Every Single Album - Album Swap: 'Autobiography' by Ashlee Simpson and 'Not a Pretty Girl' by Ani DiFranco

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

Nora and Nathan are back with another album swap. First up, 'Autobiography' by Ashlee Simpson, an album defined by her hit "Pieces of Me" and a lot of aughts-era angst (1:00). Then, Ani DiFranco's 'Not A Pretty Girl,' a '90s feminist icon who used her press-on nails to create the record's unique percussive sound (49:24).Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan HubbardProducer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to every single album. I'm Nora Pinciotti, and as always, I am joined by my friend Nathan Hubbard, who is going to give me another gift. I'm going to give him another gift. What? It is the second inaugural, every single album, album swap. Are you ready for it? Yes.

I like this format. I want to do more of this. I know. You were really excited about it. We had a lot of discussion about this one in particular. Including, I don't think I've actually told you this yet. So we'll do it not actually live, but live in a sense between the two of us as we record this. Okay.

I was at a work event with my fiance at his work event like a couple of weeks ago. And... Sorry, I'm throwing a penalty flag. Okay. This is an episode that we are banking the week of your wedding. By the time this happens, you will be married. So you have to start that sentence over by saying husband. No, that's strange as that's going to be.

No, no, no. That's incredibly bad juju. Future husband? Now that you're listening to this husband? I'll call him Bobby. I'm just going to call him Bobby. I was at a work event of Bobby's several weeks ago by the time that you're hearing this. By the way, you're so caught up in the time of it all.

I'm loving the time travel. You were like so worried about the time travel. I'm just like, whatever. I'm literally holding some questions. about this wedding to tomorrow when we record the episode that's going this week so that it's more timely for people. Anyway. What is the story you were going to tell me?

No, the story that I was going to tell you is that I was at this event for Bobby's work. And someone who he works with, you know, it's a, there are a lot of people. There might have been 500 people at this thing. Like many of whom I know of, some I know, many I know of, but many of the people that I know, that I know of, like, I couldn't put a face to a name unless it was, like, clearly pointed out to me. So somebody comes up to me, and I don't, you know, is this person important? Is this person, like, have I met this person? And I don't remember, like, blah, blah, but it was a coworker of Bobby's, who's so nice. And it told me, I guess it, it must have come up in some meeting. And he listened to

the album swap episode. And he was, like, really disappointed in me for, like, trying to compare Michelle Branch to Peter Gabriel. Wait, how did you try to compare the two? Well, no, I know. I know. He was just like, it's not the same. But I really like, I got a talking to at this lawyer event. Okay. Well, I understand the talking to because to bring it back to today's episode, you told, you showed me yours before I showed you mine.

Which I believe I did the first time as well. Well, I like this, and I appreciate it because it gives me, as you know, I have like 10 things that I want to talk through with you. And it gives me opportunity to really try to do a little point, counterpoint. And I've done that today. But the thing that I need to ask you as by way of introducing, because once again, you will go first today. Did you know that Ashley Simpson had won the mass singer before you gave me this fucking album? I wish I could say yes, but no, I didn't. Do you know that now that she just won the masked singer?

I do know that now. I do know that now that she just won the masked singer because honestly, literally because I just have spent a few moments over the last few days, Googling, like typing Ashley Simpson into the search bar of my computer for various reasons. I'm not sure if that information would have crossed my desk if that had not been the case. Well, that's the first thing to say. timing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so, okay. So, I mean, the serendipity of this then, I just wanted to get that out there. Okay. Continue. Let's do an episode. Well, as you are sort of in the process of revealing, I gave you autobiography by Ashley Simpson. Oh, man. Continuing a trend of...

making it really hard for me to go to the gym with my phone facing up. Making it really hard for Nathan to go to the gym and also of choosing pop and Papa Jason albums by women from the mid-a-auts that were deeply important to me as a youth and remain important to me. As a kid. Now, as a kid, as a child bride. Oh, my God. When I did this with Michelle Branch, the last time that we went through this exercise, I didn't necessarily feel like your choice in album was entirely, like, I think you chose so because you just like really, really wanted to talk about it. That's right. I just had to get it off my chest.

Yeah. This one, it feels like you gave me a little wine pairing. You knew my entree choice and you were a musical sommelier. 1,000%. Thank you for recognizing that. Do you want me to say what you gave or should we wait? It's a hard question to answer. I think that you should say.

I think I should say it too because it really, like I'm just excited about the pairing. So you gave me not a pretty girl by Anna DeFranco. Fuck yeah, I did. Which I just, I was, I'm, I'm so, I was not expecting it at all. It was such a test for you and I can't wait to talk about it. Okay. Well, let's save that. Let's, let's talk about Ashley Simpson a little bit first.

I can't wait to talk about this too. Why did you give me Ashley Simpson? First of all, how is that answer not like entirely self-evident to you? Well, this is why, okay? This is why. Because before I spent much time with this album, there are three things, I think, that gunned ahead in this moment in my life,

if you had said, Ashley Simpson, three things, go. I would have said, pieces of me, that song. Yep. Which one time I encored with with my band. Shut the fuck up. Yeah. Yeah. Number two, we do like, yeah.

Is there, is there video evidence of this anywhere? There definitely is audio. There definitely is audio. I can find that for you. I need it. I've honestly never needed something more. Well, we also used to do, we do Jeannie in a bottle. I think we did toxic. So it was a lot of like, you know, anyway. This is like, Nathan, this is cool. This is your, you were geese covering baby before it was cool. That's right. I think that's a perfect way to say it.

I'm just, this is, I'm so proud of you for this. Woossey Suburban Acoustic Rock versions of female pop hits. Encore in clubs all over the country. Here's the thing. The second thing would have been that she married people. Wentz, which for whatever reason for me was this like, wait, it almost was like a credibility move. And the reason that that was such a strange thing is, of course, because she was Jessica Simpson's sister. both of them, you know, were just prime MTV reality show featureettes.

But the third thing, and this is why, like, just that lasts forever and that then comes full circle to this, I mean, just masked singer fuckery, and I'll explain why I say that in a second, is the Saturday Night Live performance. Absolutely. Where if you had asked me before this week, I would have told you it was during her performance of Pieces of Me. But no. She played Pieces of Me without a hitch. It was the second song that she was playing, which I think was autobiography. Yes. Where the drummer kicked in the wrong track and they started playing Pieces of Me again.

