The Best Music Podcasts

Music podcasts have been around nearly as long as the format itself, which is saying something given how badly rights issues have historically complicated things. Some shows spent years unable to play more than a few seconds of a song before getting hit with a takedown. Others somehow played full tracks, even full albums, and nobody came knocking. Go figure.

Either way, the genre covers a lot of ground. There are shows built around new releases, shows that go deep on a single artist, shows about gear, and everything in between. Finding the good ones takes time. Here are four that have already proven themselves.

All Songs Considered

This NPR show has been running since 2000, which in podcast years is practically ancient. Bob Boilen hosts, and he brings a level of genuine music knowledge that is rare in the format. The show is not chasing whatever is sitting at the top of the streaming charts. It is interested in good music, full stop, which sometimes means brand new artists and sometimes means returning to records that deserve a fresh listen.

What keeps it from feeling like homework is that Boilen and his regular contributors are clearly fans first. They get enthusiastic. They argue. They occasionally change their minds on air about something they recommended three months ago. There is no pretension about it. If something is brilliant, they say so. If something they expected to love turned out to be disappointing, they say that too. For anyone trying to keep up with new music without spending hours doing it alone, this is the shortcut.

NPR Tiny Desk Concerts

Yes, another NPR show. But leaving this one off a list of the best music podcasts would be like leaving Abbey Road off a list of great albums. It is not optional.

The setup is deliberately simple. Artists come into the NPR offices and play a short set behind a desk. No stage, no production, no crew of twenty people adjusting the lights. Just the band or the artist and whatever they can fit into a small room. The results are frequently extraordinary. Robert Plant has played it. Phoebe Bridgers has played it. Olivia Rodrigo has played it. The format does not care how big you are, and that is exactly the point. A stripped back live performance puts the focus entirely on whether someone can actually play, and it turns out most of the artists who show up can.

It is available in both audio and video formats, making it one of the few podcasts worth watching as well as listening to.

Coverville

Brian Ibbott has been running Coverville since 2004, making it one of the earliest music podcasts in existence. The focus is cover versions, which sounds like a niche premise until you realise how much ground that actually covers. Famous covers, obscure covers, covers that improve on the original, covers that are so bad they loop back around to being interesting. Ibbott finds all of them.

Episodes are usually built around a theme or a single artist, what Ibbott calls a cover story, often tied to a birthday or a recent death. The annual Beatles Thanksgiving specials have become something of a tradition, and the end of year best covers series is worth blocking out an afternoon for. The fact that Ibbott has spent twenty years playing full songs on an independent podcast, without the backing of a major media organisation, remains one of the more quietly remarkable things in the history of the format.

The Honest Audiophile

There is an old joke in music circles that goes: music fans use their gear to show off their music, audiophiles use their music to show off their gear. It is funny because it is often true. The hobby has a reputation for eye-watering prices and endless debate over differences in sound that may or may not exist outside of the imagination of the person spending four figures on a power cable.

The Honest Audiophile is a corrective to all of that. Host Dave is knowledgeable about speakers, headphones, best turntables and everything else in the audio chain, but he approaches the subject like someone who actually wants to hear music rather than someone trying to win an argument on an internet forum. He does not bury listeners in technical jargon. He is happy to recommend a cheaper product over an expensive one when the evidence supports it. He is also upfront about what actually makes a difference to how music sounds versus what is mostly marketing. In a corner of the internet that can feel impenetrable to newcomers, that is a genuinely useful thing.

These four are among the most consistent music podcasts out there, but the landscape is much wider than any single list can cover. Edison Research’s Infinite Dial report tracks podcast listening habits annually and remains the most thorough look at how audio consumption is changing. Worth reading if you want to understand where the medium is heading.