The Best Podcasts of 2021 (So Far) This article was featured in 1.5x Speed, New York’s podcast recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it weekly. This article was featured in 1.5x Speed, New York’s podcast recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it weekly. Photo-Illustration: Vulture This time last year, the United States was barely a month into the pandemic, lockdowns were kicking in across the country, and COVID-19 podcasts were sprouting up all over the charts like mushrooms. Today, as the country slowly inches toward the other side of this catastrophe (maybe?), the podcast universe, interestingly enough, looks much like it did before March 2020, with the corona-pod genre scaling back to a smaller, more niche presence.