Every Single Album - An Eras Tour Update | Every Single Album: Taylor Swift

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

Nora and Nathan check in on the newly revamped Eras Tour setlist. They talk about the new 'Tortured Poets Department' section of the show, and which songs Taylor Swift chose to include (1:00), which songs she decided to cut in order to make room (36:12), and why she might have decided to change up the show even though tickets have already been sold out (48:39). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellany. I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight. Which streamer is on the brink of collapse? And which executive is on the hot seat? Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will never eat lunch in this town again?

Follow the town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to every single album. I'm Nora Prynciotti and I am joined, as always, on a Monday in May by Nathan Hubbard. Nathan, happy heiress tour return week. How are you doing? The theater nerd is back theater nerding. Harder than ever before. She really is.

Female Rage the Musical coming to a football or European football stadium near you this summer. So I find myself more and more doing a little bit of inside baseball at the top of these pods, which is because Taylor Swift and her schedule and her whims and her mind

just work in mysterious and surprising and exciting ways. We were planning to spend this pod finally, at long last, talking about Eternal Sunshine, the Ariana Grande album. Ariana is unfortunately

getting a little bit of the apologies to Matt Damon we ran out of time treatment on this podcast because Taylor Swift just always has something of her sleeve. It's no knock on Ariana.

We're really excited to talk about this album. We're so excited. We will get there. However, last Thursday, Taylor Allison Swift went on stage in Paris

as the heiastore got started for the summer in Europe and she came out with a whole ass new set tortured poets. Also a whole new ass, by the way.

We'll get to that part. I need some... Excuse me? I need some input on that. I mean, everything that I'm seeing on the internet is telling me

that the outfits have been altered. This is going to be worse than the hair for you. Just trust me. No, no, it's definitely not. And this is not going to be my I'm not going to have comment on it other than that's the reaction that I'm saying. Like, didn't they redo the Midnight's body suit? Coming to podcast with you is just like eye opening every week. I never know. It's like Taylor Swift. I never know what's happening. I suppose I will have to investigate that further. But the new costumes are plentiful. Okay, should I, like, what am I supposed to be looking up? Taylor.

Be careful what you search. This is not a good idea. This is not a good idea. Do not. No. You know what? I wish everyone the best. And that's all I have to say on whatever is going on down there, proverbially.

Yeah. She looks great. The costumes are awesome. The tortured poet's dress is very voluminous. That's where I thought that's one that might include a bit of a bustling situation. But there were also, they're the new 19-19. We've got the different shoes and different colors. Is she doing the Alvin and the Chipmunks colors?

Is she doing Chief's colors? We've got the surprise song dress lost its sleeves. I mean, I don't know about you, but I was just overwhelmed in a good way by the extent of the changes for this show. I'm a little bit flabbergasted. And she said on stage in Paris that they started working on the new show. basically as soon as she finished up in Singapore in the fall last year, I am a little bit flower-gasted by the amount that has been sort of like reconstructed and reimagined and added and tweaked and re-envisioned of this

three-plus hour extravaganza. Yeah, there's even more than that. They've redone a lot of the digital screen stuff. They've, obviously, folklore and Evermore has been combined into a single chapter the way it always should have been. And we'll talk about what that. I knew you would get that in there. Means, of course.

Yeah, I mean, there's just, there's a lot. And the first thing that I thought on Thursday night, I sort of watched the stream. And then as I thought, I just thought, I'm with you, I can't believe that they did this much. Like, this is a lot of change for a tour that is completely sold out and doesn't need to sell an incremental ticket. Completely sold out. Which means that this, more than anything,

was for her and for the band and for the dancers, and I guess for the online audience around the world, to keep the intrigue, to keep it fresh, to make it different. I mean,

there was this thought we had when she released the concert film that, geez, I guess now everybody will get to experience it before they go see the show. But no, she had a different plan in place.

And it really does bring in so much, there's just so much theater nerdness in this. And as we went through the show, Nora, I was so upset when Last Great American Dynasty was cut. When Tolerate it was cut. Because those are two of the most sort of interesting theatrical numbers of the original show, I thought anyway, right? Certainly people will remember the table and people will certainly remember all of the dancers.

I hope that great Gatsby stuff. I hope that table goes in a museum somewhere. But I assume that this is Mandy Moore, who's not her creative director, I don't think, but is her choreographer. But holy shit, did they bring a bunch of these songs? to life off of tortured poets. And the thing that stuck with me the most besides the change is I have zero notes on the song selection from tortured poets. You and I got on here and talked about what we thought were the best songs. She took them, she put them in the set, not because of us, I'm just

saying, like consensus formed around what the best songs were. She put everything in. The only thing that's missing is the black dog, but that's fine because she can do that on the piano and a surprise set. I just have no notes on that set of the show. It's incredible. It is, no, she chose note perfect how to bring that album to life on the stage. And it's as if, I think, tortured poets now sort of exists in these two different ways, right? Where it's a sprawling album that people are streaming or some people might be streaming less because they just sort of couldn't wrap their arms around it. But the selections from it that are now this set list, to me it's like, you know, if we talk about editing, here's the editing. And it's perfect. It's, to recap, it starts with,

But Daddy I Love Him, which gets mashed up at the end into So High School, then goes into Who's Afraid of Little Old Me, then goes into Down Bad. That outro transitions into Fortnite. Then they do the smallest man who ever lived. And then they end, she ends with I Can Do It with a Broken Heart, which has the little vaudeville intro. And that finishes the tortured poets section. But look, would I like to hear the Black Dog more than I would like to hear Fortnite? You don't miss me in the Black Dog. Sure. But I'm not going to quibble with the song that went to number one, the song that has been the hit. I'm not going to say that that doesn't make sense to me as being part of this set. I think, you know, it's familiar to people. It's, it's, it's, it's, She staged it in a cool way.

