Every Single Album - It's the End of an Era(s Tour)

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

After almost two years, 149 shows, and 51 cities, Taylor Swift's Eras Tour has officially come to a close. Nora and Nathan talk about the cultural impact of this tour and what it did for Swift's star status (1:00), discuss what may come next for the singer now that she has some more free time on her hands (17:27), and award some superlatives, including best celebrity guest (43:45) and favorite surprise songs (51:10). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Look, it's not that confusing. I'm Rob Harvilla, host of the podcast 60 songs that explain the 90s, except we did 120 songs. And now we're back with the 2000s. I refuse to say aughts. 2000 to 2009. The Strokes, Rihanna, J-Lo, Kanye, sure. And now the show is called 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, colon the 2000s. Wow.

That's too long a title for me to say anything else right now. Just trust me. That's 60 songs that explain the 90s, colin the 90s, colonel. in the 2000s, preferably on Spotify. And welcome to every single album. I'm Nora Pinciotti, and I am here, as always, with Nathan Hubbard to talk about the end of unera and the end of the era's tour. Nathan, show wrapped up on Sunday in Vancouver.

How are you feeling? Don't smile because it happened. Cry because it's over. I think that's backwards. In the words of Sabrina Carpenter Hey, I'm I'm happy that it's over. It's time.

That's my hot take, Nora. It's enough already. It feels like we're through it. It feels like this spring there was this wonderful rise of some new female pop stars who are not taking Taylor's place but are finding new niches.

and expanding on the legacy of this tour, at least they have an opportunity to do that. And I'm done. I'm ready for what's next. I'm ready for her to take a break. I got more than I possibly could have wanted out of this tour. I think everybody did. And I'm ready for Taylor to move into yet another era,

whatever that's going to be. How do you feel? I have to say, I feel remarkably not sad about it. Like, it's time. It's like when a super old, super fucking old, like the 120-year-old Japanese lady who's the oldest person in the world passes, you're like, yeah, she lived a great life. That's awesome. Oh, geez.

Let's celebrate this. Let's celebrate this. We don't need to, you know, mourn. Are you mourning? You know how I'm feeling. And I think this has been clarifying for me just to sort of perceive the end of the air as and talk to you about it a little bit before here, and we can do a little bit more of this now,

is that I think, and I think this won't be surprising to our listeners, I think I have definitely felt, and you maybe have to, sort of conflicted to some degree about the last X number of months of Taylor Swift-related content. And you know what this got me thinking,

just sort of seeing the air, tour come to a close is it got me thinking about when we started this podcast. Well before, you know, before the re-recordings, before the Ares Tour, certainly like before just so much of what's happened. And a lot of what we were trying to do, which felt very real, was convince people and sort of prove out that this is a person on the level of the Beatles, Elvis, Michael Jackson, Make the prosecutorial case about this. This is what we started this pod to do. Right.

And to say that, you know, we were involved in this wonderful institution, The Ringer, that covers culture. And here we were saying, we need to do something about this, do something big about this. Because this is a person whose tentacles go deeper and with more breadth into culture in ways that means so much to people, like so much more than. people realize. Yeah, that it's unappreciated. Or at least underappreciated. And I do think for both of us, there is a little bit of an interesting thing going on now where, you know, I think it's very satisfying for me, certainly if we can claim to be like the tiniest little part of this. I don't think that's true anymore. It's not. People know. Like, everybody knows. You and I were on fucking CNN. Yeah. And then they quoted me on CNBC this morning.

I'm going on at four in the morning. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it's cool. And I think so while I share. The mission has been accomplished. Yeah. And so to some degree, I think sometimes I end up feeling a little bit like, you know, no, we should appreciate that that's a little bit mission accomplished and not feel like there's still this mission of no, no, there's more.

No, no, everything is topping the thing that came before it. That's right. Here we are to make another prosecutorial case about why, even though now she is on the cover of time, and the Erez tour is widely regarded as the biggest and most spectacular live touring event that has ever been a live touring event. You still don't get it. Yeah. And so I think to me, like, there's been this sense of real, and I feel what you're talking about too, right, where I think we've had so. much time to process this tour that I don't really feel like I need to now. But I think what I have felt is this real sense of like letting myself feel satisfied by that and not need to say that it,

you know, topped everything again and that the last show was somehow there were 18 Easter eggs and things we'd never seen before because that's not what it was. I think I feel. I feel feel, you know, very nostalgic for a lot of little moments, and we're going to go through a bunch of those, just a lot of things that have happened over the last two plus years. But I feel a little bit more like, and to the extent that I think sometimes we feel almost frustrated with what's the right way to talk about her now because people have kind of gotten it. I don't know. I think I felt a real sense of satisfaction of what we know that we didn't know at the beginning of the year. is that everybody gets it now.

