Every Single Album - A Post-Olivia Mailbag and Taylor Swift Enters the Songwriters Hall of Fame

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

Nora and Nathan discuss Taylor Swift's induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and what the speech she gave during the ceremony reveals about her songwriting process (1:00). Then they answer some lingering questions about Olivia Rodrigo's album 'you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love,' including where this lands her in the Grammy contention conversation (27:54) and if "expectations" could be the song of the summer (43:21).Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan HubbardProducer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets? Yes? Good. This is for you. Because on Spotify, there's an audience that's different. Locked in. Loyal, invested. They're called fans. Fans don't just listen to music. They feel seen by it, like it belongs to them. So when your brand shows up on Spotify, that's who you're talking to. And you're right next to artists like me, Lizzo. So, are you ready to talk to fans? Spotify Advertising. You're among fans. Hey y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if?

Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. Oh, and welcome to every single album. I'm Nora Prenciotti and I am joined, as always, by my friend Nathan Hubbard. And I promise that it really is Nathan Hubbard. He has not been replaced by a Late night soul R&B and jazz radio host, even though we've decided before we started recording that because he does have a bit of a sore throat, that's kind of what he's giving vocally right now. Hi, Nathan. I don't know if I'm going to make it, Nora. I'm going to try not to do that all day, but I'm going to do it all day.

I'm sorry, everybody, that you have to hear me like this. We appreciate you powering through. And we hope you feel better. Let's talk about DeAngelo all day. I would love to do that. That's not what we have on the rundown today. Barry White, every single album, Barry White. That's a good idea.

We're going to spend a portion of the episode today going through some mailbag questions on Olivia Rodriguez, on you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, with just a few days. of that being out in the world. We're recording this on Tuesday evening. However, we're going to start with some news, in part because Taylor Swift, a little artist, you might be familiar with if you're listening to this podcast, was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame over the weekend. Nathan, did you, like, were you following this in real time? Did you read the speech? Did you watch

her give her whole speech? Did you watch the somber performances? How did you take the Yes to all. And the thing that I'm going to say is it took me a long time to find it. I didn't actually end up seeing it all. But I got so annoyed at whoever tried to do the right thing by giving us the full somber Dear John version. But it was clipped. And so it kept clipping out at the best parts of Dear John. So I didn't really get all of the somber version of Dear John. And I, we can talk about the somber situation. and him being like the flavor of the month and like, what the fuck? All right, fine. Okay, I guess I'm into SOMBOR now. But I did enjoy it. I enjoyed that she loves an award show. She likes standing up and being the one who's, you know,

pumping her fist in support of all of the people who are performing. Like, she likes supporting other artists. I think she has to go one way or the other. She goes all in. It's just the way she was at the Knicks game, was the way she was at the Songwriter Hall of Fame. Fantastic. We can talk about the speech. It was a good speech. It was the continuation of the chip on the shoulder speech that she seems to have. But I loved it. I loved the performances. I love that they gave it to her. I appreciated. It was thumbs up for me. So there are a couple parts of it. And the parts that actually stood out to me the most from the speech weren't the chip on my shoulder parts. It was one, her getting really

genuinely emotional talking about her family, her parents and her brother and the sacrifice they made to move their family to Nashville for her to really pursue songwriting. But it couldn't have been easy for my parents and my brother. I'm good to just pick up and move our entire family. And then also, just when she talked to... Can I just interrupt you for a sec? Please. Why do you think that she got emotional in that moment about this?

This is something she's talked about. about a ton. It's in the documentaries. It's in the movies. It's like we see her with Scott and Andrea almost everywhere that she goes and her brother too. Why do you think in this moment she got emotional? I mean, it's still a big moment, right? This is a person who has a lot of big moments in their life. But I think, I can only imagine that even for someone like her on the number of big stages that she's used to being on, you still can get swept up in it. And they were there, right? And maybe even it felt more like that's who she'd gone to that with because it wasn't quite, you know, it's not like the Oscars or even the Grammys. That's not quite as star-studded

a crowd. It's a little bit more intimate to the degree that's something that Taylor Swift is a part of can be that way. So maybe she just sort of felt their presence. I also, I'm going to project here and we're not quite the same age. But like, I don't know. You watch your parents get older and like it just makes everybody emo, I think. So I will give you that. And I think it's because she's getting married.

She's getting married. I think it's because she's already been thinking about all of this. She's going to have to maybe give some sort of speech at her own wedding and she's dealing with all that. I think there's a whole lot of. emotion flowing through Ms. Swift right now. Yeah, and like everybody says meaningful and also in the best way, corny shit to you when you're getting married. Right. I just kind of like, I spent the months leading up to my wedding crying all the time, parentheses, positive. Like, it's just like anything. That's where I was going. A bunch of my friends made me a balloon arch once,

and I sobbed. Right. Like it's, you just get a little delicate. So like maybe it's that. That's a good point. Yeah. I just, I think she has talked about this a lot before. and there's, of course, any reason, but I think she's in her feelings right now, which is great. It's great. And, like, no matter what, the reason I thought it was really, really meaningful for her to sort of stress that point.

I also thought that what she said about songwriting being the part of her vocation that, and as she said, the only one that has really come naturally to her and where it was, I liked what she said about it being the thing where it was easy. to work really hard. It felt easy to work incredibly hard at this. It felt easy to nurture something I loved so much to watch callous form on the tips of my tiny fingers and to become a constant observer of the human condition. Right.