She does this weird fucking jig. The band started playing autobiography and then the drummer accidentally hit the button. for the vocal of pieces of me to start playing again. And she does an Irish jig and goes off stage and it's one of the all-time weirdest, weirdest, craziest moments in Saturday Night Live history, music history. It also starts this just avalanche of complete dumping on this human being because she already smelled felt like industry plant, as we call it now. That wasn't a term back then, but she was Jessica Simpson's sister. Her dad was the guy behind the scenes,

uh, scenes pulling the strings. And it just, and because she was doing the sort of pop star and rock star clothing thing. Yeah. Like we, this comes up and I think some Avrilavre Levine related conversations that we've had where she made herself a target for the. sort of purity tests of that more so than someone like, you know, it's more okay for someone like a Britney Spears to not be writing their own music or be sort of true in that way. Well, and, and, you know, the song on this album, Shadow sort of addresses some of the, some of this and that, you know, she's in her sister's shadow and her sister was sort of pure, sugary pop. Her sister went on to create this incredible clothing line,

like sell it, make a big bunch of money, being like a Walmart clothing superstar. But in the moment, this was the reaction to the industry plant. The internet, social media was not happening. Otherwise, she would have been completely canceled. But that's the thing when you make. mention Ashley Simpson to most people who did not have this album as part of their childhood or youth anthem that sticks with people. And so when you bring it full circle

to her winning the mass singer in 2026, I am once again in a position of feeling like she is an industry plant because all of the e-news show People magazine fuck around. around her winning is she's back. This is her comeback. She's in a happy place. She's going to go out and do tours and more music. And I'm like, wait a minute. I'm still stuck with her doing a jig offstage

and Lauren Michaels being like, if I had known she was doing backing check, I never would have allowed it. Like everybody running away from her. So Nora, in this moment, 26, while you are still technically an unmarried woman, what does Ashley Simpson mean to you? So everything that you're just talking about

is part of why I just find this album totally fascinating. But there's one more piece of the tale of it that you haven't gotten to yet. Oh, shit. Which is that after the failure of SNL, after the total pile on, yeah. Which also a little piece of trivia

of that performance and that night is that they were doing... She was sick. She had lost her voice in fairness. She wasn't just covering for a shitty voice. She had lost her voice. And there is like video footage of the rehearsals where she leaves crying because she can't sing.

Yep. So this was not like her covering for a voice that... It wasn't like some milly-vanilly shit from back in the day, although it was treated that way. They were doing a sort of mini-documenter, just a behind the scenes how a Saturday Night Live broadcast gets made.

And so there was a very heightened amount of documentation of the making of that particular episode. And so there was just all of this footage of like how it came together and it was about to go to air and they're showcasing everything that happened. So there's just all this stuff that, you know, then when it became this sort of moment of national fascination, people were able to dig into and it just really like kept the focus on it. But in the aftermath of that, there's this essay in the New York Times about the idea of rockism in music coverage that sort of introduces this question in a mainstream publication of should we analyze the specific standards that we hold musicians who might have different types of goals to. And so should we look at someone who is a young pop artist who's trying to do a particular type of art and entertainment in the same

way that we look at a grunge band, for instance? Like, should we, if those two entities have different goals, should we evaluate them in the same way? And we, we, we, we know, we, we're Why exactly is it such a big deal if an artist uses a vocal enhancement tool to put on a better show? In some corners of the industry, this isn't so taboo. In others, it really is? And why is it that our particular set of shibbolis is the way that it is? And it becomes this like pretty, you know, within the relatively small community of people who spend time thinking about these things, it becomes this pretty influential idea.

And I don't think that like, like... But does that mean we shouldn't take it as seriously as art? I don't think so. I personally don't think so. I think that there are... There are art forms that are more centrally about truth, and there are art forms that are more centrally about fantasy. And sometimes there's art that tries to seek truth

only through fantasy, right? And I think being able to draw that distinction is important. I also think that there was a fair bit of, like, just getting out of the shadow of the 90s. And, like, if you don't look a certain way that cues to a lot of very 90s grungy aesthetics, I think that was just like... Yes.

You're starting off on the back foot or were starting off on the back foot. And I think that the environment in which you and I, through the time that we've had conversations about music together, have had those conversations about Taylor Swift and about Katie Perry and Kelly Clarkson and Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Rodriguez and everybody that we talk about, in a weird way, I feel like we live in the world that Ashley Simpson accidentally. kind of catalyzed.

Wow. The lens I have on this, I don't think it's that dissimilar. Maybe there's an additive point. I mean, one lens I have on this is definitely a reaction here is that she and a few others were trying to pull rock towards pop. And you're right, coming out of Nirvana and Pearl Jam

and Soundgarden and Whole. this was less authentic direct stripped down laid bare dark rainy depressed Seattle rock stuff and and so it was going to come under more scrutiny because it was sort of by definition veering away from that I think when you layer on top of that, we're in the middle of the reality TV decade where the OC has started in 2003, and people are wondering almost post-Ozborns, what's real and what's fake in these reality shows?

How much of this is scripted and how much of it is not, right? And also, let's add another layer, which is that this is post-Napster. Yep. And this is in a moment where the economic foundation of how to make a living as a recording artist feels a lot shakier than it did however many years prior. And so certain things like a built in name recognition, a built in audience. Yeah. It becomes much more attractive.

and, you know, there's sort of a run towards the safety of, oh, people have already heard of this person. People are already somewhat interested in this person, so maybe they're more likely to engage with the work. And so the idea of industries are a lot more likely to want to plant someone when they feel like the grassroots just let it bubble up thing is a really shaky proposition. And so she's just, I just, I find her so. because she is such a product of her environment. Yeah. And in some ways, what I think is amazing about this album is that I love it. And I also don't think it beats the allegations at all.

I think this absolutely sounds like, you know, the record that money can buy. I mean, and then some. I mean, we'll talk about it. I just think that the headwinds that she was up against were pretty hard to surmount. and with the moment that happened on Saturday Live because people were looking for a reason for it to not be real. She is the sister of a pop star that has all felt very, very, you know, contrived and made for TV because it's all been on TV.

She has dyed her hair a different color. It is rock instead of pop, so it feels like it's just sort of filling Elaine. What is real? she's doing rock in a poppy way, which is not what we're used to because we've been used to these sort of bleeding heart, Seattle grungies. Well, and she is screaming at you

trying to tell you that there is angst and substance and grit. And unfortunately, the drummer hits the wrong button, and it all just evaporates on stage in a 30-second clip that will live on an infamy. And that's why, I mean, we'll get to it. But the energy that she brought to the, I just won the mass singer tour was pretty high. Like it wasn't one. It's like, I'm back and great, do your thing.

You got three kids, like, just go do it. But it was a different thing. She was Galaxy Girl. Yeah, she was Galaxy Girl. I don't really know how that show works because it's like Ken Jiang, like, talking over the singers and stuff. Like, it doesn't make any sense to me. Who was it they had that became contrary?

