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A rhapsody for Queen fans – podcasts of the week

<span>Photograph: Dave Hogan/Getty Images</span>
Photograph: Dave Hogan/Getty Images

Picks of the week

Queenpod
What Simon Lupton – documentarian and Queen archivist – and superfans John Robins and Sooz Kempner don’t know about the shapeshifting rock legends probably isn’t worth knowing. In this show, hosted by Rohan Acharya, the group make their way through the band’s discography - from grandiose, baroque rock to little-known oddities – via analysis, anecdotes, and fan chatter. While it is likely too focused for the casual admirer, for Queen devotees this track-by-track, album-by-album approach – now on its second run – will be nothing short of a rhapsody. Hannah J Davies

The Assurance Podcast
DJ Juba is a refreshing new voice in podcasting, as she sets out to talk to other women behind the decks around the world. Her style is friendly, warm and smart, and her discussions go way beyond the right to twerk, wearing what you want on the dancefloor and technical difficulties. Ugandan DJ Kampire is her first guest, chatting about the recent election and the horror of having to play livestreams instead of getting out there during the pandemic: “All of the hard parts of DJing without any of the fun parts.” Hannah Verdier

Producer pick: The Cut – You Might Actually Be in Love With Your Best Friend

More than friends? ... The Cut explores whether we’re in love with our best mates.
More than friends? ... The Cut explores whether we’re in love with our best mates. Photograph: JohnnyGreig/Getty Images

Chosen by Axel Kacoutié

Love doesn’t mean the desire to have sex ... but it could. Language is the necessary shorthand for profound and complex things, but when the same word is used to describe your passion for desserts or the irrational urge to tell your partner that you would die for them, you’re bound to run into some confusion.

In this episode of The Cut, a weekly audio magazine from the website of the same name, we hear about another kind of loe, and a version of a break-up story that’s less talked about but probably more familiar: your best friend leaving.

Allison, who finds herself saying goodbye to her friend Hannah, questioned her sexuality due to the intensity of feelings she had for her. But what does sex have to do with friendship or admiration? Why does sexual attraction have to obstruct the desire, as Allison put it, “to spend the night in the same bed with your best friend before going to sleep?”

Through the lens of asexuality, Angela Chen – author of Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society and the Meaning of Sex – shares groundbreaking insight into precisely that.

This listen isn’t an antidote for the grief and confusion one can relate to in this story. Still, it does initiate healing, whether it’s from a break up with your own best friend or, like me, from the relationships that never got to blossom because you were ill-equipped to navigate the nuance between an everlasting bond and not wanting to rip each other’s clothes off. Highly recommend.

Talking points

  • In case there weren’t already enough celebrity podcasts around, two bonafide A-listers – Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen – have launched their own Spotify show. An eight-part series on race, identity and American society, Renegades: Born In The USA is thought-provoking – if exceedingly polished.

  • Why not try: The Gargle | Unwanted | Broccoli Book Club