As we waft out of a hot, smokey summer, keep your fingers crossed for a more temperate time outdoors. Go walk in some woods, feel the crisp air on your skin. But if the sound of leaves crunching underfoot starts to bother you, why not drown all that out with recordings of other people talking about sounds? Looking ahead at the podcasts coming out this fall, there appears to be a fair number of projects about music, including the first active participation in a podcast by a living Beatle and the return of a wonderful anthology series unearthing stories across music history. Work those eardrums, friend.
September
The Dream: Season 3 (Pushkin Industries and Little Everywhere, September 13)
As it has unpacked the oddities of multilevel marketing schemes and the wellness industry, Jane Marie and Dann Gallucci’s audio series carved out an investigative niche for itself: structures and actors that prey on the very human desire to improve one’s station in life. The Dream is a study in large-scale exploitation, in other words, and the show returns for a third season that will see Marie embark on a quest to tackle the curious world of life coaching — and why so many people, including herself, feel drawn to spend a ton of money on the project of “self-improvement.”
Peter and the Acid King (iHeartMedia and Imagine Entertainment, September 18)
For a very brief period in the early ’80s, local television in the Los Angeles area broadcasted a bizarre, experimental music show that threw the spotlight on the city’s punk and new-wave scenes. It was called New Wave Theater, and shepherded by host Peter Ivers — an influential underground figure renowned for his curatorial tastes — the show featured then-emerging acts like the Dead Kennedys and Bad Religion. The show ran for about a year until March 1983, when Iver was found bludgeoned to death in his apartment. His murder was never solved. In Peter and the Acid King, listeners will be offered a look back at New Wave Theater, Ivers’s life, and the tumultuous world of the early ’80s L.A. punk scene through which he came up. It’s narrated by Penelope Spheeris, who made the canonical L.A. punk documentary The Decline of Western Civilization before going on to direct movies like Wayne’s World.
McCartney: A Life in Lyrics (Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia, September 20)
For years, Paul McCartney sat down with the poet Paul Muldoon for a series of conversations unpacking the people, places, and experiences that informed the legendary Beatles’ songwriting. Those chats were ultimately baked into a 2021 book, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, which became a best seller, and in September, a new podcast series will offer an expanded view on those conversations. Drawing from the hours of recorded audio by the two men, McCartney: A Life in Lyrics will feature 24 episodes across two seasons, each focusing on a different song. Among the tracks tackled in the first season will be “Eleanor Rigby,” “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” and “Live and Let Die.”
Imperfect Paradise (LAist Studios, September)
This audio documentary series by LAist Studios has been doling out fascinating stories about the odder corners of California for the past two years, but come September, the publisher is retooling the show into an ongoing weekly radio-podcast hybrid that will deliver a continuous flow of serialized longform reportage. Hosted by Antonia Cereijido, the upcoming slate of Imperfect Paradise stories includes a deep dive into the Los Angeles city council racism scandal from last year, a peek behind the curtains of Magic Castle (a.k.a. the “clubhouse” for the Academy of Magical Arts, which is a literal castle), and an incident of racial profiling in which a mom-influencer accused a Latino couple of trying to kidnap her children in a viral social media video.
October
Yet-to-Be-Titled Shea Serrano Basketball Podcast (Wondery, October 11)
Now that the potentially generational talent of seven-foot-five rookie Victor Wembanyama is officially on the roster, it’s a great time to be a San Antonio Spurs fan. And for Shea Serrano — the writer, podcast, creator of Freevee’s Primo, and very online Spurs fan — it’s also the perfect time to launch a weekly NBA reaction show. Debuting around the start of the upcoming season, the podcast will see Serrano tackle the many narratives and various goings-on throughout the league. Expect a raucous variety show that bottles his specific hyperenergetic sensibilities and penchant for dispensing arbitrary awards. Expect, as well, a fair amount of chaos.
Lost Notes Presents, Season 4 (KCRW, October)
This KCRW narrative podcast collecting the “greatest music stories never told” is a gem. For three seasons, the series has produced gorgeous audio documentaries that reflect on scenes, movements, and discrete moments in cultural time. Its last release, Lost Notes: 1980, curated and hosted by the MacArthur genius Hanif Abdurraqib, was among 2020’s very best podcasts. Lost Notes is returning for a fourth season after a brief hiatus and will place its gaze on the early Los Angeles soul-music scene — explore a world that stretches from the street clubs of South L.A. to the churches of Pacoima.
More From 2023 Preview
- The Search for the Next Will and Kate
- 25 New Classical Music Performances to Hear This Fall
- 10 Art Shows We Can’t Wait to See This Fall