Did they have Rudy Giuliani? Was that a fever dream I had? No, they had Rudy Giuliani. Yeah. Yours and yours alone. I'm here to tell you, honey, that I'm not in the Borat scene, but it might as well have been.

Mm-hmm. But, like, I have so many questions about that. Like, how the fuck? She went on that thing with her husband, who is, I believe, Diana Ross's son. Yes, Evan. Ross. How on earth could two people go on a television show and not know that the other one is on there? Like, what kind of marriage is this? They got three kids, like, so convenient that they both had to book the same.

And how do they hide everybody backstage and who knows and who does? And my point is the whole thing feels fake and fucking made up just like The Simpsons show. I'm not 100% sure the masked singer is on the level if that's what you're... That's what I'm getting at. Robin Thick. I mean, what are we doing? Anyway, the thing of this album, I guess you're right in that it has, it's not bad, but I just hear so much, Nora, that makes me go, okay, first of all, it's produced by the Bon Jovi guitar player, which cool. Yeah. Like, cool. But, There's a lot of stuff that is borrowed here. Like a lot, like unreachable... Into your arms, your rap... ...is embarrassingly a knockoff of Fiona Apple's criminal.

It starts with the piano chords. It's like, come on, what are we doing here? Undiscovered sounds like you two's with or without you combined with U2's bad. Like there are lifted chords and notes in the background. There is love makes the world go around, which is just new titles. Like, come on, man.

That sounds like the middle by Jimmy Eat World. And again, the starting chords are there. It's all over this album I hear, stuff that I've heard before. But it doesn't suck. It is a passable pop girl album. It's just the undertones and the context of who this person is is hard. And so, I mean, I don't know where you want to start on this.

I mean, we should start on pieces of me because that's where we have to start. Fucking rules. Because it's a masterpiece. It is. It absolutely kicks ass. I mean, it's just, it's an all-time. awesome song that this album was number one on the Billboard 200. That's how big.

And again, it's kind of started with Ozzy Osbourne and the Osbournes the show. They were, he was a massive rock star and he went on television. And just by virtue of going on television, like his fame increased 10x. Like you don't understand back then in the 90s and 2000s, the power that television had pre- YouTube, pre-a- Insta, all of these other channels that people use to effectively become multifaceted multi-hyphenate creators, which is what Ashley Simpson really was and got dumped on a bit. But imagine us dumping on Olivia for double hosting SNL. Like, what are you talking about, right? No, they really, I mean, there's so many people from this era who can sort of make a claim, a great one or not, you be the judge,

but to being sort of like the first of a certain type of modern creator that is really, commonplace now, but at that point was unusual. Yeah. And like the Simpsons, you know, you're right to point that the Osbournes did it first. But the Simpsons in terms of like turning an entertainment family into a platform for reality television, like I was pretty young when the chicken of the sea bit happened. Yeah. But I remember it. Like I remember that making news.

Is this chicken what I have or is this fish? I know it's tuna, but it says chicken by the sea. Very big reality show that sort of still probably is a blessing and a curse for Jessica Simpson, who, again, it seems to be a very shrewd businesswoman, but was permanently branded as a total airhead, right? Until John Mayer called her second. Napalm. Right, yes, until then.

Which was a thing. Honestly, I don't know that that one made quite as much of an impression on me. Oh, we had an impression on me. Yeah, she's had an interesting life. Nobody's ever called John Merr's sexual napalm, by the way. It's always the other way around. Yeah, that seems to be, that seems to be right. John.

But yes, I think a lot of the popularity has to do with that platform. but also this song fucking rules. It does. It's terrific. Like John Shanks, the Bon Jovi guitar player who you're talking about, who we've talked about in many contexts, including Miley and Hillary Duff. He won the Grammy this year for Best Producer. And it was for, you know, he did this album with Ashley Simpson,

fly for Hillary Duff, breakaway for Kelly Clarkson, The first cut is the deepest for Cheryl Crow. First cut is the deep. Shine your light for Robbie Robertson. Shine your life. Lift me up so I can see. And so-called chaos for Alanis. Like, and I think it is an interesting, you know, again, I chose this album.

I love this album. I love many of these songs. I will say it's not quite, it's not quite the Michelle Branch experience. where I can say to you, okay, we're here for everywhere, we're here for all you wanted. But if you go through the whole thing, it really holds up.

There are songs on this album that are indefensible. Like, such as. Love makes the world go around is indefensible. You cannot get, I mean, that is just, it's just horrible.

I also think that the part of love me for me, and I do think that this song I liked when I was a child but the part of that because there is like a little bit of stickiness to the melody but the part where she goes at one point in the middle of the life is that weird fucking noise she makes coming out of the bridge no it doesn't work it's not I cannot tell you

she's doing a Gwen Stefani impersonation on this song and it kind of works but she freaks me out with whatever noise comes out of her on coming out of that bridge it does it's it's not a lot loud. There are, okay. Where are you on Shadow? Shadow I actually like, but I cannot take it seriously. I laughed. I couldn't take it seriously. It's like, I'm so sorry your sister is blonde. Like, I'm so sorry that happened to you, babe. Like, it's going to be okay. Life has been so hard. And then at the end, she's like, we're all good now. Mom and Dad and Sister, we're all good.

But you don't know what I've been through. And that's where I'm just like, come on, man. I know what you've been through, because it's been on television. Your whole family. It's like, my sister is blonde and was famous before me. As far as I can tell, that's the beef. Call her a wambulence. It's so bad.

The wambulant, this entire album needs a serious wambulence. It needs a wambulence. The wambulence is like, it cannot come soon enough. I mean, pieces of me, I mean, this is an album that came out in 2004. Pieces of Me has streamed just over a hundred million times on Spotify. It's not enough. The next closest song is Boyfriend, which is from a different album. But the next closest song from this, which is at 19 million.

Next closest song from this album is La La, which we need to talk about, at 19 million. So basically five times as much streaming on Pieces of Me as anything. It's like she is the definition of one-hit wonder. So piece of me... The other one that I like, though, I will just say. Yes. I like nothing new. I think there's kind of like a...

The baseline in the beginning is cool. I found myself wrong again. Staring out my window. Wondering what it is I should have said. I also feel like she gets to kind of complain in a way that is not so... Like all the other complaining that happens on the rest of the top? of this album. Well, but all the rest of the complaining is like, like in unreachable, she's like love is a dick shit. Like, she's using all of these things that are really just too

big for the package that they're coming to you in, whereas this one is just sort of like, I'm annoyed today. I don't know. I think it works. The reason that I laugh so hard at Shadow is because it does feel like she went in the studio with John Shanks, a serious producer and songwriter. And they were like, he's like, so what's going on for you today? Let's just Tell me what you're feeling. You know, that's the kind of thing that we just saw in the New York Times interview of the top 30 American songwriters.

