unlikely story of why Hamilton the musical works, this is NPR Music's Robin Hilton and Timmhotep Aku.
Poetry Now
"I think there's something about the absurdity of how hard we work just because we're supposed to work hard and I think that's very 'Detroit' to me." — Jamaal May
Poetry Now makes poetry more accessible — through podcast.
If you can't make it to your local cafe, or book store for a poetry reading, it features poets reading aloud from their work. They offer insights and anecdotes from their lives and process.
In this piece, Detroit poet Jamaal May reads Shift — a poem that questions the value of work when you hate your job. He also explains some of the confusion he felt around his own career when moving away from visual art to writing.
Banff Centre Talks
"I felt like I really had to fake it and wing it … in those first few years as a dancer I was always feeling like I was an imposter." — Crystal Pite
Banff, Alta. is home to Bighorn sheep, the crystalline waters of Lake Louise, and the Banff Centre, which presents world-class programming in a range of disciplines.
Luckily for us, they turn their programming into the podcast Banff Centre Talks, featuring conversations with internationally renowned artists and thinkers, recorded live before a studio audience.
One of these thinkers is Canadian dancer and choreographer, Crystal Pite. Based in Vancouver, her company, Kidd Pivot, recently co-produced Betroffenheit, a dance and theatre production exploring trauma, post-traumatic stress, addiction and recovery that was presented as part of the Pan Am programming.
In this episode, Crystal Pite explains why doubt is a virtue, self-confidence wanes as you age, and what it's like to embody emotions as a dancer.
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