I thought that was a really good way of putting something that you're passionate about and drawn to. And so I just liked, it was the same thing with the New York Times interview. Like I like hearing her talk about songwriting. It's wonderful to hear her talk about her craft because this is the thing that she, yes, you're exactly right. It's the thing that is the most natural to her. The vocal stuff says guy with completely fucked up vocal.

The vocal stuff she really had to work at and she had to go to school on and get better at. Even the live performing and the movement coaching and all that stuff, like she had to go get better at. She did because she is inherently driven to just be great at whatever she puts her mind to, even if it's fucking baking. But like, that's what it is. The songwriting just always seemed to come naturally to her. And it was the thing that I think was not denied by the broader populace for so long, but probably underappreciated.

It's kind of why we started this podcast was to help everybody understand. No, no, no. This is one of the all-time greats. This is not a young woman who writes silly songs about ex-boyfriends. This is one of the all-time greats. And we need you to understand it through the lens of both her music. but also the way that she does her business. That's like the foundation of this podcast.

It still is to this day. We still do that. And I think there's something very, very satisfying for her, for that full circle component of it, right? I mean, it's why it's like she didn't post the new Olivia record. She posted the new Paul McCartney record, though, right? She thinks about herself, and I think rightly so, in the rarefied air of the Mount Rushmore of songwriting.

Yeah, well, in a 36th, She's the youngest female inductee ever. And it's not that people go around all the time talking about, you know, who's in the songwriter's Hall of Fame. But still, I think that's a testament to her stature. How about the story of the guy who said love story? Who said that he didn't get love story? Yeah.

But like, isn't that great? Like, that happens all the time in the music business every moment. Like, you just got to hold on to those ideas and workshop them. happens in entrepreneurship, it happens in anything creative. Like there's going to be people who don't necessarily see your vision. You have to have total faith in that. Now, if you suck, you also have to hear enough points of feedback to be like, no, no, this sucks.

But not as your writing love story. Yeah. I liked how many times she kind of couched that story and like, I'm not dunking on this guy. I like this guy. This is a good guy. We did good work together. That guy got fucking dunked on.

I know. Poor guy. I know. I know. I know. I know. She tried. She tried really hard.

But I don't know that it would quite be enough. Can I ask you some questions that you may or may not be able to answer about this? Okay. One is subjective. So I think you should be able to give me something on this. What did you think about Steven Spielberg being, introducing her and sitting with his wife at her table. I think your girl wants to be a filmmaker. I think she wants to associate herself with the all-timers. And I think it's fitting for an all-timer in a different medium to introduce an

all-timer in this medium. Yeah. And like if you're Spielberg, why would you say, no, you've got a movie coming out. Of course, you're going to, like, he was out. He did the rewatchables on the ringer. Like, of course, he's, he's, it's helpful to be associated with Taylor's, Swift, just as it is helpful for Taylor to occasionally associate herself with others. But in this case, like, if you are an aspiring movie director, you can lure in Steven Spielberg, that seems to be a helpful thing for your craft. Totally. Were you at all surprised that it wasn't...

My first reaction was, hey, that's cool. My second reaction was, huh, like, I wonder if, did she think about having, you know, someone for music, someone like Stevie Nix, do this. I think there's going to be plenty of chances for that. This felt to me more like the Time 100 thing, where they get somebody super interesting but not adjacent or overlapping to say something interesting about somebody high profile. Yeah.

I don't know. That was kind of my reaction. Second question. What is the deal with somber? What is her deal with somber right now? somebody tell me what am I missing I like somber no shade yes no shade but we haven't picked up an album here i think his performances are fine i think there's some stuff on that record that's pretty cool i definitely spent some time with it don't go back to it all the time what i i don't know i there

here is a quote from her speech a lot of my late night debates with my friends about the state of music industry involve me saying very loudly, somber is the future and he does it all on his own and he doesn't need that AI. The kids are fine. Yeah. I mean... It's two o'clock in the morning. Was that a weed party? Was that a Jimmy Fallon weed party? A question. Like, it's two o'clock in the morning and you're at some members club with Taylor Swift and she's yelling about somber. What are you doing with that? Here's the thing that I appreciate about her

and a thing that she and I have in common, probably the only thing that we have in common. When she gets passionate about something, she's all in. All in. Fucking no stopping her. She will celebrate it to the moon. And she has decided she's all in on somber.

That's great. There was a time, by the way, when she was all in on the 1975. there was a time when she was all, you know, she, what are you saying? She's all in on Hym, just unstoppable, right? And that's fine. She goes to the mat for the things that she annoys. I don't think it changes my view of somber as the second coming.

But I'm definitely like, okay, I see it, right? I mean, I'll say this. Wait, sorry. quarterback. Go ahead. Before, I want to hear your quarterback analogy, but I just want to sort of close read this a little bit more because the insinuation from what she's saying is that what she loves about somber in part, but the thing that she's singling out about somber is that he doesn't use AI. Well.

I don't, I don't know. He looks like he's made from AI. That's really true. I really, it really looks like somebody like chat, to Harry Styles but shrunk. I guess I don't know this about Somber. I could be wrong here, but I'm not aware of Somber having any particularly strong anti-AI stands other than just not using it in his meat. Like I don't think Somber uses less AI, for instance, than Sabrina Carpenter.

I think it was just like clearly in her circles, it's a conversation point right now. using AI to make stuff who's a genuine artist. She's drawn to genuine artistry, to say the least. Absolutely. And I think she just flipped the fuck out over the somber record. And that's fine. Like, she does it. She gets super excited about knitting and somber records and, you know, whatever. Did she trade sourdough for somber? Like, did you see her whipping around the SVU lady on the floor of the Knicks thing? that's kind of how she feels about somber. Mariska is not flavor of the month. I'm just saying, no, no, I'm not suggesting.