I need one more person to DM me about this. Please, I haven't figured it out. I'm sorry. Nathan needs a ambulance for this particular topic. Good Lord. Anyway, what was so cool was like... Can I remind you that by the time people hear this, that this will have happened like a month ago.

Okay, maybe Ky can edit that. part out. Or leave it in, Kaya. I'm such a, I'm such a baby. So the point is in those interviews, you know, people talked about the process of eliciting a song from someone and it has to start from a place of authenticity and what you're feeling. So I really wanted to give this song like genuine space to sort of be something I could buy into because I'm sure if you're Ashley Simpson, you know, having Jessica Simpson be this massive star and it's kind of like, well, are you? Well, I'm Jessica Simpson's sister. That's got to suck, right? It's like all, you know, all of the... But it does make you feel like she went into the studio and he said, how are you feeling

today? And she's like, ugh, my sister. Right. Right. And we got Shadow. Well, and then because Joan Shanks is good at his job, it's just, yes, I can't take the song seriously. It makes me laugh. But when she hits that chorus, it goes kind of hard. I don't know about that, but it goes. hard. It goes kind of. It goes media. It goes media.

It goes kind of. It goes kind of. Why is Lala the second most streamed song from this album? And what does Lala mean? You make me want a Lala. It sounds somewhat naughty, Nora.

Yes. Is it? Yes. Okay. I don't take there to be a specific... You don't? I don't think that there's like, I think that Lala is a winking stand-in for, hey, we're talking about sex here. I don't think that Lala is referring to a specific act a la Sabrina Carpenter and Cookie to point to something that people still DM me about.

As a, as a, as a, both music and football media personality, is it the first paragraph that really, gets you, you can dress me up in diamonds, you can dress me up in dirt, you can throw me like a line man. Famously not something that hurts. Is that what really drew you in? Throw me like a lineman. You know, because of all of the throwing that linemen do. Well, who know, I mean, Jessica Simpson ended up marrying a tight end for a while, right?

Well, and she was famously the girlfriend of Tony Romo for some time, not a particularly storied section of his career. The lineman line is indefensible, but it doesn't it doesn't grate me quite as much as I'm like an alley cat drink the milk up. I want more.

Yeah. I can't believe they did that. I have a... That's, yeah, I mean, very racy, even in 2004. I mean, my problem is that they use the word aeroplane, A-E-R- P-L-A-N-E instead of airplane.

You can meet me on an aeroplane. You're Ashley Simpson. Very Euro, yeah. Your sister does not know what Chicken of the Sea is. You do not need to be using aeroplane.

I think this song is just you know, you can hear them grasping for the ways to make her the anti-Gessica. And I believe that the Simpsons and Jessica in particular particular, I think she had a kind of Christian bent to watch a lot of her music and it was very much, you know, I'm saving myself and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I think this was a way of getting out of the shadow. You know, you listen to Shadow and then I think Lala steps out of the shadow.

Yeah. Well, a number of the songs on this album were written by Kara Diaguardi. Genius, a genius of her time and this time and all times. You know, again, life moves in interesting circles. She was an American Idol judge right in the beginning. Ashley Simpson just goes on mass singer, another singing show and makes it happen. I mean, who knows? I don't think those two things have any relationship to one another just to be, just to throw my thoughts in the ring on that. You know, you'd say that, but I'm reading a song about I'll be in a French maid when I meet you at the door.

I'm like an alic. I mean, come on, man. It's crazy. song. This is a crazy song. And the problem for me is that there is so much of this ridiculousness

early on that I get through the track. Like it's just hard to take this thing seriously because I'm okay autobiography. I got it. If I want your autobiography, just ask me okay, great. There's somebody out there who thinks they know you. And again,

you know me in probably like somebody's out there bragging that they're sleeping with Ashley Simpson. Pieces of me comes in. I'm like, okay, I'm in. What are we doing? The next song she throws at you is Shadow, which I just cannot take seriously about your problems of being the sister of a blonde girl. Then I get Lala with the milk on the floor.

And then love makes the world go round. Are you trying to send me away? Are you trying to have me? Maybe yes. Maybe a little. what are we doing? Because then there's some things, I'm with you,

that later on there's some things that are a little more listenable. But when you couple that with, the back part of the album is a little more listenable, but it has a lot of those hallmarks of songs that you've heard before,

the U2 stuff, the Fiona Apple stuff. And in that regard, it feels like they brought her in the studio. You could just have this image of being like, well, what kind of stuff do you like? And she's like, oh, I'm listening to Fiona Apple.

It's like, okay, well, let's write a Fiona Apple song. Oh, I love it. love that you two with or without you song. Well, let's write a U2 song. You know, that kind of thing that we've heard is a normal process of writing songs, not something that is, you know, constrained to Ashley Simpson, but oh my goodness gracious. How many times do you listen to this album in a year? How many times do I listen to this album front to back in a year? Zero. Zero times. How many times do I listen to pieces of me in a year? Hundreds, maybe? I don't know. A hundred?

A hundred. One out of every three days, you're cranking pieces of me. Okay, maybe it's high. Maybe it's like 50. A lot. Where does it fall? In a workout playlist? In a...

In a workout playlist, in a hanging out playlist. Right. In a like getting ready to go somewhere playlist. Well, it kicks ass. So no shade on that. I just really wanted to understand. If there's anything else from this album that seeps its way into your... I listen to nothing new occasionally.

I also, like, I don't know. Sounds like you do know. Sometimes I'll listen to... Sometimes I listen to Lala just to remind myself that it exists. But... I just, I do go back to that song being like, this can't be as crazy as I remember it, right? Oh, it is. Every single time it is.

And do you... remember sitting with this album and being like, yes, pieces of me is a great, or autobiography is a great album? Or was it just that you couldn't split it off so you had to get autobiography to get access to play pieces of me on repeat? First of all, yes. Second of all, I do think that when I was in fourth grade or fourth or fifth grade, like I probably thought shadow was really deep. Like I probably bought it hook line and sinker a little bit more than I am apt to right now. And I remember, like, what is the song that, like, I know that I liked Love Me for me when I was a youth. And now I cannot say the same. I cannot say that it has stood the test of time. Do you remember

the SNL moment? Yeah, I think kind of. But sometimes it's hard. It's like you can't remember if you're remembering. Right. You're remembering a memory of like somebody showing it to you or if I remember it in real time. But like my parents would have watched it and like SNL was a was a thing in my house, certainly. It's just an all time. No, no, no, no, oh God, no, like cringe, awful memory that I have personally where my whole like GI system turned itself into a pretzel just watching this poor woman have just this national moment of shame? It really, it really, really became a big deal.