And while that makes what it means to be like a Swifty and a Taylor Swift advocate in some ways a little bit more complicated. Yeah. We wanted that for people. And that's really cool. I think that's really well said. There is a part of me that feels both selfish and selfless about the end of this. On the selfless side, I'm really happy for her to get on with.

the rest of her life. She has given up two plus years to go out into the world and get close to people, which, yes, massive amounts of money poured in all of the things. It was a business. And one of the things that has conflicted the two of us over the past few months about the content has been the commercial nature of the content, I think. But I'm really happy and excited for her to go have a life and to maybe move at 35 years old into, dare we say, like a normal, healthy romantic relationship in a way that she isn't just like constantly on honeymoon or, you know, landing in Kansas City for one or two nights and then taking up. Like, I'm excited for her to potentially move into this idea of, like, is Taylor Swift

going to have a family? What's the next phase for her? And then the selfish part of it is, we only get new content one way, and that's by her moving on to what's next. And so I'm ready for what's next. So I feel a little bit guilty about that, but I do, like, I'm genuinely excited to see her at 35 decide, now what?

I get a little worried, like you just said, Nora, that because the fan base is constantly trying to be like, oh, this was the, you know, every single thing has to top the last little thing. that she's going to drive herself completely mad by trying to imagine how to top the Earth's tour and I just hope

and the release of albums that happened to it and everything. I can't even conceive of that as a concept. Yeah, exactly. Right, but in her, like, maniac mind right now, you know she's already like, well, now what am I going to do? And it's genuinely a position that no one on the planet

has ever been in before. She is one of the most famous people, in the world. And now she has to take a deep breath. And there's just, the only thing that I can imagine it must be like, I started a company. When you start a company, there's just an enormous amount of pressure. You feel the entire weight and burden of everybody who put their faith and their money in you and you're worried about your family and you're worried about your teammates and the people who work for you and your investors, everything, your customer, somebody. And I sold that company and it took me like,

like two months to start sleeping normally again and to like decompress and be like, whoa, and to stop like accidentally, you know, putting like my laundry in the fridge and shit, because your mind is just in other places. So I don't know. I just imagine she has been in this routine and on just a mission and so disciplined, right, with her body, with her time, with her mind. What is going to happen now that she's, unleashed. I can't wait. Yeah, I will say one of the moments that hit me. And part of why I think it was a little bit of a weird way to process the end of it was that it was in Vancouver. The time difference was really dramatic, particularly on the East Coast. Like, I was not awake. I was like,

you know what, I'm just going to find out what happened tomorrow because I can't stay up this late, which even if it had been in, like, if it had been a little bit different, I wouldn't have done that. But when I saw the video of her basically, you know, at the end of karma, getting ready for the final bow, wiping a tear off her face. She's so, like, I think the message of I can do it with the broken heart is really felt on this tour. She's such a professional. Right. And she's kind of, like, for as expressive and silly as she is up there, she's also kind of a machine.

To me, watching her perceive the end of it in that way, even just to be shedding a tear. tear on stage when she's told us in music over the course of this tour that moments of true deep heartbreak were imperceptible to the audience. The fact that she was moved that way. She got choked up in Toronto. That was the most she really showed us, right? Yeah. Yeah, that happened too.

And I mean, of course, there were the moments in like champagne problems where people thought she was crying at different times and like after the Joe breakup and stuff. So this is not to say that she's never... No, no, but I just mean, like, on the way out, it's not like she was a blubbering, sobbing mess the way that, like, a couple of the backup dancers were. But you could see that it was hitting her. And when I could see that it was hitting her

was when it started to really hit me. I just thought it kind of went out, not with a whimper, because there's lots of fanfare and coverage of it. But I also like that... she didn't do something totally different. She gave the last night in Vancouver. She trusts the show.

The show's damn good. You don't need more than the show. She gave them the same show that she gave at Phoenix on night one. And in hindsight, I kind of like that. It didn't need something massive. And as we got closer, I don't know about you, but all of my, oh, she's going to do something alarms went silent. I just felt like she's going to end this.

She doesn't need it. And most of it was because she just seems to be selling this damn book and the tortured poets, you know, anthology vinyl so hard that for whatever reason in her mind, that's the bit of commerce that she was going after trying to get to number one on the book selling stuff. And okay, great. Mission accomplished. But that meant that she needed to give that its own space and we weren't going to get reputation or debut. And I do think, you know, we can debate whether you think she's going to do something on her birthday. But we talked about what her strategies are from here, and I'm actually happy to see it.