Detective Olivia Benson. No, no. And by the way, I think to her credit, flavor of the month, but she continues to eat that flavor for the rest of her life. She discovers a new one that she gets excited about,

but I'm not suggesting that she just discards. What I'm saying is she gets intensely passionate about it. And on the floor of that Nix thing, I mean, she was throwing Mariska around. I thought Mariska was going to have Charlie XXX level nerve damage from the way that her head was just whipping around that floor, poor lady, she gets all in on something. And that's basically what she's doing emotionally with somber is just whipping his ass around

the floor because she loves what she's seeing. It's great. It's making her feel things. I also wonder of her experience with her own fans is so intense that what she's seen modeled of what it means to be a fan of something is really, really extreme. And she's like, this is what you do When you love an artist You just scream about it all the time.

You just stay up for 14 days straight streaming cruel summer over and over and over again on YouTube. Okay, here's my next question. Do you think that Dear John was one of the selected songs for her Songwriters Hall of Fame induction supporting performance? because way back when a million years ago,

John Mayer called it cheap songwriting. I don't know, but I think she probably deferred to somber to allow him to choose it. Do I think that she was sending a little bit of an FU? Of course, why not? I mean, she orchestrated the whole thing. We know that, right?

What do you mean by she? Like, she orchestrated the performance? Yes, every part of it. What songs and what got performed? She knew all this was coming. All this was blessed. Wait, I can't tell if you're saying that you think Sombor chose the songs or Taylor chose the songs. I think there was a conversation, but they weren't going to happen without Taylor knowing.

Yeah. It was weird to see Taylor singing to Taylor Swift songs. Yeah. Like somebody else covering. I don't feel like, have we ever seen that before? Like her sitting in the crowd. I mean, we've seen her sort of dancing to, you know, at a Grammy award show or something where they're playing, you know, in between commercial breaks or whatever, they've played her stuff.

And she's sort of done a little of things. Yeah. Well, and we've seen her like at a party. Right. But we haven't seen her actually like singing. Who's covered a Taylor Swift song in front of Taylor Swift before? Who's covered Taylor to Taylor? I feel like it's how. happened before. That's a good, maybe it'll come to one of us by the end of this, but I can't think of

anything off the top of my head. To see her singing along to her own song that somebody else was singing. I don't know. It was wild. I mean, the funny thing is he sounds a little bit like John Mayer. I guess, in that he's a dude. Yeah, he's kind of croony. This is a little bit. I don't know. We have to pay attention to somber. Okay. So this all happens. By the way, she also had lost her voice. She began her speech by saying, I do not apologize for the state of my vocals because she had screamed a bunch at the Knicks game and cheered a bunch earlier before she got up on stage during the performances. So you guys are kind of simpatico in that. But so after all that, that she'd been. Out on the town, at around 8.30 on Monday evening, she is seen walking into Electric Lady Studios in New York. Yeah.

And at 6 o'clock the next morning. Yeah. She walks out with Alana and Danielle Heim. Yeah. In the same clothes. I mean, do you think they were at a party or do you think that they were woodshedding on music? Have you been inside Electric Lady ever? Yes.

Could you have a part? Like, could you have like a party party? Yes. Okay, not just people hanging out. Correct. Okay. But nobody, I mean, no one else was clocked going in and out. And as far as I know, there's really one door to that place.

That also didn't seem like a I'm going out outfit. No, she shows up when she goes to work. T-shirt. She was wearing a short-sleeved cashmere t-shirt, which I thought to myself, one, she's being a good friend because it was from guest in residence, Gigi Hadid's cashmere brand. But two, a cashmere t-shirt is a very difficult- Definitely not something I thought. It's almost never the right temperature for a cashmere t-shirt. What is the right temperature for cashmere t-shirt? It has to be like 64 degrees.

I thought it was super warm in the city, no? It had been. and then Monday it was chilly. Like it was really nice but chilly. It was like low 60s. Cashmere sweater weather. Cashmere T-shirt, perfect weather. However, you know what that's not perfect for?

Being like with a bunch of people at a party and you start to get sweaty and all of a sudden, awful, awful situation. So on that basis, I do not believe that she was attending a party. Look, when she's not seen unless she wants to be seen usually, most of the time. She knows what that place means to everybody else. She knows that there, I mean, the fact that there were paparazzi there to catch her.

You could see the way that she kind of half turned and quarter smiled. Dude, she threw a 10 million mile an hour face card as she walked in. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, there was just A1 fastball face card, unstoppable. And again, like there are not paparazzi just sick. getting outside 24-7. This was intentional.

Can I make a brief aside? Please. This is kind of unrelated. I just want to point out that you, I, and I think many people listening to this podcast, we should all learn a lesson from the fact that we have all likely seen dozens of images from Doolipa's wedding welcome party

and her farewell brunch. And no one who wasn't there knows what that woman's wedding dress looks like. There are no pictures from her actual wedding. Yeah. There are lots of pictures of her making out with her husband, though.

Callum Turner, yes, absolutely. And this should all just be a lesson that paparazzi photos have a little bit more to do with what these people want you to see and what they don't, then sometimes I think it is easy to default to. Anyway.

Let's talk for a second about this because the songs from Life of a Showgirl were written as we understand it during the summer of 2024, correct? Yes. That's two years ago. And this woman does not stop It's the thing that we all wish for her is rest and everything else, but she does not stop.