It became, for an artist who, you know, look, I'm, I'm acknowledging this album's shortcomings, which do exist, but it wouldn't be one of our topics here if I didn't have a lot of affection for it. I will still say that I don't think that the musical career of Ashley Simpson has, like, it hasn't, it didn't exactly take off, after this. No.

She didn't exactly go on to have a... She got dropped by Geffen and then put out an album about a bat or something independently. Newsflash didn't do great. It didn't do great. And now she's on the masked singer and that's great. And we wish everyone the best. But I'm...

You know, I'm not here to argue that she's a forgotten... genius superstar who never got her shot. She absolutely got her shot and had a lot of help and this is what came of it. But that experience became a big deal on S&L in a way that just the tale of it is fascinating to me. There are a lot of sad boy rockers who were not put off

by that moment and who pursued her and took her serious. I, that's, I mean, it didn't, right, it didn't. Yeah. No, that's totally true. It's just like, she didn't become toxic in that way. Yeah. People still leaned in. I mean, she's still somebody that you know. I just, yeah. Well, and now, like the idea of somebody doing that now, it would be completely uncontroversial. Yeah. I mean, there have been some, some, some, some incidents. like this that sort of would be just brushed off his technical difficulties. I mean,

I don't know. I'm thinking about Lewis Capaldi at Red Rocks the other night. Like his whole backup stuff didn't work. And so he just played the show acoustic. And it was a magical moment. But, you know, that's a little bit different. And here she absolutely was covering up. I mean, look, there are technologies now that most of your favorite large-scale pop artists are using that make sure that the band is playing, but what's happening is when that drummer hits a snare or a symbol, it is triggering something in the system that then puts out the exact sound that is supposed to be put out in the exact time sync that it's supposed to be put out. And, you know, I think there's, there are a lot of shows you've gone to where you've heard tracks in the background.

And it just, you're right, it has become something that is more commonplace. I want to ask you this, So, you know, I think about this when we were young festival that allowed a lot of the My Chemical Romance type bands to sort of come back. It was a vehicle for bringing back a lot of those artists. And you'd see all the sort of emo kids coming out in Vegas and they go, and it really resuscitated the careers of a lot of bands. If we were to do a festival like that,

that was sort of genre specific, and we were going to put Ashley Simpson on it, would you drag her into the, the pop girls that had single level hits but didn't do it genre of a festival? Or would you put her more in the like rockers, Michelle Branch, or maybe that's the first category? Like, would you put her more in like a rock music of the 2000s thing? Do you think about her as rock or do you think about her as more a pop girl who didn't

quite get there? Well, so I think the answer, I think the actual answer to your question, where do you put her at the festival is with the, my chemical romances, with the, I think the people who want to hear Ashley Simpson want to hear Fallout Boy and go a little bit more in the, rock or at least pop rock, pop punk direction. Right. But I do think therein lies the issue because she didn't really fit either camp super well. I think it's, you know, you see a lot of the same dynamics at play with someone who had a little bit more substance, I would say, to their career.

but with Avrilavine, I think, went through some, you know, nothing as crazy as the S&L experience, but went through some stuff over, well, what does it mean that this person actually doesn't really write all their own songs? But she's still standing up there with guitars and saying that she's not like all these, you know, blonde girls singing pop songs. And the inability to kind of like quite belong to either group, I do think. proved pretty challenging for not just Ashley Simpson, but for that set of women. I think the Michelle branches were helped, if not entirely saved from that by being a little bit more genuinely like a songwriter and being a little bit more authentically involved with music. Well, the story of Ashley Simpson for me is a story of someone who was thrust into stardom by way of a path that had previously been paved for her, but just struggled always to find credibility.

And the story of Ani DeFranco is someone who has had credibility from day one and who has built an entire career about, maintaining that and maintaining control of her rights as the original pre-tailor, uh, artist empowerment advocate and who shunned the opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to become a huge star and who also could have been thrust into the role of early 2000s, late 90s-era rock star, but consistently, and even to this day, continues to gravitate towards identifying as a folk artist, which in its own way is super fucking rock and roll. And that, above all else, is why I gave you Anni DeFranco's not a pretty girl today. Okay. Can you give a little bit more context to that arc? Because this was a really fun one for me, because

I kind of know Ani DeFranco. I've heard some of these songs. I also know Hades Town. But my fluency with this going in was incredibly low. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about that career trajectory

and like what some of those choices that you're just describing are because I have a feeling that some people will like me be starting, if not quite from scratch, than without a ton. So the first thing that you need to know about Ani DeFranco is that she and Sabrina Carpenter

could genuinely have a short off. She is small and as mighty as they come. And that package of this little sort of almost elfish woman packing unbelievable power of advocacy and attitude and holding an acoustic guitar always, but with Lee Presson nails, strapped to her fingers with electrical tape so that she could percussively play the guitar

and the way that she used and uses her voice and the breathing, her breath to create percussion in everything that she means. made. She was from Buffalo, New York. She basically built up, she was one of the first artists to come out as openly queer. And it was that coupled with these just like aggressive, driving rock acoustic poems, coupled with these gorgeous ballads that sort of blew people's minds. She built up this following, particularly in the Northeast, in the college market with young women. That's where it started.

I saw her for the first time at Bryn-Mar, right? Which is a women's college outside of Philadelphia. Like, that's where Ani DeFranco's core. How much time were you spending at Bryn-Mar in the mid-90s? Not that much. I was visiting a friend at Haverford, to be fair. But it was a show if you'd go to some of her club shows. Like it was a, the whole LGBTQ community was out and there.

And so it was not like a Pearl Jam show or a whole show in terms of the crowd. And it was different kind of music because most of the time it was just this little woman up there just absolutely rocking. And so she built up this copy the cassette and pass it to your friend following, not unlike kind of what Dave Matthews' band did. through frats in the southeast and northeast. Same idea, which is that tapes were just getting passed around and passed around and passed around. She had every opportunity

to be signed by a major label. And from the very first moment until today, she has put out, by my count, 21 albums. Every single one of them has been through her own... Number five or six? Yeah, this every single... Not a pretty girl's number five or six, but every single one of them has been through her own label called Righteous Babe Records.

She has released some other artists through that album before, but she's got a whole team of people based in Buffalo who did all this work for her. And she said, I'm going to own my art. From the very beginning, she was so crystal clear about how she felt about LGBTQ rights, about women's rights, about artists' rights. And she has been in that regard very similar to her folk heroes. that she has sort of idolized from back in the 60s. And that to me is the lineage

that she's chosen to follow. But this woman has influenced everybody from Phoebe Bridgers to Taylor Swift and everybody before then because she just wrote songs that resonated deeply with people. I will concede Nora. She could use a few rant bridges.