Fine. Cool. Go off queen. Starting with Baddadi, I love him. Just to set the tone of like, we are doing drama. We are doing theater kid. We are being a little bit extra, but in this like really, really, really fun way and bringing the kind of like, I don't think like to me, tortured poets is not a dreary album. But I think that's one of the facets of it that people's mileage vary with.

live and in this staging, none of that comes through. It's like not purely silly, but it does have that Broadway energy where the extraness of it, it augments it. I mean, the gunshots on smallest man and then just falling down.

And the welcome to the black parade, the march, the death march, stop, stop, stop, Like she's on the front lines in Ukraine or something. I mean, it's crazy. But when she played loss of my life on the piano in the surprise song, that to me was where it sort of clicked. Because that is, if you just listen to the album, and I think at the time when we listened to it, what I said was,

man, I believe her that this was the loss of her life. And that last line with the breath at the end. And just the, there's so much sadness. in it. And it is just an unfathomably sad album if you listen to it without the context of where her life is right now. And one of the things that you and I spoke about was wondering whether tortured poets was going to be accessible to people who have been watching her seemingly extraordinarily happy in this new relationship. Would people be able to tap into the feelings that were happening there? And when she played loss of my life and she failed. And she failed

finishes with just that gripping, you know, you're the loss of my life, and there's the breath. And then she does the little, in live, she does the little piano run in her hands. She like giggles with this huge grin, smile like wink. She completely disassociated from the emotion of that song. That's where I was like, oh, she really is completely beyond this at this point. And it made it easier for me to just take it in as a show and her acting, which is equal parts like interesting and hilarious, right? Because it just, to your point, it is sort of silly. And there is now, everybody's in on the joke when she's singing, but Daddy, I love him. Everybody's sort of in on the joke for a bunch of the other song where she's scolding them.

For, I can do it with a broken heart. Like, people are screaming more. And it's okay because it feels like she's just past it. So now it's just a piece of art, not a thing that she's still entangled with. Did you feel that? Yeah. So this, it's, it's, So yes, but slightly differently. Okay. I can do it with a broken heart. I found the way that she staged that fascinating. I mean, it's great.

It's so funny and it's so silly. And the, you know, the Charlie Chaplin intro is hysterical. And her physical acting doing that, I think is really good. Like, the way that she keeps her arms limp and they're like, you know, trying to get her in the clothes. And she gets poutier every night. Yeah. Totally. And, oh my gosh.

You've got by August, the way this woman will be pouting, it's going to be off the charts, just like silliness. And that's part of the fun of this after having gone through the first big legs of this tour and seeing how it evolved and seeing one of the key ways in which it evolved being her getting into the physicality of it and getting into the ad libs and the silliness and the way that she just hand it up more and more and more. Now that we have these new things, these new elements that are already so hammed. I'm just, I'm very tickled by the idea of how Taylor Swift in, in June, July, August is going to play those moments because it'll be really funny. Wembley Stadium in August. But by the way, every night that Travis is there, she gets goofier and giddier and sillier as it goes. I mean, she is going to do, like, is she going to have like a whoopee cushion on stage by the end of it? She's going to be doing like gag comedy. Yeah. She and, she and her backup dancer cam seem to have some pretty good chemistry around this. So that's going to be very interesting. But, they really, I mean, this is a spectacle. And it just has got to be scratching the acting edge for her.

It's got to be scratching the acting edge. And I think that's an interesting way to phrase it, right? Because I watched that. And my first thought was just, this is so funny. This is just a really funny way to do this. But she's doing it and they do the old-timey movie screen intro with the title. And it very much confers. it kind of pulls up a fourth wall in a way where it makes that song, it presents it as like a set

piece, which I think is kind of telling because it's almost like she's removing it from real life. She's removing it from real narrative. This is a funny little skit that I'm doing as opposed to me telling you how I really feel. And I have to be honest, I think she really feels that song. So I think it's an interesting choice to pull that. that up. And I don't, that's great. Like, go off queen. I think the gentlest and kindest and smartest thing that you can do to an artist you love is acknowledge that they are professional performers and that an element of facade is literally a part of the job. And to not acknowledge that is to put them,

you know, to expect a double standard from them that is just never going to be possible to accomplish. So my saying that, I don't mind that one bit. I actually think it's kind of clever and interesting. but I thought that was crafty. I thought that was a nifty way of getting everybody to feel like it's okay. It's okay for me to scream more because this isn't,

this is a bit. This isn't a real thing. And in the same way, doing the outro of, but daddy, I love him, into so high school, softens the blow on the fuck you wine moms

and Sarah's and Hannah's or whatever, right? it just makes the whole thing more digestible. There was a part of me that was like, but is the audience going to sort of let themselves off the hook here on what she was actually saying, which in no uncertain terms was, hey, can you all stay out of my life and let me control my personal life

and not chase off guys? And there's a part that should actually have a complete wall that you don't get access to. And a lot of what you did was hurtful to me. some of that to me gets a little bit lost in the show of it all. I just, it was the end of loss of my life where it was like, okay, she is in a completely different emotional space than she was when she made this record.

She's on a new chapter of her life. She's clearly happy in ways she hasn't been happier before. That's okay. So maybe it makes all of the music and the lyrical content in particular safer for us to play with. I just simply think that we have no idea. I think if we listen to that album

and tortured poets it's how many weeks old at this point it has not been that long since we got a very clear statement that what we see is not always what's true and I think that taking from

I think you're right I do think she's softening I think she is softening a little bit of the like chastising element of some of those lyrics which in some ways I think I don't know if I think it's a shame. I do think those are really interesting lyrics.

I think that's just like such a fascinating part of her dynamic right now and the fact that she's been sort of willing to take that on musically. It's the most interesting part of the album for me. The most interesting part of tortured poets. So in some ways I don't want her to soften that in general. I do think like everyone's there to have a good time and to... Right. Yeah, fair. Just like...

She's trying not to be Debbie Downer. I hear it as playing more into the vibe of just like... like this tour is a party. And especially since that song is kicking off the set, I'm okay with it. But I do agree with you that I think, just as I think like, just as I think it's putting her in a little bit of an unfair position

to take calls to action about like somebody hurt me as calls for like fan activism, right? I also think it's like sometimes she's going to make decisions on stage that don't actually reflect exactly how she feels as a person about a given situation. So it cuts both ways. In this case, I do think mashing up the so high school part, it telegraphs a little bit of like, don't worry. It's good. It's okay. You don't need to freak out.

