Recommended Listening: Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History

Media consumption is a very personal thing. Our favorite music, movies, whatever. It’s all very personal. I don’t usually share opinions about such material.

However, in this case I must make an exception. Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast is outstanding. If you aren’t aware of it, and I didn’t share it with you, I’d be doing you an injustice. It’s literally breathtaking. The way podcasts should be done.

The series touches on a number of important topics. It’s extremely well-conceived, written and produced. It harnesses the medium, where most others trivialize it.

I don’t want to give away any of the content of the ten episodes, but I will tell you something about how they impacted me. After the first two episodes I found myself eagerly awaiting each new one. Seriously, I haven’t been so excited about upcoming shows since the original Battlestar Galactica in 1978, when I was just 12.

I typically listen to podcasts while out walking our dogs, usually in a public park. At various points along the ten week series Gladwell literally had me in tears, which must’ve seemed odd to anyone encountering us on those occasions.

I was especially touched by the episode detailing the history of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” The artist and the song have long been personal favorites.

Now for the musical interlude portion of this post. A very nice acoustic version of the song.

Gladwell makes reference to an album called “I’m Your Fan: The Songs of Leonard Cohen.” It’s a collection of Cohen songs covered by some notable artists. He describes it as “a rare French release” but I’ve owned that disc for years.

At the outset the series was stated as just ten episodes. As it reached the seventh episode I found myself dreading the fact that it would shortly end.

Then in the ninth episode there arrived the hint that it would not end. Mr. Gladwell made reference to the coming end of the series as “…the end of season one.” The implication that there would be a season two, further reinforced in the final episodes, was like the lifting of a cloud.

I hadn’t followed any of the press that the project received. Only today, in preparing this post, did I discover that it was the #1 podcast on iTunes, or that he had set out to make people cry.

Congratulations, Mr. Gladwell. You got me! Now, get to work on season two!! The rest of you, if you haven’t already, give it a listen.

(See: I can manage something that isn’t a rant or littered with technobabble.)