It is why she's in the songwriting Hall of Fame. She is constantly going. It is the, you know, we didn't get to my quarterback thing, but you know what it is. We've talked about it before. It's the Tom Brady always looking for something to keep him motivated. And he'd always create some bad guy or some slight so that he would stay motivated, keep doing the work to keep going. That's what she does.

It's a trait that you see across great people who accomplish great things. they build these straw men, straw women things to go sort of keep them engaged because you achieve some level of success. It's very easy to get soft and to lose that edge and she keeps her fucking edge. So she keeps going, which means that over the last two years, Taylor Swift has undeniably been writing songs that did not make it onto life of a showgirl. And in fact, as we look at the sort of time periods between her albums, two years is about standard. or even abnormally long if you just measure the window since folklore, right? So I am...

I'm done pretending that she's just going to hang it up and take five years between albums. My assumption, my working assumption is that there is a new Taylor Swift album in the canon every 12 to 18 months. And at this point, she's had two years to write all these songs. It's not a surprise that she's going into that studio. I don't think she's going in there

with the Heim sisters like refining the debut tracks. Do you? No, I don't think that's what she's... Well, actually, I started saying no because I had a different idea that I'll tell you in a second. And then I processed what you just said. Oh, thanks for listening. That actually doesn't sound crazy to me at all.

That she'd be in the studio just doing debut? That she would collaborate with Heim on a vault track or something. Well, okay, maybe. But I, like, Danielle High, I'm a pretty good producer. I, um, I don't know. I, I, my point on all this is it's intentional that we saw her. It's intentional that we saw her going into that studio. That studio has always equaled new music. Yeah. Right? There was a time where she was going in there with Maddie Healy. We were having the same conversation like, ooh, maybe she's just getting, you know, one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the re-release is ready. Well, fuck, no. She was making a whole new record. I think that's what's happening here. And I'm not going to...

That is my default assumption at this point. I need hard evidence to the contrary. Otherwise, when I see her go into Electric Lady Studios, she's working on a new record. One of the Hym girls posted for the anniversary of Summer Girl coming out as a single the other day. Yeah. And it was like Summer Girl, you know, you deserved better. Right. I don't know what percentage. This is a random thought I'm having right now.

Oh, boy. I'm just staying into a microphone right now that if... Random thought from Nora Prince Yachty. Summer Girl featuring Taylor Swift. I'm your summer girl. I'm your summer girl. The anniversary release comes out in a wing. Girl, that's not 12 hours of work. Yeah.

Her ass was in that studio making multiple tracks. Yeah, I mean, six eight. Like, that's when you make music. They were on a heater. Well, and the interesting thing is I don't, I can't tell, I don't think anybody knows or has it confirmed. what time Alana and Danielle showed up.

Was Taylor in there by herself for a little bit? Who knows? Anyway, food for thought. I suppose we'll see. But it was interesting. Yeah, something's going on. She's intentionally keeping herself out there right now. We've got the movie track.

We've got the Songwriter Hall of Fame. We've got the New York Times interview. She is keeping herself out there and relevant. and it is a choice. We're going to have a wedding at MSG on a stage that's being built in Pennsylvania. Oh, gosh. We're out there, Nora, and we're making that decision

for whatever reason, but like, you know, you know who else is out there? Other working contemporary pop artists. Doolipa is very present. Charlie XX is putting out more music. Doolipa, and you, like, again, you know that I would walk over Coles for her. Has anyone ever had an album flop and then become more famous and culturally relevant?

It's amazing. She's my hero. It's the definition of failing upwards. I love it. No one has ever done it like Dooley, but. It's truly incredible. All right. Well, let's talk about Olivia because we got great mailbag questions.

And I've assembled, I think it's, it's a couple, one of them's a two-parter. but seven or eight questions depending. We'll see how far we get. First of all, from Michaela, where does never do fall in your rankings? This is the bonus demo track that was on some of the different editions, but was also released digitally today. What do you think? I'm, you know, I think it's quite good. It gives me a little bit.

Yeah, it's much, it's smart to me that she called it a demo because what did we talk about as something that has developed as part of her signature? Is these songs that have multiple component parts and kind of build and level up and down and have these different nooks and crannies? This doesn't. This really sounds like a demo. It's a drop-y, like, tuned to guitar. But I appreciate it as a little, like, whatever the opposite of an amuse-boosh is, that's what this is. It's like a little, I don't know,

it's like a little dessert wine that you have at the end of a meal. It's lovely. You don't need it every time, but it was not something I was expecting. I'm looking up, what is the, I stretch myself a million miles across the desert to the moon. I thought that was a beautiful lyric. I stretch myself a million miles across the desert to the moon. Okay.

Well, I think it's a beautiful song. And I hope there's two or three others because I'm into this era of Olivia. She's out there, isn't she? Speaking of being out there, like she's doing all the things. Yeah. what um so she's done you know she did she did the Kimmel stuff um she's done some interviews

are you thinking about anything in particular i don't feel like she did the crazy record store guy interview where he freezes at the end and then she just like awkwardly is like what the fuck is this you know she did she's done a couple other things where yeah we're getting some insight into Olivia Rodriguez. Yeah. I don't feel like she's been like promoting like crazy, but she's definitely out there.