And I'm not upset. I'm not mad. It's so great. I mean, all the back, like the more that you look at the blue. bleachers, you realize, oh my gosh, she is, they basically gave the dancers the assignment to go look at touchdown dances, go look at, like, just pull in every element of the public facing part of this romance with Travis Kelsey. And let's turn it into dance moves. And it's all happening on those bleachers. It's Cam doing the touchdown dance. It's the swag surfing. It's the hand rolling. I mean, it's like,

again, for somebody who wants the private. life, she really does there integrate some of the publicness into the sort of lore of the show, doesn't she? The Kansas City Chiefs, man. I mean, she's wearing golden red on stage.

And she did it on the 87th show. It's the 1989. And she talked about being the 87th show. I mean, these numbers, the beautiful mind works in just bonkers ways. such a, I mean, do you think she does, like, God forbid what it must be like

if Taylor Swift does, you know, tarot readings or something, when she gets, if she gets a certain number something, it is just off to the races. I mean, I also, yeah, I also think you have said this before, but I think that there's about 1.20th of the actual Easter eggs and all this stuff

that the fan base finds. But it is this self, like, regenerating organism at this point, where the fan base sometimes creates Easter eggs that she then gloms onto and validates, right? Like, I don't know that the stages of grief necessarily were a thing

until Fanbase talked about it and she went and turned it into playlist. I don't know that she thought it was the 87th show until the fan base started saying it. See, that would I do kind of vibe. You do? You think she knew in the moment? Because that's like a simple number. The ones where I think it goes overboard

are like when Taylor uses a noun that she's also used before. Like I don't believe that maybe I said this before, but like every reference to rain, for instance, to use an obvious one, every reference to rain in Taylor Swift's discography

is not in conversation with every other reference to rain. It doesn't mean none of them are, but those are moments of reaching. Or sometimes I think if she reuses a melody, for instance, she just likes how that sounds. She's not calling back

and connecting to a different song. It's cool. It's fun to do a close read. I mean, look, like, I became, I became like a words, English major.

I want to write for a living nerd in high school. And I would write these essays about novels that we would read. And, no, but it really, like,

that was like, I remember being in this class where something really clicked for me and I would write these, I would have these, like, essays about what argument an author was trying to make about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then we'd have them in at the end of the class.

And, you know, I'd be like, I connected all these things. Did you mean to do that? And almost every single time, they're like, oh, that's an interesting thought. Never had it before in my life. And so I think there's a little bit of that. Maybe I'm projecting. But the 87, I kind of. Yeah. Well, we get to come back and talk about the whole Travis night because that, I think, has to be talked about and viewed independently from the rest of the, or analyzed independently from the rest of the show.

Well, Bradley Cooper's dance moves. Well, Bradley Cooper, did he take too many gummies? I mean, we're going to need more energy from this guy if he's going to keep up with Gigi Hade for much longer. I mean, come on, Bradley. He did seem like he was listening to a different song. Like, he's like swaying. He was like listening to the Pearl Jam album on headphones. I don't know what was going on with Bradley Cooper. That honestly, honestly, feels not out of the realm of possibility. Yeah, I may be down like a deep rabbit hole on this, but I also, watching this show, I sort of stepped away and said, I still can't believe that we got an album about Maddie Healy and not really about Joe Alwyn.

We did get an album about Joe Alwyn. get an album about Joe Alwin. It was called Midnights. Leading up to this, I mean, the knives were out for Joe Alwyn from the moment that she released the track list that said, but Daddy, I love him and I can fix him and all this stuff. The assumption was this was about Joe. And in my head, I'm just thinking about what her calculation was, because there was a decent time period from, you know, Grammys until this album came out. There was a couple of months where that buzz and the bill, and the build was coming and there was some bloodthirstiness, which upon reflection, she was very angry with the fan base for that specific characteristic and tendency to go bonkers on people,

including herself. And she made a choice to not call off the dogs, really, until she released the album that night and said, hey, this is gone. You know, I've sort of, there's no more grudges, no revenge, none of that, but she didn't really and so I just still, I still can't believe that we got a whole record about Maddie Healy and that leading up to it, she didn't do anything to

I don't know, to sort of diffuse some of the anger that came up and then this is probably where I'm going a little too far, but the genius of it was, as soon as everybody figured out that it was about Maddie Healy, for whatever reason, the energy

dissipated. Like nobody's gone and completely Maddie's not had remotely as bad a time as he did when he was dating her. Right? And under normal circumstances, you would have thought that the fan base would have gone after him in the same way that they went after Jake as Red Taylor's version started to come out. So I just found it really interesting that that move and the choices that she made about what to reveal and what not to reveal, inadvertently, I think, but maybe intentionally, ended up sort of dissipating the anger that the fan base was ready to sort of act out on.

Yeah, I do think she did a lot of... That's sometimes what you say when you think I'm crazy. That, yeah, is sometimes what is your way of saying, Nathan? No, that's... It's not my dismissal voice. It's my processing voice. I'm trying to... I don't know if I agree with you,

but I'm trying to figure out if I agree with you. Because I do think she did kind of a lot of scaffolding around this album. Though, to your point, most of it was after it was released. to sort of cloak it in this idea of temporary insanity, right? Here's your window into a brief moment in time implication. It is long past. It is over. You do not have to worry that I still feel like this.

And what I wonder is if that's about Maddie or Joe or anyone, or if that's about the fact that this is like a pretty dark. album and an album that talks about self-harm and a lot of drinking and a lot of drugs and feeling awful. Yeah. And also having a... And turning into a circus on stage and some of the complications of the level of her fame and what it's like.

