How Does Radiolab’s “Colors” Hold Up Ten Years Later?
1x speed. Check. Good headphones. Check. Let’s do it.
It’s late 2014, early 2015, and this is my impression of every message board that discussed podcasts.
“Hey I just finished Serial and loved it. What else should I listen to?”
Cue dozens of people stepping all over each to say some variation of: “Oh ‘Colors’ from Radiolab for sure, it will blow your mind.”
I quickly became one of these people who dutifully recommended the episode every chance I could get after it also blew my mind.
This episode is some kind of special glue that binds together my “generation” of podcast fan, or those who got heavy into podcasts around 10–12 years ago (or as we can’t help but mention, before Serial).
There were already so many good podcasts by this point, even plenty of other phenomenal episodes of Radiolab, but there was something special about “Colors”. It felt like the height of what was possible for a podcast to do (yes, even though it also went out over the WNYC public radio airwaves). It had a combination of fascinating content with absolutely top notch sound design and creative formatting. For early podcast fans, you wanted to spread the podcast gospel, and you wanted something that could showcase what…