She did the pop cast interview that I think we're going to talk about. Yes, we got a question about that, but I'll get to it later. We got a question from Jennifer that was, please discuss how she outstreamed Taylor on the first day, which is not,

I wasn't 100% sure what this was referring to. maybe if it was just like who listened to it. I think this is not quite right but Olivia is now the only female artist besides

Taylor to have an album debut with over 80 million first day streams. So the list the biggest first day album debuts by a female artist in Spotify history. The top six

slots are Taylor. Three are original albums Tortured Poets is number one, Life of a Showgirl is number two, and Midnights is number three. And then it's re-releases. It's 1989, Taylor's version, Speak Now, Taylor's version,

and Red Taylor's version. And then number seven is Olivia, is you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love. And then after that, it's folklore, Cowboy Carter, hit me hard and soft,

and then thank you next, and then it keeps going. I think there was some Stan nonsense going on about like ha ha ha ha ha ha this beat folklore. No. Get over yourselves. What we should center in this. 82 million is big.

Yeah, it's really big. It's going to do 450,000 first week. This is a really, really, really big album. I don't think I knew this album was going to be this big. It's going to be her biggest first week. Definitely. And, I mean, the Kira's streaming. six plus million a day on Spotify right now. Opalite streaming

1.2. Now, those are not even remotely the same things to compare because Opelite's been out for a long time and on and on. And I don't, and by the way, I'm not trying to call out this question in any way because I think there is, because of things like that and because the sand ecosystem can be a little biased, there's a lot of stuff going around like that. And I think that we should give it straight up here. Yeah, that's it. That's it.

Obolite's been out for months for, you know, almost a year. But it's still, I mean, these songs are doing, are really doing numbers. Yeah, this album is doing really well. She has really passionate, really engaged, really excited fans. And stupid song, stupid silly song. And by the way, I really appreciated everybody who asked a question and called it silly song. You made my day. But Stupid Song was currently number one worldwide on both Spotify and Apple Music.

On Spotify, it's close to $7 million daily plays. So that song seems to be really taking off. Do you know why? Why? Because it's great. Yeah. It's really fucking good. That's why.

I don't know why I thought you were going to tell me that it had been in some crazy viral TikTok or something. No, but I'm so glad that they kept, well, they had a lot of good stuff in the bag. And we've seen some stuff where it's like, we've seen some album release campaigns where the first single doesn't land and then the second one does okay. And then they just keep sort of firing blanks.

That's not what's happening here. This feels like a more structured, intentional campaign where I sort of get dropped dead a lot more than I did the first time that I heard it and I understand why it's the intro and the setup for the whole campaign. And it is, but it is all the better to have something that they saved. Because I think the best possible outcome is, or well, the worst version of a rollout is nothing sticks.

That's a single that gets released. And then there's nothing that was being saved for the album. That's what it felt like on the duo campaign, right? It was like all of a sudden we just kept getting songs. Stop. And they're all right. I like that album. Yeah, they were all okay.

Again, it wasn't that they were bad. I can't believe that I engaged in duo slander on this pod. I take it back. I think she's having the best time and I'm so happy for her. What are you talking about? There's no doa slander. We love duo. We're just pointing out.

She's on vacation. It's her brand. It's awesome. I said that her album flopped. Well, that's because it did. But I still love it and I love her. Yeah. Her tour did not.

Her career did not. It's true. We're paying a lot of money to see that girl, Go Girl, give me nothing. Okay, she has really worked on her dancing. And it's gotten a lot better. It's really good. Yeah, that's just a joke. Come on, she's good.

She had Mark Ronson DJ her wedding. How cool. Anyway. You do not need to defend Duleepa. She needs no help. She needs no introduction. She's awesome. She's a cultural curator now, too.

Like, she's a woman of grand intelligence. Whatever. Why am I defending Dua? She doesn't need it. I know. She doesn't need it. It really, I feel overcome with just joy and warmth, even thinking about her. I hope she's having the best time.

Anyway. Well, she is. And I got a lot of, I mean, depending on what you think is going on on that guy's back, it seems like she's having a great time. They're very cute. What were we talking about? We started talking about Dooley and I lost my mind. I can never meet her. Olivia Rodriguez streaming.

It's very impressive. Duo, come on the pod. Please come on the pod. I can't even imagine. We don't extend that invite to many people, but if it's going to melt you, I'd love to do the duo part. I would not be okay.

Anyway, moving on. She's not even here, and I'm losing my mind. Olivia's streaming. This is a really, really big record. And I think now, you know, we've talked about these big releases before. or sometimes the first week sales can get goosed because of vinyl, because of all sorts of little tricks of the trade.

This feels bigger than any trick of the trade. And so what I would encourage people to do is to watch how the streaming stays, at what levels does it stay over the course of the next four weeks? Because that's going to tell you, by the time you're a month in, you're outside the reach of dark arts of the Internet or of the major label system propping stuff up. By the time you're at four weeks,

if there are songs that are streaming, it's fucking real. And that's going to be the most interesting. Right now, this looks like the biggest album of the year, period. You know what's crazy on this list? Is Thank You Next being the 11th biggest debut? Because that's 2019. Most of these are a little bit more recent than that,

and there were just more people on Spotify. That's an impressive album. Grande, big star also. Big star. Big star, Ariana Grande. Okay. Quincy. I got to move on.

Otherwise, I'm still going to be in the dual leap of vortex. And like, I just need, I need to reset. I need to reset my brain. Quincy asked, how do you think the new album we'll do it the Grammys?

And while we're at it, I did want to mention that the Grammys just, Oh, this best new artist thing. Yeah, they made a little tweak to some of the rules. There are a few. new categories

including best Asian pop music performance and there's also a traditional folk album traditional folk album there's a best Latin song

there's also a category best traditional pop vocal performance which was described I think I'm going to win for this podcast I mean maybe you are because in the press release

they described it as awarding performers whose music, quote, cannot properly be intermingled with present forms of pop music. I don't totally know what that means. I guess we'll find out. But the thing that I wanted to highlight here is that they've changed the best new artist eligibility rules. You can submit yourself like 12 times.