I just meant she turned it into a circus. She took all these feelings that you're talking about. and with the live show that we just saw this past weekend sort of turned it into a circus and made it weirdly fun and kind of not dark. Right. Even though she's on the ground being shot multiple times and bleeding out.

Like it's so over the top. It's so theatrical that it... Yeah, right. It does become campy and it sort of takes the fangs out of it. My read of all of that, and this is, I guess, a testament to the songs because I don't know. I don't claim to know.

But the songs to me are potent enough and powerful enough that I believe her. I believe it's real. I also don't really think that it would be possible to live at that level of fame and not have it affect you pretty substantially and be pretty challenging to deal with. So when Taylor Swift says, I was so deeply in love with Maddie Lee, which, like, again... You can't say with a straight face still.

there was the tweet that was like Taylor Swift says some things in songs that I would take to my grave, but I support her that I've just never felt more connected with than in this album cycle. But like, do you, queen. I love it. I think the songs are powerful enough that I believe her. And therefore, my interpretation of a lot of that scaffolding and a lot of like turning, as you said, parts of this album on the tour into this kind of three ring circus vibe and making it very theatrical.

To me, feels like she wants to take the sting out of it, maybe less out of an impulse to, like, call people off so they don't, so people aren't bugging Maddie or Joe or whoever. and more so because it's probably pretty complicated for Taylor Swift right now, who, you know, is an adult woman in her mid-30s,

who has a lot of fans who are around that age and older, but then is also, like, is playing to a lot of eight-year-olds. Yeah, a lot of little girls run around Paris. We'll get to that. Which is, like, simultaneously so magical and beautiful. And, like, it's such a, you know, I, I, I have an editor whose daughter is young and loves Taylor Swift and it's like this thing that they connect over and that's so beautiful. And then it's also like got to be really complicated for an adult artist to figure out how to satisfy their creative needs and also keep in mind to the fact that there are people who are really young who are listening.

And I think Taylor has a sense of duty and responsibility and like genuinely wants to put things out that are good. and I think sometimes those impulses are at odds. And I wonder if she fed the former a little bit more in the album and the latter a little bit more on the tour. Well, that resonates with me. I will say that the performance of Who's Afraid a Little Old Me, she's raging. I mean, there's, she's not holding back on that one.

And even some of the still shots that people took of her sort of in mid-hiss, they look awfully genuine and whatever the coaching was on how to perform that, it's a nice channel for her to let out whatever she's pissed off about in that moment because that's exactly what it calls for

which is funny because there's other songs where she more directly communicates that rage that she's turned into a little bit more carnival than feminine rage, the musical.

Who's afraid of little old me to me is like if someone is sitting at their computer being like I got the Ticketmaster email that I got a code or something like should I pull the trigger on going to Europe this summer

or like doing something like that the reason to do it sorry for goading our listeners into making financially irresponsible choices but who's afraid of little old me like send it baby that's, go see that song live. Holy shit.

Floating around on a mirror box. She's like levitating. I'm go-go-go-go-go for that song. I always have been. It's not a secret. But I think the staging of it is so, so, so good. Yeah. My mom happened to be in Paris this weekend.

And so my tech... Shout out to your mom, just like, vibing in France. Yeah. Well, shout out to my text thread that has about one million pictures of Americans in Paris at all the places that she wanted to be at.

She's like, of all the weekends for Taylor to be here, she's like, I had to get to the Louvre at 7 a.m. We beat them to the Arc de Triumph, but they were there at the Eiffel Tower. I love the idea that she thinks that everyone is operating on mass. Well, from her experience, they were. I mean, I have just all of these pictures of Taylor Swift fans

in all kinds of inconvenient places for her across Paris. And I have news for European travelers who are not going for Taylor Swift. It's going to be a crowded summer. So you ought to check, if you're trying to go experience any kind of like normalcy and actually take in the European culture of the places you're going,

don't be there when the Taylor Swift show is rolling through town because you know what's not going to be very Swedish next weekend? Stockholm is not going to be very sweet. Stokholm is going to be extremely American. Because, to your point, it does look like it could be a cheaper experience to get on an airplane, fly to Europe, and go to one of these shows because of some of the regulatory restrictions around resale, keeping secondary prices down. I have personal experience to confirm that that can be the case.

Yeah. So I think it's not a surprise that people like, well, this is great. It's summertime. We're out of school. We didn't get to see it. Or if we did, we want to see this one. it's kind of a different new show. RIP, all the songs that got cut.

We'll talk about that in a second. But like, it is, it is, uh, it, there are a lot of Americans. If, if, if weekend one is an indication. Yeah, or if my Instagram feed is, is to indicate anything. There are a lot of Americans, but also, like, can you imagine, I, you know, I hope that that means that everyone in Europe who, who, who wanted to go was able to go, I will say, as someone who at one point was registered for Paris, did get some of those, uh, a couple emails over the weekend being like,

you can try to get tickets now, which I thought was interesting. So hopefully everyone who wants to go is finding a way in, what I will say, I mean, can you imagine a more fun, like to go to a weekend in Spain to see Taylor Swift? Like,

what an absolute blast with a bunch of friends. I just simply cannot imagine anything that sounds more magical and joyful and like a great part. of summer. Yeah, but you've been in Europe enough to know that the reputation of American tourists in Europe is pretty awful. And I'm actually cautiously optimistic that wine moms and their daughters who are full of

energy and enthusiasm and excitement for this show are going to be a great representative of Americans in Europe this summer and that forget just wine moms and their daughters. The Taylor Swift fan base in general is going to be, you know, there's a lot of positive energy in that stadium. There's not a lot of negative. We're not a lot of fights at the Taylor Swift shows, right? I think we're nice. So I do too. We're nice people.

We're typically fairly like self-educating and mobilizing. There's whole communities dedicated to understanding what the bag regulations are for the stadiums, what the best entrances to go into are. Yes, I fully agree with you. It's all good. And I think it's going to reflect well. on Americans to have not just the economic boom that

the Paris mayor was like... You're welcome Joe Biden. Yeah, it's going to... That's right. It's going to be better than the Olympics for Paris. The Taylor Swift Tour is going to be better. They've been planning the Olympics for like eight years

and now Taylor Swift comes in and with one fell swoop delivers more economic value to Paris. But I'm cautiously optimistic that maybe the European perspective of Americans will be slightly enhanced this summer thanks to the Swifties running around these cities. I mean, they will have a friendship bracelet-based economy by August.