Because as I said to you, releasing reputation, releasing debut, she can do that over the course of the next year and a half, and it keeps her in Kansas City or in a Nashville or in New York or wherever she wants to be and not the non-scalable resource that she is on stage where she's only out there when she's performing. Now she can release some. content and stay present without having to give up as much of her life. Yeah, I agree that I wasn't anticipating a lot more than just the last show of the tour,

which is what she gave. I do think that my antenna will be up. We're recording this on December 10th on her birthday. I'm going to be checking some things. I'm going to be seeing what that gal is up to. But I agree with you that it would have taken away from the end of the tour if she had announced something as anticipated as Reputation Taylor's version. And if she had announced something like, oh, there's a different version of the book with a different cover,

it would have cheapened it. It wouldn't have felt worthy of the moment. And the cover has accidentally been assembled upside down and backwards. Right, totally. So I think this may- This made sense. Like, this is what she should have done. You know, the beautiful thing about this tour is that for close to two years,

people have made routines. And, like, people have integrated the show into the fabric of their lives, of watching the live streams and texting their friends about the surprise songs and checking the apps and doing all that stuff. And it was, like, for everybody, you know, with the exception of, obviously, the time zone thing is a little tough, but what's she going to do about that? It was one last chance for people to do that and come together in that way. And was that so intense, more intense than it had been at any other point in the tour?

No? Like, I think the real peaks of this tour and the moments where it felt like the monoculture around it was the most intense were the end of the U.S. lag in L.A. and then the London shows. Like, those were the two. real moments. Those are the big ones. And so we've had those already, but I still think they just went out and did it one last time. And I don't know that there was a better thing to do. Yeah, I also will say, I think the first night when she performed tortured poets was the third

of those in that we were all logged in and there was, you know, she had Easter egg the shit out of the fact that she was going to do something. And so that was a fun last year. And seeing the welcome to the Black Parade March for the first time and the moving platform. Totally. The Roomba. But I'll say this. The Roomba. I mean, I said this, I guess, but there's still a lot to come.

And we're going to get very clearly an airs tour documentary of some sort. Behind the scenes, she was followed basically from Europe on. Yeah. There was a lot of filming, a lot of footage. I'm not even convinced that there's just going to be one. I mean, I think there's going to be a whole lot about how this thing was pulled together, which is exciting. We're going to get reputation Taylor's version.

We're going to get debut Taylor's version. I think the secret weapon in all this is we might get bored Taylor returning to social media. And just like randomly logging on. You need you just going to log on? Like, do you know how awesome that post was? I really thought you were going to say she's going to go back in the studio. She's not going to be able to help herself. And you're like, nah, she's going to be posting.

Yeah, she's going to be in like a very bleak looking Kansas City backyard in February. And she's just going to go live on TikTok or Instagram or something. And we're going to get really good shit that we haven't before because she's going to get bored. So I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, I agree with you that she will need something to channel her. into. I do wonder if it is going to be social media posts, but hey, an online Taylor has always been one of my favorite entities, so I support it. I do, in terms of the like, what happens next question, the thing that's sort of more basic and more clear to me is what

you just said. We have these sort of entities, like whatever form the documentary takes, that's going to come at some point. The remaining re-recordings, those are going to come at some point. You and I have both wondered if the amount of time that she's clearly spent in some studios recently... Yes, in New York, in Nashville, not Kansas City. Yeah, if that could be contributing to some new music that we might hear at some point. Those things, like, feel sort of, to varying degrees, tangible and, like, things that at some point we can expect. The thing that is an open question to me is the big picture of, does she look at what she's just did as just this not career victory lap in the sense that she's done, but as this thing where

she is now going to kind of let go of, you know, the scene in Miss Americana where she talks about wanting to just squeeze everything she can out of being at the center of culture as long as she is tolerated, I believe, is the word she uses by the public there. and she thinks it's going to end when she's 30, which is really like kind of cool to look back on because obviously it's gone on for so much longer than that. I wonder, and again, to me, this is a real open question and sort of the biggest question of them all,

if she now looks at where she is and goes, I thought I was going to be pushed out. And actually I haven't been. And now I'm going to take a step into a new phase on my own terms. It's actually not going to end with the zeitgeist saying, you know what, we've had our time with Taylor Swift and now that's over. It's going to not end, but morph with Taylor saying that's not what I'm striving for anymore. Or the other possibility is that she is saying, okay, I can't tour forever and I want to go see my boyfriend maybe and have a life and do whatever. but if I'm still on top

and they're still letting me be on top then that's where I want to stay. Well, the Grammys will be an interesting indicator of that, won't they? Because she's going to not win album of the year. And maybe they give something to her and Gracie.

Almost certainly. She's not winning album of the year. I think that is right. I just, because I believe that it would be bad for the general Taylor Swift cause for her to win album of the year, I'm a little,

go knock on somewhat, Nathan. Well, I think it would be bad for the public, like there'd be public backlash. I am not at all. I mean, what I'm asking you is, I think she still wants to win. And speaking of Miss Americana doc, like, when she didn't get the nominations for rep, like, I think that, and she was like, I'm just going to come back and make a better album, right? It is that sort of competitive drive that, again, we have seen even this fall,

with the book stuff, where the numbers matter, and she wants those records across everything that she does, will she be driven? Or, yeah, is she, as she decompresses, is she going to put down the sword a little bit here? And so her reaction to the Grammys is one thing. First of all, let me just ask you, do you think she's going to be pissed if she doesn't win?