As a writer, she is, we'll get there, But as a writer, she finds a groove, she nails the verse groove, she finds a chorus that works off of that, she nails that, and she generally does three of those, and that's the song. She could use a few Jack Antonov, Taylor Swift, rant bridges, and in those few songs where she actually does them, they are transcended. But I will tell you this. Well, and it's funny that you say that because it's a really good point about song structure. Yeah. At the same time, if she did them, she'd probably be awesome at them. Yeah.

Because in a way, this whole album is like a collection of rant. Just from the, not from the perspective of them being a bridge, right? And a bridge so good you repeat it twice or you, you know, shift it around and lean on it structurally like that. But in the sense that Taylor described of it's kind of when you crash out verbally. Yeah. This is verbose. These are verbose songs lyrically. This is a woman who emancipated herself from her mother at 15 years old.

So she had been on her own, fiercely independent. And that is the theme that transcends the business decisions that she made, the songwriting material, the way that she has architected her whole life. When you get a very clear sense that this is someone who has things to say and is writing and performing, you know, I don't know, I'm mostly coming to this new, but it really feels like

the writing and the performing and the artistic creation is about getting that message across. It's sort of about being able to say the things that she feels and wants to say. And that is why Prince took notice and he appeared on a song of hers on her album. she appeared on a song of his on his album.

Those two were peas and a pod because he recognized her advocacy for artist independence and the importance of artists controlling their art. And so she just is this package. Now, on this album, not a pretty girl, I don't actually think this is her best album. I think the one before this,

which is called Out of Range, is her best album. But this one has the, you know, her most popular song that she's written, that was covered, and I'm sure we'll talk about that. I'm sure you recognize 32 flavors. I am a poster girl with no poster. I am 32 flavors and then some

and I'm beyond your peripheral vision. And she... I know, I knew 32 flavors and I know shy. Okay. And she did this. She produces it herself. She makes all decisions Musically herself

She did this with this Canadian drummer named Andy Stochansky who would gig with her from time to time and he went off and did his own sort of singer-songwriter thing And who I imagine is the man who a couple times pops up

in a backing vocal For a brief moment I had the thought when I was listening to this could that be Nathan? Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah

Is that why we're doing, is that Nathan? Could it be Nathan? And then I figured it out. But in my head, I'm just going to say it's you. I wish I could play drums like Andy. But a lot of times, you know, a number of her albums, which is her with it, with an acoustic. And then as she goes forward, she starts to layer in other stuff.

She'll bring out electric guitar. She'll bring in like horns and albums to come. But this, there's no bass player. And what's, what that means is that she, with her guitar playing, has to sort of carry the low end. And so she's in a bunch of drop D and other sort of bizarre tunings of the guitar.

So like in shy. Yeah. There's something that feels like a very cool bass line. There's something that feels like a very cool baseline. That is her doing that. Beating the shit out of her guitar with literally Lee Press on nails. because otherwise they'll break off.

She just had to get that much strength and torque to play the guitar like this. She's got, Joni Mitchell, who was not on that fucking list of American 30 songwriters and should have been in place of a number of them, you nitwits, was one of the most underrated.

It's fine. It is fine. Was one of the most underrated guitar players. She was an excellent, excellent guitar player who a lot of players male and female sense like went on to emulate. Ani is of that ilk. She is a songwriter, a poet, but an extraordinarily gifted guitar player

in the way that she just manipulates the instrument to sound bigger than the guitar is in the same way that Ani is so much bigger than her physical stature. That's really cool. I mean, Shy was one of my favorites from the album, in part because of that, texture of what felt like, felt to me like, oh, you don't get a lot of big bass lines in, you know,

most of these songs that focuses on the voice and the guitar. But to hear you tell me that that it is still her just manipulating that instrument, that's really cool. I'm into that. Yeah. I mean, so talk to me about your experience with the music on this album and what else stands out. I have some, I mean, first of all, they're not a lot of short songs. She's got a lot of four-minute songs. Because she just... Six-minute songs, too. Yeah, she gets into the grooves. And like 32 flavors is over six minutes.

She does the same thing on my all-time favorite Anni DeFranco song is called You Had Time, and it's on out of range. And there's this long kind of, I don't know, jankly piano bit that starts that song for like two minutes before it gets into just this iconic, it's one of the best love. songs I've ever heard in my life. And I don't know why Ani does that, but she does that. It's like either she gets deeply into the groove of her greatest work and just extends it a long period of time because she doesn't want it to end, or there's some like little bit of hidden insecurity where she wants to bury these absolute diamonds in a tiny bit of rough. That's how he felt about 32 flavors.

but what else on this album besides shy resonated with you? So the top chunk of it, I've loved it. I had a great time listening to this. I was like really, you know, you never know, right? It's like I didn't choose this. Nathan's giving this to me. I was so, I was really having a good time. Yeah, I really liked even just, I started on a high note.

I loved Worthy. Worthy is so great. It has so much swagger to it. Yep. I was really, I want to know, and her voice is captivating. It is also a voice that this type of voice hasn't existed since the 90s. The things that happened with vowels in the 1990s were never done again. Yeah.

Why was that? I don't know. Maybe because we had more technology. We started running music through Macintosh computers and hard drives and Pro Tools rigs. And she has to use the little bits that she has as instruments to come off as a band. And so it's just women, you know, because there's a little bit of an Alanis thing too where you take, the word is just like, yeah or something. Well, you're talking about it.

But it somehow has 40 A's and 16 U's in it. In fairness, her mother is from Montreal. So she is Canadian American. and Alanis is also Canadian, so perhaps it is a Canadian thing. It's a, you know, you never know. Sarah McLaughlin, Canadian. A little Canadian.

I think it's, I don't know. I just think something was happening in the 90s where people talked like that. But she does use her voice and the sort of syllabic attack and the breath to play the role of percussion and a lot of this stuff. Most of her gigs, again, she wasn't playing with Andy. It's her up on a song.

stage in front of a bunch of young people, and she's got to make it go. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's almost like she's doing voice work some of the time. And she, for sure. Like adopting little characters vocally. Yep. And worthy is that way with the breath, for sure. But then it gets through, I mean, we'll talk about tiptoe in a second, which is basically a poem about the day before that she has an abortion. Yeah. I could step off the end of this peer, but I got shit to doing an appointment on Tuesday to shed uninvited blood and tissue. I'll miss you. And I will say, I will say, it makes a difference when the person, you know where I often am

on the little vocal, you know, spoken word, interstitial thing. Yeah. It makes a difference when someone is a poet, right? It makes a difference not only in the writing, but in the delivery. Yeah. Well, and it goes into this song, Cradle and All. so I think those things are connected. And then we hear her again before the last song coming up,

which is we'll talk about, she's a revolutionary, this one. I'm just telling you. Cradle and all is also one of my favorites. And when the about breaks, the cradle will fall on, and down will come, baby. Cradle and out. But you get through Shy, which you like. And then we get to the first ballad of the album,

which is one of my favorites on here, and it's, sorry I am. I keep thinking to someday I will make this all up to you and maybe someday. Yeah. Because you've heard her go really hard and aggressive and as she wrote to the teeth. And then all of a sudden there is this incredible softness. And she has this beautiful open detuning. And it's just like there's a delicate nature of her voice that you have not,

you haven't heard until that very moment. it's like, whoa, she just, she has full range through those first five songs. Well, and it's almost like through the first four of which three are songs of instrumentation. She's showing you how much she can create with basically, with majority just one instrument or two instruments.