Can we talk about the cuts? Yes. Yes. Yes. I mean, the Archer and Long Live, I mean, you probably were okay with the Archer. Long Live was something you were so happy made its appearance. And in fact, I don't, I don't, was it there the first time you saw it or not? No, it was there when I saw it. So you saw it in LA, I did see it. When we were there together. Well, we weren't together, but we were in the same stadium at the same time. Yes, Kaya as well.

And all three of us were there in different places. And there are the two shall meet. Yeah, but long live getting cut is a very interesting choice. And then, boy, she hacked up folklore and evermore. She cut the one. She cut Last Great American Dynasty. She cut Tis the damn season, which she cut Tolerate. Those songs would make me bleed had I not already heard them

because they're my favorites off folklore and Evermore. I guess for me, it comes back to the songs that she, besides Long Live, I think she was okay with Last Great American Dynasty and tolerate it because there's more drama that got introduced and tortured poets. So the sort of acting and, you know, theater nerd... I mean, also, do you feel that the live-staged versions of those songs

are like so much more special than the album cuts or those songs where you're particularly eager to hear them in a stadium setting because I love those songs and I enjoy them as part of the tour. I don't know that I don't know that Tis the damn season

was ever like a high point of the Ares tour for me. No, but it's the problem that we spoke about at the beginning before she even went out on tour. The fundamental reality is that folklore and Evermore do not belong in a series. stadium. She does the best that she possibly can to sell them in that stadium. I think she does a decent job. But those are intimate in a beautiful theater with an orchestra and the full band

and the acoustic part of that and the sort of softness of her voice where she's not having to actually Stevie Nicks on stage to sell it to a stadium. And I think for a lot of people, one or both of those sets became the bathroom break. If it wasn't the back part of it. of 10 minute all too well. And I think she was smart to consolidate this because what? Shocks me the back part of 10 minute all too well. Just a shocking time to go to the bathroom, but that's okay. But I hear you. I know. I know. It's been done. It has been done. And I, we documented this enough. So I think she just took out stuff that isn't as much of a party. And I'm actually happy about that because I think that when this is all said and done,

some point, maybe it's three years, five years, ten years, she's going to do a folklore and Evermore thing where she gives those albums the setting live that they earned and deserve. And I know it sounds weird to say that they shouldn't be in a stadium, but like they shouldn't. Like being in a theater where you can hear these instruments, which is so much what the cottage core is about, would be a better demonstration of them. It'd be better at the Hollywood as big of a of a venue as that is, where it's just really a listening room. So I don't mind that she cut them, but I really, the only one that doesn't sort of fit into that for me is long live. Do you get why she took it out? I do, Nathan, I don't get why it wasn't there in the first place.

I think the only thing that I come back to is just, and look, this far be it for me to tell Taylor Swift what to do, even though we have a podcast. Yeah, yeah. She seems to know what she's doing here. She seems to be doing just fine. I just simply love that song so much. And I think it is such a good sing-along song as this tribute to her crowds and her fans. And it's so magical and beautiful. And I love it. I think because it wasn't in the initial set list,

maybe sort of easy come, easy go in some ways. And it felt like that was a place. I mean, she goes from 44 to 46 songs with this change. So it's net two songs longer. So high school is not really a full song. I wonder minute to minute because some of them are shortened versions. But yes, it's net two songs longer.

And again, she had to make some cuts because otherwise the cuts that she was going to make were to her legs. Like below the waist, she was going to lose. She just can't do this. And we now do know that it is a physical test to do this show. I mean, not that we didn't know before, but thank you, JJ Watt, for teaching us. that way back in the day.

My God. She couldn't have grafted. You have never been asking for it on a podcast than you are today. I'm just telling you. I'm just telling you. I just think she made the right choices on what to trim. Maybe long live you wish. I'm sure there's a few songs that are still in there that she traded out.

I just think in hindsight, she probably had a little bit of space. And there's no way you could have gone to the errors to her in person and not said, yeah, I'm glad that folklore and Evermore are here. I love these albums, as you know. They're two of my absolute favorites of hers. And there just was a little bit of an energy gap that she was constantly, I think, trying to sell. She does not have to sell tortured poets

because that is, I think, the most interesting era on the show at this point. Look, to me, the highest sort of net gain of, like, interest and artistry and what you could do to, like, really, ring every last magical second out of this set list going into these shows in Europe would have been to combine folklore and Evermore and pair that down and to really go ham with tortured poets. Now, first of all, I never really would have even considered that not only

would they do that, they would do all of this work, even in other sections with the digital screens and just really revamping the whole experience and making it fresh, making it new, making it a thing that, you know, if you've gone before, you're going to have a different experience. Yeah. And even before that, I would have thought that the question there was, you know, is the legwork of that because it's a lot?

Is that something that they're going to bite off when the tickets are sold, the Hayes in the Barn, the movie is done? The tour is an unequivocal smashing success, and it's just not necessary. even if tortured poets like, you know, gets a little set, they work it in somewhere or if it had been in heavily featured in surprise songs. I think in hindsight it feels sort of like how could that have been the answer.

But my question was coming from this place of like, are they really going to do all of that? And they really did. They really, really did. And I just think this was like, there are songs where I can go down the list and say, okay, my dream, absolute, I can curate the set list to be exactly what I want.

Do I swap some things out? Do I keep, you know, I actually, it's funny, I'm not a huge fan of the Archer in general, but I do really love that live version. I just think it's like a vibe at that moment in the set. And obviously I love Long Live. And there are things where I, I can say, oh, I wish she'd taken this song out instead of that one.

