Song Exploder: This was always a great podcast but this year it really hit its stride. As a musician, being able to deconstruct a song is always fascinating to me, but I honestly thing it’s a podcast that would appeal to anyone who’s a curious person and interested in the creative process. The episodes with Thundercat, Best Coast HEALTH, and Bjork really stood out.
UnREAL: I pretty much binged this entire mindf**k of a show in one day, it’s a show that goes behind the scenes of a Bachelor-type reality show. It’s very dark and very cynical, but also tells a lot of harsh truths about how gender, race, and age play out in Hollywood, yet somehow makes all of these hateful characters compelling.
Furious Spoon: Chicago is on a ramen kick right now, but for a long time all we had was Slurping Turtle, which was a really upscale version of the kind of hole in the wall ramen joints you can get in NYC. Enter Furious Spoon, which has the kind of yummy, flavorful, and affordable ramen I crave in NYC. SO, SO good.
Base: I wrote on TLF about how much I love the new SHINee album but I love Jonghyun’s solo album just as much. UGH it’s so silky smooth and sexy I just want to take a bath in it.
Pitchfork Review: It’s so hard to find good music writing these days so I am glad the Pitchfork Review exists. There’s a lot of great, historical long form writing and the kind of pieces that I feel like would be candidates for the Best Music Writing Series if it still existed.
Faith No More’s Periscope “Tour Talk” Show. Roddy Bottum did a post concert Periscope show on their last tour and I loved it because it was a great use of Periscope but also an awesome way to get reacquainted with my boys.
Dat Dog: NOLA’s bad-ass hot dog joint. All sorts of hot dogs! Even a turducken hot dog! Magical, magical place.
Keidra Chaney 