It's like college quarterbacks now. You can have 15 years. You can submit yourself four times. You can submit yourself four times instead of three, which if anything, I think, moves people. Generally, the complaint about best new artist is that quite often it goes to artists who are not at all new. And if anything, this moves them further away from that. But sure, okay. But like, this is probably the Ella Langley rule. Right. I don't know. Right. We don't know because we don't know how many. she is someone who would make a lot of sense in that category and to be awarded based on who the Grammys have awarded in the past. What we, or at least I don't know, is how many times she has submitted already. One could imagine that if it's three, that might have something to do with why this change is happening. That's right. And the tension between the country music community and the Grammys, we've had a lot of artists not show up.

we've had some, you know, the splitting of the category, so on and so forth. So I don't, I don't know what the betting markets look like right now. But I would bet a lot of not my own money that because that would be a silly thing to do. But that Ella Langley is favored. Yeah, that makes sense. Olivia Rodriguez, I mean, I think that she will be a serious. album of the year contender with us. I think as you just said, you know, it is looking like one of, if not the, certainly at this point, the biggest albums of the year. It's critically

been very well received. And I'm not saying that I think that she will win. I think Olivia Dean is going to be in that conversation, but I think that she will definitely be nominated and she will have a real shot. And then I'm sure that that, you know, anyone for whom that's the case, that's going to trickle over into some of the other categories too. I think the record and song,

because this album is such an, it flourishes as an album more so than on an individual song basis. I mean, let's see where stupid song goes. My feeling is that it'll be stronger as an album contender than for

song or record, but it could certainly get nominations and all of them. And then also, it'll be interesting, I guess, to see, I think she'd submit in pop categories, though she does kind of talk about this as being a rock project. But I think she'll be, I think this, I think you will feel the presence of Olivia Rodrigo

at the Grammys, certainly. Yeah, it's going to get nominated. The last one got overlooked. And maybe for good reason, given the competitive set. But although I really like that album. But this one's going to be undeniable. It just is. It's already June. We're halfway more than halfway through the year almost. I know. That's so true. It's still in my head. It's like spring. But we are more than halfway through the submission window, right? Remember? Yeah, we're actually almost to the end of it. So this is, I think, the biggest album in the category outside of one is Taylor Allison Swift in terms of numbers

Right, right. Speaking of the summer, we got from Eddie, is it too late for expectations to be the song of the summer? No. It's not too late for anything to be the song in the summer. We also got quite a few

just various questions or comments that referenced people seeing expectations in particular on their social feeds, people using that as soundtrack and using the bar and silver lake clips and some of the sort of pump up parts of it and that people had been seeing a lot of that. We also got from Spencer is Stupid Song, the Song of the Summer 2026. I mean, I think there's a lot that's in the running on this album. expectations we didn't talk as much about the other day. I mean, it sort of jolts you in its position in the album because it's structured, right?

It's after less. It's before cigarette smoke. She's in that sort of devolution of believing in love into understanding that this relationship is not what she wants and ending in the, you know, why'd I even try? So when it snaps in your face, it's like a massive cold water shower, that happens through the course of the album,

it does have a lot of resonance or similarities in that second verse with the hot to go speak talk thing. It does have a lot of new wave, synthriff, electronic drum stuff. It's an awesome song. I think what's great about this album is there's a whole lot to choose from from Song of the Summer. I think it probably is too late for it to be the song of the summer, but it might be like the, you know, if like,

it might be with the cool kids pick from this album. It feels that way, doesn't it? Well, and it does have, I like it as the, you know. I'm a stupid song guy myself, but. These are two of my favorite songs on the album. And I do appreciate that expectations is kind of the, come on, Olivia, get out of bed song. because she is someone who talks a lot about how she can kind of be a shut-in,

and she can kind of say, like, I just want to be in my bed and kind of wallow in that. And this to me is fun because it's an expression of her forcing herself out of that, which is a thing that people do when they go through a breakup, right? It's like, get back out there and go out in the world and kind of give yourself all of the pep talks. and hearing her do that is fun. It feels authentically part of what you would assume that kind of roller coaster is for her. I think I said this to you the other day

when we were talking about it for the first time, but the rocking my mini dress with a vodka crayon and an open heart, I just absolutely love. And so it'll be up there for me. I do think that it doesn't look like people are broadly speaking, maybe with some social trends, notwithstanding,

it doesn't look like people are super, super latching onto this song broadly yet, whereas with Stupid Song, it does seem like it has picked up. It's pierced the veil. Yeah. Yeah.

And if that momentum carries, then I think it genuinely could, I mean, Stupid Song could genuinely be the biggest song of this song. summer if that keeps it up because it has at least right now and again it's new and these songs aren't but in the last 24 48 hours it jumped the cure it jumped drop dead so we'll see but i think stupid song has a genuine chance and then maybe expectations is kind of the like

um you know i i liked it before it was cool or cool kids online song of the summer or something. Can we just talk about what we need to talk about? You're going to have to tell me what that is, but yes. We need to talk about this. She did get out there and she did field some questions and she fielded some silly stuff and she

fielded some softballs. She got one fastball right down the middle and it was from the New York Times and I want to talk about it. Okay. Well, that's our next question. We got it from Lee who said, can you talk about her podcast interview, especially the Taylor Credit question? And yeah, I mean, in general, what I would say about this interview

is I thought it was great. And I thought it was, there were some moments where I was like, wow, they are really kind of going at her. But I'm like not in an aggressive way. She was totally ready for everything. And there were a couple moments where I forget who asked,

but one of them asked her what the hardest thing that she'd had to miss in order to pursue music had been. And it was kind of like, please tell us your darkest trauma. Right, right. That was the one moment where I was like, why is this interview so intense?