You think she's going to be bummed? I think that she will not love this Grammys. not because she doesn't win album of the year, but I do think because, and I know I feel this much more strongly than you do, Fortnite is just not a strong single. There are much stronger things that could be up for Grammys than Fortnite,

but that's what it is. I think she's not really going to come away with a lot or any hardware. And I do think that based on what we know about Taylor Swift, she's not going to enjoy that. Well, but then the second gating sort of, decision thing is like, what's up with Travis? Does she want to start a family? Does she feel like she can do that fully and invest in that relationship fully? It's the classic challenge that so many successful women have in their entire lives and careers, right? Which is, can I do both?

And how do I do both? And it's just going to be fascinating to see, does she want to start the royal family, the American royal family, basically? And does she feel like she can do that while still nurturing the creative and commercial part of her. Yeah, I'll be interested to find out. That's really all I can say. I have no idea. What do you think? Do you think she's going to kick up her feet in Kansas City until February?

And then Travis picks up and they go to Nashville or New York. What do you think she does from here? I get the sense that she likes spending social time in New York. Yeah. So maybe she'll do a lot of that. I don't know. I just have no idea. Travis is having a weird year football-wise.

Like, Travis is in a weird situation himself. Yeah. He's sitting on those sidelines looking like he's not having a very good time. It seems like he's straight up not having a good time right now, doesn't it? And either that means that he has some personal things with how he's feeling about his career that he has to work through, or it means that he's at the very tail end and he's going to say, you know what, this just, they still very well could get the three Pete and then maybe he hangs him up and they have all the time in the world to spend together. I don't know. I just,

I simply have no idea. I will be watching very carefully because I do think that that has some implications, sort of unfortunately, because, you know, I would like to say that she doesn't have to choose in any regard. But like, I do think we'll see clues in her personal life in terms of where she's going to go next professionally. But I, the honest truth is that as I sit here right now, I just, I have, I have no clue. I have no clue what she wants to do with her time. I feel like I'm the, like, I'm that annoying mother at Thanksgiving at holidays who's constantly dropping completely non-suttle hints about wanting to be a grandparent with all this shit, you know, where it's like, you're funny like, mom. That's very apt. I get it. You want a baby,

mom. I got it. But can I just live my own life? That's me. I'm like Thanksgiving mom right now. Like, uh, wouldn't you? It would just be so great, you know, I mean, your, your father and I would just love, you know, the chance to, you know, we'd come and take care of. You know, it's like, shut up, mom, let me live my own life. That's where I am right now. And I need to just deal with that. I don't know what's happening right now. That's what I need to deal with. I have to say I don't really care of Taylor Swift as a baby. You don't?

No. I want her to have a family because I think creatively, like it's time for her to move into a different space. I can't wait to see what that does for her, like emotionally and just the life experience stuff. Like, I'm ready for Taylor to try something super new and have it then cascade backwards through her art.

Does I lean in that direction just because I think over time, you get the sense that she is. someone who wants a family. Oh my gosh, she's so close with her mother. I don't know what she wants. I don't know if she wants to have a kid. I don't know if she wants to be pregnant. I don't know.

I don't know if these are things that Taylor Swift cares about. See, now we're having the Thanksgiving dinner conversation. That's what the cousin says to the mother when the daughter's not around. Anyway. I do. It's just like if she wants to have a baby,

she should have a baby. That would be cool. See, I've got to do. She can have a baby without Travis, by the way. Yeah, yeah. Whether it's a family or not. I'm interested in new Taylor Swift life experiences. She's had this whole thing that's just, again,

just been this two years of ritual and discipline. So how would the alternative be? Like a ayahuasca retreat? Get really into, get a new hobby? She and Aaron Rogers can go off after the football season. Yeah, that Taylor Swift, she's got to get some life experience under her belt. Maybe she can take up backgammon. I just want to see how she interacts.

Like, she is a unicorn, right? How is she going to go interact in the world? And will she withdraw? Will she lean in? That's going to be interesting. Anyway. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about sort of the broader,

outside of just Taylor specifically, cultural impact of this tour. I mean, you obviously have spent a lot of your life thinking about live events and touring. Like, what do you think the legacy of the era's tour? will be in that area. Man, I think it's permanently changed touring. Like, I think that the expectations have been raised for anybody who charges somewhere between $50 and $250 plus a ticket, right?

