![]() ![]() ![]() Producers zeroed in on terrorism-both domestic and abroad-searching for patterns and reaching for hindsight. Others drew parallels between the pandemic and the AIDS crisis or the aftermath of 9/11. Some shows were hornier than ever before others sharply connected sex to gendered power dynamics. In other series, our houses themselves-and the attendant challenges around gentrification and homelessness- were the story. Memoirs also shone, allowing homebound producers to shout into the void. As the pandemic wore on and limited field reporting, archival tape became central to narratives. This year, makers played with structure in fresh ways, flirting with form and cadence. As always, we’ve also recused ourselves from selecting The Atlantic’s podcasts. True-crime shows and in-depth looks at government snafus remain available in droves, but we sought series that transcended their genre conventions. We’ve decided to eliminate anything that sounds like it’s always sounded, too. The requisites for inclusion on our list have evolved over time, and now we only consider new shows or shows that have a new focus. Ours is, as far as we know, the longest-running of the robust roundups, and we’ve been reviewing the medium longer than virtually any other critic in the space. This is our seventh list commemorating the year’s best podcasts, and deciding what makes the cut has only gotten harder each time. From there, each and every slot is labored over and debated. (Of course, with more than a million podcasts in existence, our extensive listening still makes only a tiny dent.) To track our impressions, we make a spreadsheet with legends, drop-down menus, color codes, formulas, and notes on the thousands of podcasts that we’ve discovered over the past decade. We seek shows anywhere we can find them-sometimes hearing about them directly from producers, other times from a friend of a friend’s mother’s uncle, or sometimes through our own secret methods of rooting out gems. Editor’s Note: Find all of The Atlantic’s “Best of 2021” coverage here. ![]()
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