And if you add the voice, it's like, look how much. much I can do. Look what I can, look at the different layers of sound that I can still accomplish with only this. And then sorry I am is, it's just this. It's the sparseness. It's the delicateness of just having the voice and the guitar. And that contrast is very cool. And then light of some kind, I also think is cool. Like, that's the most crash-outy of all the crash-out songs. Yeah. I think that's where she's telling a boyfriend that she cheated on him with a woman.

Yes. Seems to be. And then we get into Not a Pretty Girl, which to me is, it's that like, it's like her own, like, independent song. I am not a, that is not what I do. Just, I mean, I'm not a pretty girl. That's not what I do. What a line to lead. song. Yeah.

It is a great line. There is this thing that like, again, it seems to me, every woman in the 90s had the worst case of not like other girls syndrome that like has ever been recorded in history. But that, so like that is the one time where there's some part of this where to me it feels a little bit like an artifact. Like most of this feels like it could have been recorded yesterday to me. And that's the one time where I was like, ah, yes, okay, well. I mean, I just, you know, you take some of those things where she's,

she's cognizant in this song of the larger discourse around her, because she was very political, she is very political. And she's been very clear about the things that she believes in. I just imagine she was doing this in the social media era. She would be, to some corners of the internet, a massive hero, and to other corners, she would be the anti-crise. she would be crucified. And there's something about the way that she made choices to stay small.

She made a choice to not go sign with a major record label, which meant at the time, by the way, let's be clear, it meant that until this album, her CDs were not getting widely distributed. Sure. You'd have to buy them at stores or through the mail because she didn't have a label that had relations. with all of the Tower Records and Sam Goodies and Sam Ashes and Barnes and Nobles of the world,

which were the places where people would go buy these CDs. And so until this, she signed a distribution relationship with a company that sort of was an independent, they'd independently put CDs out. And my band did that shit too. But like she, it, it was massively popular and attractive music to lots of people when they heard it. But she time and time again opted out of defining her career as being, am I big, do people know who I am, versus just like retaining at all cost the integrity of the things that she believed in. And that's why, I mean, Nora, there was a documentary that's been made on her recently that is crap. And this is no joke. Any DeFranco is one of the most important independent artists of the last 50 years in terms of the impact that she had on singer

songwriters in terms of the recognition of the artist community about the things that she stood for and the importance of those things. And nobody's really told her story other than, I mean, she wrote a book, but nobody's really sort of told that story. As you asked for like, is there video of me at Brynmar, you know, and some of it is because it was just pre-internet. And so there weren't people in the crowd with videos and with cell phones capturing all this shit. And there weren't, you know, it was just her pulling up. And so there weren't a bunch of soundboard tapes that got traded the way that there were some Dave Matthews soundboard tapes that got traded because there was a full band and a whole rig

that was take. This was just this human rocket with a guitar going town to town, blowing people away. But not everybody because, again, you know, she was late. as this LGBTQ artist. By the way, she's had, she's on her second husband. So she, you know, she sort of straddled the lot. She, she, she is openly queer in that way. But I think her identification at the time limited the audience and scared some people away because they didn't know what this thing was. And it made it hard for people to just, first of all, it was hard enough to access the art because she kept it in a walled garden almost. But then secondly,

once you were there, it had been predefined because of the core of her fan base in a way that I think sometimes made it harder for people to fully understand. So you, you're at Brynmar. Yeah. We're on Nathan's Brinmar adventure. I've seen her like, I've seen her like,

I went to see her all over the Northeast. I probably saw Tanani shows. And is that, did that all happen in, is that over the course of years and years, or were you, like, it sounds as though you'd a very different experience at this show than you did seeing Bob Dylan, for instance. Yeah.

You're like, Bob Dylan, no, Any DeFranco, absolutely, yes. And so you're, like, you're an instant acolyte. You're going to find out where else she's playing. Did you go see more shows? Like, give me a little bit more. I think I probably saw her. I think the 10 times that I saw her were in probably three years. I saw at a festival later on.

So it's probably more than 10 and spread out over a decade. But there was a period of time where she put out out of range, not a pretty girl. She has an album Up, Up, up, up, which was after that. She had this sort of series of like just one after another ass kicking albums where I was all the way in. Dilate followed this. She's got a song called Napoleon on there, which just fucking kills me. So yeah, I just, like I was instantly in. Because I, you just, you're in a room with an artist like that.

There is no filter, right? There are no backing tracks. It's just her. And, you know, at the time I was like trying to do it. I couldn't, like, she's one of the people who convinced me that I needed to stop playing. Because I just like, wasn't good enough. I just not fucking good enough. And you see someone like that and you're like, okay, that is what an artist ought to be.

And if she's having to work this hard, there's no way. And that was like a very clarifying thing for me because, I mean, thank God. Thank you, Ani. It's sort of an instant sale. It's just an instant sale, right? And I mean, like I made a joke about John Mayer earlier. John Mayer is the same thing. Like, you go see John Mayer.

I don't care what you think about John Mayer. Like, if you go see him live, it's crystal clear. John Mayer's another one that we saw. Like, I heard John Mayer's first fucking demo, and we had the same producer. and I heard I'd already made like two whatever I heard the John Mayor thing

and I was like fuck like not because like I'm rooting for him but like I'm not good enough like that is incredible and I went and saw him and I was like okay I have to find something else

to do with my life because this is someone who just has talent that run through them and that was Ani DeFranco there's a performance maybe we talked about this once randomly

but there's a performance that Gaga did I think it was on American Idol and she just showed up some episode of American Idol maybe it had some theme that corresponded and she did just dance and she

like there's part of it where she's at a piano and then there's like a crazy outfit change and she is dancing like the movement it's you know it's like she's been lit on fire and as being electrocuted and she's just doing that like the early Gaga thing where you just literally had never had any idea what she was going to do. And then there's a moment after she finishes where the camera catches the contestants for a second who are all standing there. And you see this collective look of, oh shit.