We, the average ticket price of this tour was $200, right? About what we, there were 10 million tickets sold or something. 10 million people came to this show and it grossed 2 billion so I think that's about $200 in an average ticket price and for that you got three hours and 45 minutes

you got mesmerizing video screens you got pyro-technics you got a Broadway show full of a cast of dancers and band you got it all you got lights in the crowd on the bracelets I mean this was

it just raised the bar from a quality production everything standpoint. For anybody who's going to go out on stage, I mean, that to me is the first and biggest thing from an industry standpoint. Do you think that'll happen? Do you think that the average length of a live show is going to go up?

I think A, the average length is going to go up, but B, definitely the quality is going up. I mean, I'm seeing it already with artists other artists that I work with. People are sitting back going, how do we make this great? It has made everyone be sort of uncompromising in thinking about the end fan experience. I think it's going to be very hard for an artist to go up and charge 80, 90 bucks and just turn on a medium set of lights and play for, you know, 75 minutes. I just don't know that that's going to be acceptable to people. As much as we have post-COVID love the experience of coming together. I think that's why

everybody was so drawn to chapel this summer, because it was different. It was fascinating. She didn't even have the catalog to play for that long. But yeah, the Olivia show was undeniably impacted by Taylor Swift. The Sabrina show, undeniably impacted by Taylor Swift. On and on. I think these artists are going to be impacted. I mean, even just this past week, Did you see, who was it? Was it Will I Am who was talking about going to the Aeros Tour and how he was a little skeptical. He went to see it in Germany or something, Italy.

And he was a little skeptical like, oh, everybody's talking about this. It can't be that great. And he went, and he was like, freak the fuck out. And was like, this is cool yourself. And he called his agent and was like, is that offer for Vegas still on? Let's do it.

Like, he got inspired by what, and I think it has inspired an entire general. generation of artists to just be great in their live performances. So I think from a quality standpoint, that's the first thing. I also think there's a lot of other stuff. I mean, on the ticketing side, I mean, I'll just tell you, I will be stunned if on a go-forward basis, 10 years from now, we are still distributing small quantities of inventory to massive amounts of people all at the same time. It just is a formula for Stampede, not for a good fan experience. And I think the big players, the startups are all going to think about a way to distribute those tickets

that feels more equitable. So what is? So like staggering on sales would be a version of that? Potentially tying access to identity. How do I identify people who are undoubtedly my fans and give them the first shot and know that the person who buys that ticket is the fan that walks through the gate? how do I reduce a bunch of the secondary market activity? Because that's another legacy of this tour.

She left, yes, two billion dollars in gross ticket sales. She left billions of dollars on the table just based on the secondary market activity. A lot, a lot of brokers made a lot of money on this tour. Right. And look, we saw she gave away almost $200 million in bonuses, apparently, according to people, which I assume is according to tree. she left... Which I think means it's true.

Yeah, I do too. I do too. I just mean, I'm assuming that when it shows up in people through the way that they word, they're sourcing, that it's coming from her camp. That seems to be an outlet of choice for these things. Right. And she left millions and millions of dollars in every market that she came through in terms of charitable donations.

She obviously drove economic impact that has been well documented in every tour. And to me, that is a number. legacy of the tour is the community and the traveling community around it. Lots of people travel for shows. But I flew out of L.A. on Monday morning and there were a bunch of Bills fans in the airport. They'd come to see the Rams game. And they're all wearing their gear. And that is exactly what it felt like leaving London after those Eros tours. And there's something about that traveling community that, yes, it boosts the economy, but it's also a way to strengthen the bonds between fans. And she's certainly locked in this idea of residences and that the passionate fans when you have them

and you have more demand than you have supply that those passionate fans will travel to you. And that that's part of the fun. It's also a way to better manage the schedule, to better manage tour costs because you don't have to load in and load out every night. So you save all that tear down cost of staff coming in and everything else and the headache of it all. And it was a way for her to stay mentally sane, I think, across 150, the extent to which she is, across 149 shows. But also, to sort of become this roving band of, especially the backup dancers, you know, I feel like it was so much fun always to see everybody posting, not Taylor, but the rest of the crew posting from whatever city and they can be a little bit more normal and anonymous

and go enjoy Paris or Amsterdam or wherever they are. And I thought that was very fun. Well, look, and there were some other things that you and I have talked about about this tour. I mean, number one, she became just a catapult for her opening acts. Gracie and Sabrina are deserving of the attention that they're getting. It doesn't happen without opening for Taylor Swift, I think. I think.

