Aside from decent human nature, few things in life are free. Almost every product and/or service must be purchased or exchanged for a currency, sheep or a deck of cigs... depending on whether you live in a developed, developing or confined space on earth. Then, there's the second thought of even if something is free... is it any good? Will effect me in a positive, negative or neutral way? Sex is free.... for most of us... that's pretty damn great... so is picking berries in the wild... not quite the same, but do you see my thought process? And then there's the podcast; something I personally think is one of the greatest inventions to date. I currently subscribe to 35 on completely different topics, ranging from dance music across to weekly media updates from the Guardian, marketing tips from WOMMA, sports analysis and comedy sketches. The point is, if a podcaster gets their shit together and keeps up with fresh monthly content, you're onto a total winner. For example: If you want to find out which tunes are hitting the top ten on Beatport downloads... then listen to the weekly 'Beatport Burners' show... a quick round up, with decent length clips of each track with full artist, tune and label info. I think that aside from the obvious free aspect, podcasts allow consumers to absorb more information at times when they would normally not be able to do so - so for me, I guess it's about convenience as much as cost.
Anyway as 2008 comes to an end and as a little hats off out of respect, I wanted to put together a quick top five (excluding of course the Chris Lake podcast series.... that'd be a tad biased), highlighting quality, varied and reliable content from the whole year. Here goes:
5) In FIFTH place comes the globally recognised Giles Peterson, and his 'Worldwide' series. A true legend of discovery.
4) FOURTH goes to the aforementioned Beatport and the reliable 'Burners' series. A great way to keep up to date on who's topping who of the most popular electronic chart.
3) For THIRD place I've gone with the people from Allez Allez. I posted about them earlier in the year with much new found respect. Their production continues to impress me, Mikhail Faria making me smile the most.
2) SECOND spot goes to Ben and his team at Data Transmission. I like the fact DT seems to be having such success with its online publication... setting standards and all that. John Dahlback and the Plump DJs were two episodes that stood out from what was by all accounts a great year of music.
1) At the top of my humble chart in FIRST place is the Bodytonic Music Podcast. Qool DJ Marv, DJ Yoda, the Unabombers... etc etc etc... suitably eclectic, hugely entertaining and bang up my street. Great work! Just please keep them coming!
Have a good New Year people and I'll catch you in '09!
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