I don't really need, like, I don't need Willow. But I get it. I do love the orbs. I wouldn't want to get rid of the orbs. So it's, to your point, it's tough. It's tough to figure out what to do. And I just don't think that there are any big, obvious misses. Like, I just don't have any real notes.

I think they crushed it. Red comes early for me because it always felt. at the show that 10 minute all too well was that sort of midpoint. Yeah. I don't know exactly what, having not seen it fully, exactly what the vibe is,

what some of these transitions are, like the transition from what you made me do into cardigan or now that Archer's not there, Archer really was there to be like the transition song into, right? So into the fearless set. Fearless. And so now, presumably,

they're just dragging out lover and then bang, you still get the sparks that fall and she comes out in the sparkly thing. Yeah, and then... For fearless. I am interested in what that moment in red is going to feel like, but I still think it'll work just in the sense of like,

okay, fearless is such a party. It's so fun, it's such a sing-along, it's so sort of like boisterous and light, and then you get those red songs that are similarly upbeat dance sing-along, and so then maybe... it all too well turns into that first real like emotional crest and then tortured poets because from there it goes it's speak now but speak now is just enchanted.

Right. But you're only, you're 12 songs in for all too well. I mean, it's, right. Tis early. Right. Not even third away through the show. But the question to me is like what does it feel like that? What does that feel like that early in the show rather than how does the show get the same

emotional crest because where it's going to get it is tortured poets. because tortured poets is essentially now in the spot where red was. That's even a little bit later. But yeah, I mean, I... And the other thing I would say is, she was sick, either with allergies or with a cold. And there was a lot of nose wiping going on that was then, speaking of ass,

she then was wiping on whatever ass fabric you're going to investigate on Google, which, again, God bless you. Okay, honestly, honestly, I've tried Googlingly. three times as you've been, I can't figure out what you're talking about. I think

I am the worst person to make this assessment, but I believe that the Midnight's outfits were tucked in a bit. I think there was a Midnight's outfit that disappeared for a while. It came back and again,

now with more reveal. And so there's a lot of chatter online about that. Okay, okay, okay. Now I understand. So you think that the outfits have been tailored to be more revealing as opposed to like Taylor getting a butt implant. Correct. Okay. You have thought for the 45 minutes of this podcast that my premise at the outset. And I was just like, it is a little bit antithetical to our normal tone of podcasting for Nathan to come on here and be like Taylor's Lipp got her butt done. But I just didn't know what you meant. Now I get it. I mean, go on. Like, Slay, Queen. She looks great. I'm, wow.

Great job by us. We've talked for 900 hours about Taylor Swift. And you just let me go 45 minutes without being like, wait, you think Taylor got ass implants? By the way, this was the emotional crest of this podcast. This was the all too well 10 minute version of every single home. Yeah, everybody can go to the bathroom now. No, I do not believe that that Taylor Swift altered herself physically. It appears to me that the internet crowd believes that the Midnight's

body suit in particular was altered to be more revealing. It's summer. I think that's probably a good excuse. Show a leg, let's go. Listen, if I did 46 songs out there, I would get swamp ass, so I would want the... Yes.

That's not what I thought you were going to say. I love it. I love it. Yeah. Anyway, do you have any other notes on the changes that were made. I mean, I want to go see the new snake thing on the screen. All that stuff seems in the aggregate, I really think this is like $10 million worth of changes because they had to reprogram so much stuff. And this took, like, if you just think about how many people actually have to put on this show, they have to rehearse these costume changes. The band has to be playing the outro to know how long do we have to do this to get Taylor tucked

into the new body suit now with more ass. Like all of these things, it's not just something where they could just have the dancers. And it sure looked like from some of the pictures that she put up that they probably were doing just some dancing. But like, there are like a hundred people who have to be all in sync to make these changes, which means they have to rent large-ass space to be able to practice this.

Plus, they had to pay for all of the change, everything. Like, I really think this is like a $10 million gift to the fan base. I mean, well. She did not have to do this. this. On our soapbox for a little bit. Except she did have to do this. And we are always like, where we tell the truth about how we feel. And there were moments in the lead up to tortured poets where I thought it was getting a little bit on the corny side in moments how much corporate branding was showing up every which way. Yeah, Grammy moment, not her best.

Sure, fine. Whatever. I think an element of Taylor Swift's, the way she moves through the world, that sometimes people, myself included, have a sort of back and forth time wrapping our minds around. Is that, look, she is a capitalist to the bone and she would like to make money? You mean the fact that Kaya, while we've been potting, texts at us that she's filed for a trademark for Female Rage, the Musical? Right, exactly. She's a capitalist in that way? Yes. And in many others.

And I think sometimes that comes across to me as being a savvy businesswoman. and sometimes it comes across as muddying what the primary objective of what she's doing is. Is it art? Is it commerce? How do those things interplay with each other? Here is what I will say. There are a lot of people spending a lot of money to engage with their fandom of Taylor Swift, whether that's buying a bunch of different vinals,

whether that's going to Europe to see her on tour, whether that was seeing her in the U.S. and dealing with what it meant to get tickets for earlier portions of the tour. And a lot of that stuff is complicated. A lot of that has a lot of complicated feelings. Here's what I will say. She always, she is still when she does not need to,

when every ticket has been sold, she is doing stuff like this. She is working for eight months to completely revamp a already three-plus hour-long show. and also she has never tried to sell me lip cloths. Yet, but you're right. I know. I know the day is coming, but I'm just saying, up to this point.