Fuck, we do not have a chance. Yeah. Like if that is what it takes to do it. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's not happening for, you know, regardless of the outcome of this. this competition show, if that's what it looks like, we kind of understand that nobody here quite has it. And it's just an interesting.

It's the, it's the, it's the Maggie Rogers with Farrell video. It's Jay-Z when he first hears dirt off your shoulder. Like, it's all that. We're just in that moment, you're like, oh shit, that is what an artist is. And that's what Ani is and was. Can you talk about the Broadway situation? because I have not indulged myself in her Broadway stuff.

I mean, she was in Hades Town. Yeah. I got the wind right here in a jar. I got the rain on top at the bar. What can I indulge? Because I don't have all that much to say other than she was in Hades Town. Hades Town was good.

Okay. You know, I enjoyed seeing Hades Town. a few years back. Okay. Well, look. It didn't change my life, but it's interesting and well done. The back part of this album is interesting to me, too. This bouquet is a song that has this wordless chorus, which is super cool.

Crime for Crime is like, again, a sort of anti-death penalty thing. Million that you never made is basically about her shunning the major record label system. Yeah. And like coming up, you know, there's this bit that Dave Chappelle did when he was trying to get his ownership of the Chappelle show back, where he went out, I think it was in D.C., and he basically did a whole 30-minute Chappelle stand-up routine that ended in him basically saying, if you don't give this back to me, I'm going to take it. And it's, it's, veiled in comedy was like a direct threat. And there's something about coming up with her as this sort of champion of the little people that felt very resonant in the same way. Try the door.

It doesn't matter than more. No, a weak heart of the strong will. And we're being kept alive until we're killed. He's up there. Oh, that's cool. I didn't, I, I, I didn't. You're saying I overthought. this. I understand. No, I didn't get, well, maybe it's just because I didn't quite have all of the

context, but I didn't, I just have to go back and dip my toe back into that water again. Listen, I'm a six foot four, 200-something pound straight white man. I was a little out of place in some of these ony shows to say the least. Well, that's what I was going to ask you. It was like, what else were you super into at the time? Like, how did this fit into the mix? I mean, I was into everything. I was into, but like at this time, I mean, you know, so I was a pretty big grunge fan and like a big Pearl Jam fan and, but sort of raised on a bunch of the like 60s folk stuff. And so I think that in this moment, like I was into Anni DeFranco, I was super into Sean Colvin. I almost gave you a Sean Colvin album. I was into like stuff like that. Like in this moment in time,

coming out of that grunge moment, it was. female singer-songwriters who were saying things that mattered. The boy band stuff was just kicking up. We had Nick Lachey, right, about the same time. So, like, that was the stuff, like 98 degrees versus something meaningful and, sure, political, but also somebody just speaking their truth. It was happening through the Lilithair moment in a lot of ways that locked me in. And by the way, that's why I love the work that we do today,

because we're talking about a lot of female pop artists who have found their voice by speaking their own truth. And as Taylor said in the video about the 30 greatest American songwriters, confessional writing. And that's why she got stoked on somber. He's not mad. You know, excited about somber.

And I think she probably would say that she's excited about the new Noah record because those are men who are able to write confessionally in a way that is. you know, makes her writing not messy. There's a ton of interiority. Yeah. And so I just, that was the kind of stuff that I like to write about.

And so that just, just people who could speak their truth resonated with me. And this was above all else and artist of integrity speaking her truth. So sorry I am is your favorite song from the album? No, it's not. I mean, 32 flavors is my favorite song for the album. And it's not close because I just think that's just like a light yourself on fire. Yeah. Like one of the...

Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's an absolutely incredible song. It got covered, to be clear, and became pretty popular as a result, right?

I mean, where did you hear it? Did you hear the cover version? I don't know. I don't know. I just know that I know it. You don't know where you heard it? No. I just know that there,

with that song and with shy, When I was listening, I was like, you know, you go through and I listen to the first three tracks. I'm hearing three things that I don't think that I've heard before. And then you just go, oh, I know this. Yeah, it's Alana Davis who covered it. And it's the only song that, like, I know about of Alana Davis. And it was used like, they put it in an NFL act. it was used all over the place.

And I mean, I sort of have mixed feelings about it because Ani could have done that. Ani could have made it a major label thing. She could have put her shit in commercials. She didn't. And I don't think this was stolen. But it is, I don't know. I like it because it made people sort of understand

how, I don't know, what an incredible artist she was. It just felt like it's bittersweet for me because, again, it's like if you're on Anni DeFranco Island, you don't want somebody else taking it. Well, and it's so antithetical to her drive, right? Like there's, you know, I think we tend to be pretty good about not begrudging people's need to make a living. And in particular, we're talking about a moment where in the years coming up, up after this. There are elements of how to do that as a recording artist that become more

complicated and throughout the more of the 2000s push people to erode some of the barriers of like what is acceptable and what is selling out. Yeah, Alana Davis changed some of the lyrics and it bummed out Ani DeFranco. She had a hard time sort of processing that. And, you know, Alana I don't know. She just didn't, you know, I'm not sure that the career went that far, and that's fine. It doesn't for most artists, but it did feel like a borrowed hit to me. But Ani DeFranco is the greatest. Yeah, well, because it's kind of like it's one thing to do that with somebody else's song

where it's like, okay, they didn't happen to make those choices, but maybe they would have, maybe they wouldn't have, that's just sort of the way the cookie crumbles. With someone who is sort of navigated every point of their career with, I'm not going to do this. I don't want to engage with those parts of the industry. It's a little tougher, I think. It adds to the legend, though, right? It's like she could have done this if she wanted to.

She could have done it, but it doesn't matter because her version's better. So, no, 32 flavors is unequivocally my favorite song from this album. Anything else that lights your hair on fire? Sorry I am is there for sure. Worthy is there for sure. I think, like, generally speaking, though, I wanted to put this in front of you to say, if you want to be a rock pop, you know,

artist of integrity and authenticity coming out of the 90s and early 2000s, it's Ani DeFranco. And if you can't tap into that, in particular, I think, because coming out of the grunge era, like, that was what rock got defined as. Right. The artist that Prince identified as a real one is one you got to go with. Thank you for this album. Thank you for sharing it with me, Nathan. Hope you're having a good honeymoon.

You don't want to thank me for Ashley Simpson. Thank you for the chance to talk about Ani DeFranco. You are so welcome. This has been every single album. As always, I'm Nora Prince Idi. He's Nathan Hubbard. Thank you to Kaia McMull. for producing this episode and to you for listening. We are at this exact moment in time where we

presently are as you're listening to this, about to take a couple of weeks off. We're going to be off Memorial Day weekend and then the following week. But then we will be back. Unless Taylor releases something, in which case it'll be the Nathan Hubbard Solo show.