And that speaks to a larger point. Well, I mean, there are 18 openers and not all of them. And you go through the list and everybody's pretty much had an interesting year in the wake of doing this, but not everybody has become Sabrina Carpenter, right? That's right. You got to have short and sweet the album

from a content standpoint to get there, but it sure gave a lot of artists a really good look. Suki Waterhouse right now, getting some attention that I am not sure necessarily happens if she doesn't do that hometown show in London. And that just speaks to what this stage became, right? Griff is one who hasn't quite popped off, but I'm like,

I wonder if Griff is going to pop off. Yeah. The tour became a media network in and of itself, right? She used it to launch a bunch of other projects on her own. And the wicked little insight that she didn't invent, but she certainly perfected was we're going to do a surprise, a set of surprise songs every single night that are pretty, yes, they're for the people who are in front of me,

now, but the three hour and 40 minute rest of the shows really for the people in front of me. These surprise songs are for the world who are all going to tune in through a handful of fans' phones to watch this and keep it fresh. And it's how I'm going to stay relevant. And it's going to become a media network that I can then turn around and launch Speak Now Taylor's Virgin, launch 1989, launch the book and the vinyl stuff and all the things that she did from that stage. By the way, launch her freaking relationship. Yeah. Which, by the way, speaking of the surprise songs,

I would be remiss not to mention that we did get to hear new romantics again in the final show. I was happy for you. I was very happy. I love that song. You were really laughing that she played the manuscript, but I was just happy she played new romantics. And I understand why she played the manuscript. I just thought the online.

I just thought the online, oh my God. I was like, no, nobody really wanted the manuscript. Like, nobody's like, yes. I got the manuscript. I want to be honest, this is, I actually truly think this is the first time in my life this has happened. I forgot that was a Dillersmith song.

I really swear to God, I don't think that has ever happened to me before where something came up. And like, you know, maybe I haven't thought about that Taylor Swift song in a while. But I just, yeah, I was like, oh, truly forgot about that one. But it makes sense. I mean, come on. It's the sentiment. Of course, it is. I mean, your bigger problem is you just stop with Robin, I guess.

You get to the bolter, you peter out at Robin, and you don't even listen to the manuscript. You're just still on this thing about the end of that. them. I mean, I do, I do want, well, I shouldn't cut you off. Do you think there's, is there anything else that you think you will remember as big takeaways from this tour? JJ Watt? I think it's rare to do this to me again. To see momentum build like it did on this tour. It's just the monocultural moment, right? It, it was not for everybody when it started. You and I were still trying to convince everybody. not everybody, a lot of people that this was cool and something to see. And through the course of that U.S. summer, man, she just won them over. And it just built and expanded the base in a way that I just, like you said at the start of this pod,

it's like our work here is done. Not that, don't worry, we're going to stop doing podcasts. But there is like, I agree. It does feel, it's crazy to think back. to the moment when it started, because it just has been so long. Like, it's hard to, it simultaneously feels like it's been so long,

but then it also is like, I think about, you know, in March of 2023, Cool Summer hadn't become a big hit yet. Like, that phenomenon of turning that song into a genuine streaming hit

hadn't happened yet. Yeah. Technically, it was three boyfriends ago. Like, it is really strange to me that it feels simultaneously. simultaneously so long and so short, or so short and so long, I guess, for the purpose of what we're talking about right now.

Do you have any criticism of this tour? Is there anything you would have had her do differently? It's an interesting question. I mean, I still think, if you're just brutally honest with yourself, there's no way your favorite era from that tour was the folklore or Evermore part. Yeah. Those songs, I want to see her. with Aaron and with strings and with orchestras or something, but certainly in an orchestra hall. I want to see folklore in a quiet listening type-setting room.

I want to hear Evermore in those rooms. She sold it as best she could, but they had to judge it up, girl. And I mean, there are so many things that I'm like so, like the willow orbs, right? And just like, and the champagne problem. Orbs? No, I loved the Willow Orbs. Yes, yes. And the champagne problems and the ovation stuff.

Yeah. But I do think that the flow of the post-chortured poets version of the show is the best. I mean, that's when you go to the bathroom. You go to the bathroom during those two sets. And maybe some dummies would go during 10-minute all too well. Okay. I call them dummies. I don't know why I'm going to bring this up now after close to two years.

But you guys, like, You guys can't not pee for three hours? What do you mean you guys? Who are you guys? There's so much discourse about when you pee during the Erestor. You can't not pee for three and a half hours? I'm with you on that time. I'm not trying to like bladder shame anybody, but go before.

No, no, some people really have this issue. They're not. Okay, but some people with a particular issue that's, I'm not, that, you know, go with God. I'm just saying not everybody needs to pee every three hours. Well, okay, so let's use P as a proxy for going and getting food, getting another drink, going to the merge stand when it's not 25 million miles long, even though the Blue Kruenek has definitely sold out at that point. Whatever it is that you need to do other than being enraptured

and focusing your full attention on the stage for 3,045 minutes, those were the moments when people would do it, right? I mean, they were. You could see it in the concourses. you could see it in the in the exits not that everybody left at all i mean it was packed the whole time and everybody was engaged i'm just saying you didn't leave during reputation you did not leave during the surprise songs i thought about this a lot reputation is the best era it is reputation is the best era i didn't expect it but those were the moments when she was up there

when i was like holy yeah yeah yeah Reputation is the best era. 1989, my favorite album still, I believe. And those were the songs that felt like home to me in the show. But it was reputation when she was just up there and those nights in L.A. when she was being filmed and she really went for the notes. Yeah. When the light beam goes up into the sky, especially if you're somewhere that doesn't have a roof,

it's kind of unbeatable. I'm totally with you on this. I don't like, I have obviously, you know, ride very hard for that album in general. But I do think that a lasting legacy of this tour for me will be

solidifying that that is her ultimate touring album. That is the best album to hear Taylor Swift do live. Huh. How can you say that when getaway car wasn't in the fucking set list? And Gore just wasn't in the set list.