I mean, she is the world's largest direct-to-consumer brand almost, and you don't become that without thinking about the end fan experience, first and foremost and always. And so that's why I think she thinks about a 31-song album, or two-part album, as a great end experience. I'm giving. She thinks about this show

with 46 songs as there's a ton. She is, in I think her mind, rightly so, giving a lot to the fan base. And I am drawing a little bit of a distinction between, I think that there's also some part of her that's going, there's 31 songs. That's going to add up to a lot of Spotify streams. And I don't love the,

even though I think it's sort of inevitable, and there are parts of it where I think it's unfair to sort of disallow her from that mode of thinking, that's not the most romantic way to imagine your favorite artist conceiving of your work, right? But I'm drawing a distinction between that, which even if it is a very capitalistic and money-oriented way of thinking about, you know, creating and selling music, I think there is a distinction between that where you are still focusing on the brand as music. touring and extensions of those products,

that is to me different from like, go buy my tequila. And I'm sure, I'm sure that day someday will come. Because if I were Taylor Swift and I had the lever where you can pull and, you know, the daffy duck pile of coin is going to pour out of the sky for you by doing that, I'd probably do it. but I do, I just like, because we talk so much about the ways in which she is making a lot of money off of her fans,

it's relevant to me that she does things like this. Yeah. Because she just simply doesn't have to. She's a non-scalable resource. Everything she does today requires her presence. The songwriting, the touring. If and when she decides to actually create and become an equity owner in a brand in the way that, Haley Bieber has Road or...

Which, by the way, is good. Yeah. Like, Road and Rare are good products. Selina has Rare. Yes. They mean good stuff. So good for them. Yeah.

Yeah. Or... They are also not Taylor Swift. Thank you. Amy has skims. You know, she will... Also a good celebrity brand. At some point, she may do that.

But I think, hey, we know that the merch has been a bit bumpy. It's been outside of her control. And I think she's... It seems like she's pretty busy. So she has... hasn't gotten her hands into creating a brand yet. I do think that at some point down the road, she will be interested in being able to make money in her sleep as opposed to it requiring her to be present and awake and doing the thing, right? Because again, she's a non-scalable resource.

I'm just saying a lot of people would have flipped that switch a long time ago. And it's cool to me that she isn't. Can we talk about the fact that she seems to just like, to quote Sabrina or to sort of bastardize the quote, like her give a fucks are on vacation when it comes to these surprise songs. I think all the rules are off. The rules are gone. We have no rules.

Mashups. She did Paris twice in Paris. She did Maroon for like, I don't know, what is this? The 6,000th time she's done Maroon. Yeah. You know, she's mashing up things. By the way, on this podcast,

we talked a lot about how is it over now sounds a lot like out of the woods. And there she goes mashing. it up. Thank you. If Travis is in the building, all damn bets are off. The alchemy is going to get played on Mother's Day. I mean, it was Mother's Day. Andrew is in the building, I think. Travis is definitely in the building. Andrea might as well have been in Paris, Texas, because she decided this entire show was Travi Day. Was Travi? Sunday. And we were going to wear the chief's colors. We are going to point the golf club at him

and do some coy little smooch at him. We are going to do the elegant kiss blow before so high school and then stare him down in all kinds of ways. I mean, this was, how badly has this woman been treated in previous relationships? This guy is being treated like Prince Charming for showing up. Well, I mean, he's really showing up. He is there. He is dancing. It's awesome. He's, he's hanging. A plus Travis performance. But I mean, she really last night. Oh, yeah. Speaking of the corny campiness, it was all there on display. She wanted everybody to know. She is on team trav, isn't she? No, she is so happy that her travi made it to the big show. How much you think we're going to see him this summer?

Take us through what actually his obligations are as a professional football player trying to win the Super Bowl for an unprecedented third straight year in a row. When does his, you know, two a day start? When does his summer offseason, like you need to be showing up on-site in Kansas City start? Late July.

He's got plenty of time. I think he will be around. Yeah. I think Taylor and Travis are Euro-tripping this summer. And it's going to be cute and it's going to be silly and it's going to be probably a little cringy at times. But it's going to be very joyful. We talked about it.

He's going to be her flat Stanley, just pictures of Trav in the like palace guard hat or standing next to that guy doing something goofy trying to get him to laugh, using recycled jokes from Are You Smarter than a Third Grater? My question is at what point does Travis take on some of the, you know, because her parents, not just on this tour for years and years and years. Her parents have, like, been fixtures before the show. They'll go around. They'll hand out, you know.

Oh, yeah. Friendship bracelets or guitar picks. Or they'll tap someone on the shoulder and say, hey, do you want to? Right. No, they're, they're celebs. And they'll say, we can upgrade your tickets. We can blah, blah, blah, blah. Is Travis, I'm really curious, is anyone ever going to be approached by

ginormous Travis Kelsey? and be tapped on the shoulder to say like, hey, like, how would you like to watch the show from VIP or go down into the front row? The only person who's going to be that would be Bradley Cooper, who didn't seem to know he was at a Taylor Swift show last night. He really was. That's going to be Travis's job. The way in which he was swaying was so bizarre. Travis, can you teach Bradley Cooper rhythm? Could you teach Bradley Cooper?

He's been listening to Shallow. That's the only thing that he can hear. Yeah. He's actually, it's that and he's still doing the Leonard Bernstein. Like, he can't actually process anything else. Anything with a downbeat is too much for Bradley. He's working on it. Yeah.

And I do think, I mean, it was cute. And it made the show, I mean, by her integrating it so much into the show, first of all, she validated what lots of its thought parts of these songs were about, right? Secondly, it did make it, again, for me, it's just another reminder that she is in a completely different place emotionally than tortured poets, which makes it easier to hear the hard stuff in some ways and then in some other stuff harder for me to get deeply invested in song 29 of the track list. But what she did do was, you know, we got a lot of people asking us, hey, if you cut this down to a single album, speaking of torture poets, what would you make it? And my answer at this point is the ERAs tour set list plus the Black Dog. Yeah, and some other stuff. I mean, it's still, it's one, two, three, four, five, six songs.

She just made all the right choices. They're all, yes, absolutely. And you know what? Black Dog still on the table for the surprise songs. Oh, we're one million percent getting Black Dog in the surprise. I think we're going to get a lot of that record show.