But for the most part, She kind of parried a lot of it away. She, oh, she did not, like, that's sort of what was fascinating about it. Yeah. Those Disney kids who have done that training are formidable interview subjects. And like that was a real TED on Tet. Yeah. Yeah, she said, I'm good at this.

But to the Taylor Credit question point, I mean, she basically got it three times in a row. So Joe Coscarelli said, you've been so forthcoming. about your influences and people who are your heroes and what you're trying to live up to. Not all artists are like that. Some people are very stingy with giving credit or citing influence. But it's come back to bite you a couple times in terms of songwriting credits or album covers, people trying to call you out for borrowing a little too much. How have you pushed through what I assume were pretty hard times with your creative vision being called into question?

So at this, you know, no one's mentioned to Taylor by name at this point, but you can tell what that question is about. And she says, yeah, it was a really hard time just personally, but I don't know. I'm a fan girl. I love music. And nobody can take that away. It sounds so cheesy, but I love music and I feel so lucky that I get to do what I do. And I love so many songs and I've grown up being surrounded with awesome music and awesome bands.

I would be writing songs if nobody listened and everyone hated it because it's what I love to do. And you think it's over at that point. Almost every other interviewer. It would be over. Yeah. Steps back and it's over. but they don't let it go. So then John Caramonica asks,

recently you're at a Paul McCartney concert in Los Angeles. There's a lot of public speculation about your relationship with Taylor Swift. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. In pictures from that concert, you guys are walking out at the same time, and then there's people on the internet being like, are they facing each other?

Are they facing away? How do you view that layer of scrutiny? She says, yeah, I don't know. I really don't read too far into it. I think if I dove into every internet detective sleuth that got things right or wrong about my life or any of my relationships, I think I would just go crazy. There's just not enough time in the day. And so that's very smart because she attaches to the internet piece of it. She's like, I don't want to talk about that.

So what I can respond to is. Right. Oh, yeah. So many theories out there. But the non-answer is the answer. And that's where the hair on the back of my, I would like, wait, what? She, okay. And then... Then he goes, is there a frost between you and Taylor?

How do you view that now that you're a few years removed from the initial ruptures? And then she says, and this is where I think she kind of gives it, even though she's still being very diplomatic. She says, I don't know. I think I try not to let it get to me or upset me. I just try to keep on trekking. It was so long ago, there's no use harping on it. I just try to make songs that I love and try to be kind and good to other people and supportive of other people.

And at the end of the day, I think that's all you can do. And then it's kind of over. And it's not as though she's never said anything about this in the past that kind of gives up the game that this remains a raw. And we talked about, I guess it was her rolling story, stone feature last time around where she answered a question about how she would behave in an analogous situation.

And she basically said, like, I just don't think that I would ever act like that. And you could read between the lines. But actually, if you read this closely, you don't have to go between the lines. Because she says, I think I try to not let it get to me or upset me, aka, this is a real thing. It's a real thing that that could upset me. So I try not to let it. There's no use harping on it, but it did happen and it was, you know, it felt like the biggest, in a sequence where she mostly didn't give an inch, that did feel like kind of a moment. Yeah. And then that line, and again, she's just parrying. She's just fencing. She's trying to play defense here without getting

herself into trouble, but I just try to make songs that I love and try to be kind and good to other people and supportive of other people. Right. Which is sort of an indication that she felt, feels or felt like that wasn't the case at the time. Look, the reason that this matters, as we wrap up a podcast where we talked about somber and everything else, like it matters because there was a time where she was the chosen one and where she was on TikTok with Taylor, and where it felt to me at the time, like Taylor was certainly,

there was a mutual beneficial relationship between the two of them, right? Taylor was on TikToks with Conan Gray and Olivia Rodrigo, and these were the young next thing, and driver's license was the biggest song in quite some time. and piercing through culture and you know one read on it was Taylor was being supportive

of another young artist and sort of given the good mojo another read and these aren't mutually exclusive was that she was you know leveraging a young star to maintain relevance and sort of claiming her as her own

and so this fallout was real I mean this is I thank God for the New York Times because I don't know that we'll ever get another bit of insight into how it actually makes her feel. And she gave a non-answer, but even still, you can read through it. Yeah, and I don't know that it's, to me, it's not quite a non-answer. The first two are non-answer.

The last one is diplomatic, but I think a real response. And also, part of the answer is what she is in what she doesn't say, right? She could make this go away. Yeah. They're not. She didn't say, you know, I need. needed to, I learned a lesson from that and it's the industry and I totally understand and I don't want to be pitted against this woman anymore and everybody should please stop. Like she, you know,

she's never said any of that and I get why. But yeah, no, it was a really good interview. It was really interesting. It's interesting to me that the details of this have not come out. And, you know, Olivia's part of the Interscope label group within Universal. Taylor's part of... When you say the details of this, do you mean how things actually got squared? Yeah. I mean, we have not... This is a very interesting story from start to finish.