Yes, I'm in corporate. writing a little bit of, you know, I've seen Taylor Swift in a football stadium-sized venue do getaway car, so I know it slaps. It was also great when she did it as a surprise song. But I just think in general, the fact that that era, which is also the most recent one that people had an opportunity to see Taylor Swift do live before this tour, still hit the hardest, is kind of meaningful. Yeah. I got to say that when the guitar intro to

90s or to style starts, I think that's still, yeah. Yeah, that's pretty cool. You should do your guitar intro. Should I record that for her? Impressions. And I will do the Taylor Swift mom. Yeah.

I want to do some superlatives. Because I will tell you, and I think this is what I meant when I said that I was starting to feel kind of nostalgic for it already, is I just found myself more so than being like, oh, I'm mourning the end of the Ere's tour. I just sort of found myself sitting, you know, scrolling through social media or whatever and chuckling to myself about little things that have happened over the last two years on this door. Like what? laughing about the orbs, laughing about all of the times she fell, laughing about when we, like, the first time, thinking about the first time we saw her dive into the little stage opening and how much I wanted to know what was underneath that.

It's an airbag, she told us. Yes, yes. No, we did. We ultimately found out. The book was good for that. We were informed, I think my two biggest questions after the first show, it was, what's in that hole? and

what? Leave me alone. Good God. What is in that opening under the stage? There we go. And what is her workout routine? And over time, we have actually had those questions asked and answered, so thank you, Taylor. Wait.

But, yes. You have the workout routine? I mean, not specifically, but she talked about the training and she talked about like she talked about what physically goes into making this happen in the time thing. Remember when she said she didn't drink? Yes, because you'll never let anyone forget. She was not going to drink on this tour. And I have not seen her in public.

I mean, the most, the craziest shit about the last show in Vancouver is that it's like the one night of substance when she didn't walk off with a glass of white wine. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Somehow I imagine they had a bottle of something that got popped backstage. And maybe that's why. But I want you to tell me what your favorite celebrity appearance at the ERIS tour was. Wow.

I have talked too much about JJ Watt. I was going to say, how is this not the easiest answer in the history of this podcast? Well, because I really liked watching Sir Paul McCartney. absorb and process in real time the fandom around her on the floor as they gave him the friendship bracelets. There was something fascinating

about that for me because I think she's in the rarefied air with only a few people and he was there but he never really just because of touring logistics and production and everything he never really had a touring experience

like this other than his solo tour with the Beatles at the Is he the one who took all those photographs? Yeah, no, I think it was Paul McCartney. There's an exhibit, I think it's a museum in London generally, but it's a tour, and it was at the Brooklyn Museum last year, and it was all of these photos that he'd taken right around the time when they came to America.

And it is the coolest thing, because you just see that through his eyes, basically. I thought you were telling me that he took pictures of Taylor Swift in the concert. I was like, what? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. On the plane and in the cities and, you know, in the getaway cars when the fans are swarming and all of that. And you do get a sense of like there's a real distance.

Even though they're swarmed, it's always sort of like it's just a different kind of environment. So I can see how soaking in what it's like when everybody's trading the friendship bracelets is would be really fascinating for someone like him. Yeah. Well, I think that was it for me. Yes, it was J.J. Watt. And in case you've never listened to this podcast before, I just thought that J.J. Watt was a person who, in the way that he praised her after Arizona and talked about the physical feat that they're, and maybe I'm wrong about this, but I just think there were some men who were not sure whether it was cool or okay to get into it. this. And JJ in the way that he praised her and rightly admired the physical part of this, I felt like suddenly you had guys who were paying more attention and through the course of that summer as more athletes. And to your question, celebrities sort of poured their way through, it just expanded the universe. And I know I'm over ascribing it to JJ Watt. I get it. It meant a lot to you. That's okay. It meant a lot.

But I think it meant a lot to me. It meant a lot to me because it was like, yeah, it recognized, I guess maybe it was just validation of what you and I have been trying to sell for a long time, which was, holy shit. This is like hard for anyone to do and to have like a massively popular athlete say, this is an athletic feat as much as an entertainment vehicle was really fascinating. What was your favorite celebrities to show up? So I will say, I think the stories that. came out where Hugh Grant said that Travis got him just absolutely hammered.