Yeah, we're going to get a lot of that record. I'm not sure you're going to get, I don't know, maybe you get Robin. I doubt it, but we'll see. It seems like she's going to do a lot of this mash-up stuff and have fun with it versus feeling like she's got to play every single song in the canon. Yeah, I mean, you know, unless it's,

like too tough to go there. I'm sure we'll get I'm sure we'll get so long London when she's in London. There'll be some stuff like that. I left all I knew you left me at the house by the heath. I as a huge stand of the song

Paris was pretty jazzed that she did it twice just because I love that time. I mean in London. Yeah, probably. I don't know. I mean, Cornelia Street never happened in New York, right? Like it does seem that there are certain things that kind of get pushed away if it's a, if it's a tough moment. I do think if she comes out and immediately does Lommel, L-O-M-L-M-L.

I still can't do it. But that to me indicates that a lot is on the table. I also just think so long London would be really, really cool to hear in that format. So I don't know. My instincts said she'll do it, but I guess we'll have to find out. the Black Dog, though. I mean, that's the number one draft pick right now. It is the number one draft pick.

I just want Travis in the crowd as many nights as possible. This woman is down bad. And I love the way that she sort of integrated it into the show. I love that she went ham with the aliens. Oh, yeah. It's fantastic. It's just so funny. When I made the point about her being sick, there was also some chatter online,

not just about the altered body suits, but there was some chatter about whether she was, if not, not singing, that maybe they had turned up a backing track for some of the nights. Because I think for some people, it seemed like the microphone position was moving around in a bunch of different positions

and the tone and quality and tenor of her voice was staying the same. That night on Sunday night, I don't think there's any question. Like if she made a huge, huge run on 1989. She made a run in the reputation set that was different and definitely not on tape. So we've sort of speculated about this for a while. It's like, God, just, you know, if she's going to be sick, they've recorded it for sure at some point. I'm just not sure that she would allow herself to go up there

and do that. But that controversy aside, by Sunday night, she certainly was fully in and singing. And she seemed to be wiping her nose less from what I saw. Yeah, I mean, look, It's, it's, SOP to have a backing track like that. I think there's a balance here. Because look, I think we have a pretty clear understanding that there are times

when her voice is, is more tired than others. Yeah. When she's still singing up there. I mean, we saw it in Los Angeles. 100%. She was fighting some real vocal fatigue,

but you could hear it. Because she is singing. Right? went for it, or not the Netflix nights. The movie nights, whatever it was, we called them the Netflix. The movie nights, she really, really went for it. Yeah, and then some of the end, you could tell that she was needed to back off a little bit. And because you can hear her do those things, I think we have pretty good evidence that, for the most part, she's up there singing. The mic is very much on. I mean, it's all, it's always on

to a degree. There is an ability to play with what's underneath, more or less. And obviously, there's a lot of backing vocals that are a normal part of the show. If she's really sick, I'm sure they help her out a little bit more. I mean, I think this show must go on to a fairly significant degree. But I do think we've seen enough to know that even when she's dealing with something, she is up there singing. And it certainly, to your point, seemed like the last one I watched, that thing is on.

And she sounds really good. they're going to have a real dry cleaning bill for some of the outfits from night one and two because they got a lot of boogers on them. They got some tebuggies all over them. What a great surprise this was. What a great surprise. This is just another sort of,

to me, this is like a very meaningful moment in the, yes, in the history of this woman to come out with a surprise like that that really at the end of the day was a gift. And yes, like it helps us process the tortured poets more. The streams definitely jumped, you know, after that first night. And yes, it, it, you know, probably for her keeps it fresh and more interesting because once you've played this shit, you know, again, 87 times, it starts to become probably a little bit boring, which is why she

put a little bit more attitude into it. But this just, it, it, at the end of the day, was a very expensive gift. And it goes down for me as a, as a big one in the canon of Taylor Swift. Thank you, Taylor. Thank you very much. We opened it with glee over the weekend. Wake up, Bradley Cooper. All right. Last thing before we go, which is an exciting piece of news that Taylor will be guesting on a Gracie Abrams song, a duet called Us on her new album, The Secret of Us, which will be out in June on June 21st. this feature has the distinction of being the first time that Taylor has been a featured artist on a song on another woman's album. So congratulations to Gracie Abrams. You are the chosen one. I believe that was how Kaya put it before we started.

Wait a minute. She sang on gasoline with Haim. But was that gasoline version on the normal album? But I guess to your point, though, that does kind of count. Yeah, I don't, we need to, we got to take issue with the fact checkers on this, but who knows? I think it is fat, because the gasoline featuring Taylor Swift, I think it's on like a deluxe edition. Yeah, I think you're right. But also, who cares?

Yeah. Because I do think. It's cool. I do think that framing, which I think is cool for this album and cool is as for what it means right now, there is an implication of of that is like, oh, she's never done this before. And she does, like, gasoline still counts, even if it wasn't on the full-length album. I don't know. I mean, I guess you could make an argument that it's less helpful in terms of selling or promoting the thing or whatever, but I don't care. She's on the song. It's going to be cool. This is where I get a little bit annoyed with the fan base. Because I don't know that there's a female artist out there who has done more for female artists

or artists in general than Taylor Swift. Like, just look at Sabrina Carpenter has gotten into She's playing Saturday Night Live this week. She's got pretty darn close to the number one song in the world right now. She, like she has lifted up artists a lot, and I think we can split hairs and find any vertical to say, oh, well, she hasn't done this. So, you know, whatever.

It's nice to see her. She's pretty busy, so it's hard to get her in the studio because she's in the studio making 31 albums or 31 songs. And yes, probably 31 albums, too. 31 albums. That's a lot of albums. At the end of the day. I'm just saying she's constantly working, you know what I mean?

So it is nice to see her featured. I'm excited for the Gracie record. Yeah. I'm surprised that came so quickly. I'm excited to hear the song. Yeah. I'm surprised that it's coming so quickly after the last one. But I'm sure it will get added to the Pop Girl Summer Lora, won't it, Nora?

Yes, it will. And what a lore it is. All right, Nathan Hubbard, this has been every single album. Thank you for having a conversation. on a Monday about Taylor Swift, as we are wont to do. It's been a joy for me personally. Thank you, as always, to the fabulous Kai McMullen for producing this episode. And we'll be back next week to talk to you about Billie Eilish.