I mean, it's a film script, or a five-part miniseries, at least, of how they were, very much together and mother-daughter and then here we are. And, I mean, it makes me sad to a certain extent. But at the same time, you know, there's a lot of detail that we don't fully understand. Like, if you interpolate somebody else's song, your job is to pay that person. Royalties, fair and square. The law is super clear about that. And, you know, it doesn't bother me that the greatest.

warrior for artist copyrights of the last 40 years decided not to be a hypocrite and enforce her own rights. That I get. But I think there's also more to understand than we may ever about the extent to which you're like, well, okay, but you just wrote a song that's 1-4-5 that mirrors a Paul McCartney song. He didn't come try to take royalties from you. And the response is, okay, he also didn't say, I also didn't say. I also didn't say that I had been directly inspired and, you know, influenced by that song. So, but, but both of these artists live within the, um, universal music group record label. Olivia is on the West Coast Interscope group. Taylor is on the East Coast Republic group. Um, you know, you wonder if this

kind of got handled within the family. It's just very interesting that something like this didn't leak out. I mean, I give everybody credit for keeping it under wraps, because that's probably where it should stay. But it is a very fascinating palace intrigue story to understand what actually happened behind the scenes. And people are going to have different sides of the story about what, you know, Olivia was very forthcoming with her praise for Taylor. She also did effectively say out loud that, you know, she'd modeled a few of these songs on things that Taylor Swift had written. What I would ask if I were doing my own interview with Olivia Rodriguez, where I was apparently just like, going for it question-wise, do you still listen to her music? This is your favorite artist.

When you hear a Taylor Swift song, does it just put you in a bad place so you choose not to? Or does it still inspire you? And that's what would be sad to me is if you gave her truth serum and actually got her to answer that question, if it was no, like that's what would be really sad to me. but I also can see that. It's the never meet your heroes mantra, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, here's what I think. I just, I hope at some point that there's a narrative arc that has them in an okay place.

That's what I hope. I think, like, life is long, you know? Yeah, well, that's right. But I think, I think this data that we are getting at this moment in time, Tuesday, June 16th, 2026, tells me that Olivia Rodriguez is one of the biggest pop stars in the world and that it's kind of undeniable. And yeah, I would like for peace in the realm. Doesn't feel like there's war in the realm. It just feels like, yeah.

I mean, it was a very insightful interview. No, it's just one of those like, you know, it's one of those old Soviet bloc countries where it's like, well, there's just still some mines buried somewhere and we're not totally sure where. Okay, we'll go with that. Oh, yeah. Okay, from pay, will she revisit the Sour Cover's album? Or would that be a backpedal given OR3's success?

And so some context for this, on the five-year anniversary of driver's license, which was this past January, she announced an upcoming series of reimagined Sour covers from some of her favorite artists ever, which started with a driver's license cover by David Byrne, which did come out, and I believe which we talked about a little bit. the five-year anniversaries for the other singles and the album itself have now come and gone

and nothing else has happened with this. What do you think is going on? I think she did the David Byrne thing and it didn't go very well. And then they just decided, eh. And then she had this, yeah, whatever happened in her personal life that had them reassess, re-imagined,

retool this album. And the focus became, let's get this out. into the world, we can always bring that back. The answer to the specific question is, yes, I think it would be a step back. If this album is as big as it looks, you let it ride. Yeah, I don't think it would be a backpedal to do it at some point if she still wants to do this. I do kind of think the more likely thing is that it just becomes kind of lost to time.

I do think that it would not be the right decision to do it now. Like I think, as you said, you let this one ride. And then if you want to keep doing, if you want to put a deja vu cover out, cool. There have been lots of like, yeah, we're about to's, and then it doesn't resonate, and then it gets buried. And I think that's what happened here. My gut says. Deja vu by Taylor Swift and Heim. I'm all for it.

Listen, we speculated a bunch. We just, it's a very interesting, it's sort of important in the pop universe to understand the relationship here to me. Yeah. I'm just kidding.

I don't think that they were recording a cover of Deja Vu by Olivia or Rodrigo. I don't either. Just to be clear. I don't either. Okay. Last one, but this is one that we really need your take on

from Maya. Updates to Super Bowl. Bowl halftime show predictions following the album release. Because you've been on Olivia Rodriguez, Super Bowl halftime show corner. I have. I think it's well within the possibility at this point. I'm, I can't, I'm,

I'm not annoyed, I'm happy for you. Between, if you get this right and the garden wedding, quite a year for Nathan Hubbard, quite a year. Oh, yeah. I just want my voice back. The way that this album has debuted really makes that sort of come into focus for me,

that that feels like it could really happen. And it would be so cool. Yeah, I think the competitor is probably some combination of country artists because we just haven't done that yet. Yeah. Eleni Wilson, Ella Langley, Casey Musgraves, you know, all-female country jambrose. or, you know, maybe they go way controversial and go Morgan Wallen. Maybe they go.

But I think that's the one genre that has not appeared and that is attracting lots of eyeballs and moving lots of streams and tickets in music. So to me, that's what it feels like. I don't think Phoebe Bridgers is playing a halftime show. No offense. That doesn't seem right. Nope. I think Olivia is more likely than Phoebe.

Yeah. By the way, you know where our hometown is? I knew this at one point because it was on the driver's license, right? It's just around the corner from where the Super Bowl is this year. Yeah. It's a good, it's really something to think about. It's a really good prediction. Good one by you.

They just keep on coming. All right. Great questions. Thank you for everybody who wrote in. Nathan, I hope you feel better. I hope your voice gets better. This has been every single album. As always, I'm Nora Pinciotti. He's Nathan Hubbard. Thank you to Kaya McMullen for producing this episode and to you for listening. We'll talk to you next week.