Like that to me, I'm a lot. That to me, like, that'll just, I'll just be able to chuckle thinking to myself about that for the rest of my life. Yeah. I mean, I think like, like some of the, like some of the random ones, like Ethan Hawke seemed to have a great time. That's fun. Um, all of the, you know, I love when Laura Duren shows up anywhere. Carly Clause in the third deck. Yeah, I mean, that's probably the winner, right? Like, I was thinking about people who were in the tent. But the day Carly Clause showed up and didn't have VIP tickets, that was incredible.

That was the best. We've lived so much life. The Aeros store has given us so much. It gave us Carly Clause in the third deck. I know. What a moment. I mean, you watched. You watched Channing Tatum and Zoe Kravitz make out.

Yeah. So, you know, that's something at the show in London. Yeah, that was good. It's Carly. The answer's Carly. There you go. We'll give Hugh Grant and JJ Watt first and second runner up, but the answer is Carly Cawson, the third row.

Thank you. Do you have a surprise song, either that you saw in person, because you went to this tour 800 million times, or that you saw via live stream that, or a surprise song set, that just felt a cut above. I have a couple,

and I don't want to pretend, there's a couple that I, like, remember, and then I did, like, go, like, I think that the death by a thousand cuts, getaway car mash up with Jack and then So Long London. London. London Night 8.

I think that probably for me is number one. But there were some others that like she did Ivy. Then she did, I miss you, I'm sorry, with Gracie who she brought out because they had canceled her set. And then she did call it what you want. And so A, it was the rare three surprise songs before she started doing the mashups.

And B, you got a preview of Gracie and Taylor. And that was in Since a Freaking Natty, which, again, they'd had to cancel Gracie's set, right? Because of the thunderstorms. Right. Those are really good ones. The London Night 8. I do think that might go down as sort of the epic night. There was one in New York really early on, not the one that I went to,

but where she did getaway car and maroon. Yes. And that's still to me, and that was when she had Jack and they pantomimed the video of them coming up with the Getaway Car Bridge. I think about that one a lot, especially because, I mean, one of the sort of little insights is like, what Taylor's favorite songs are because you're on your own kid

as a surprise song more than any other song she did it 11 times and now I'm sure that means it's very near and dear to her but it is also kind of you know that is a song about having eras

so make the fresh phrase let's take the moment and taste it you got no um so I think it's appropriate the next most was maroon like Taylor loves maroon Dude, Bev loves Maroon.

Bev loves Maroon and Taylor loves Maroon. Taylor and Bev, perhaps one and the same. Think about that, Nathan. Yeah, I mean, she was really selling midnights for a while. But it did get to a, yeah, it got to a problem where she didn't have to be doing that anymore. ultimately, like most of the... She played maroon the last night, so yeah. Well, but was she selling midnights or was she selling maroon?

I'm not sure she's selling midnights because she did maroon, but then the next ones were out of the woods, clean and death by a thousand cuts. She did out of the wood seven times clean and death by a thousand cuts. She did six times. Well, by the way, she did death by a thousand cuts and clean in Dallas in early April of the start of the tour. And that's when I was like, holy shit, she just, like, completely did the grand finale of fireworks

at the beginning of the tour. Like, I can't, I couldn't believe she did both those songs when I, that was one of my favorites. But little did I know that we were going to hear it a lot more for the rest of the tour. Yeah. There are only six songs that she didn't do. Is it six or is that seven, one, two, three, four, five. No, six.

She didn't do Ronan or Soon You'll Get Better, which I think was probably predictable. And then the four that never made it were Forever Winter, girl at home Bye bye baby And that's when I am sure we shamed her out of girl at home I wish she'd done it

Oh you know I do It would have been incredible I can't believe she did Superman and not girl at home Just do it Superman is good Superman is fine This is what I'm telling you about the manuscript. There's never been a moment in my life

when I didn't know that Superman was a Taylor Swift song. There were some, though. There were some songs that, as I went back through and looked at the list of surprises, I was like, oh, right, that's a song, right. That song is different from that song. Oh, right. Starlight and Daylight.

And I know those songs. It's just like, there was some like, oh, yeah, I forgot about that one. She clearly had two. See, this is what I'm saying. That doesn't happen to me. And so it's throwing me that happened with the manuscript. I think the worst night was the first night in Argentina.

She played the very first night, and she played labyrinth. Like those people had to go home. Like, what the fuck? I mean, Argentina was a real... It was a moment. Yeah. Because that's where the kiss happened, right? Yes.

And that is where the original karma is the guy on the chiefs. Karma is the guy on the chiefs. She really saved it all for the night that he showed up. I don't think he was there for Labyrinth. He came the next night, as I recall. He was on the plane. He boarded the plane as they were playing labyrinth. I mean, what else?

down there. So that was the first big Travis moment, and then, of course, he comes on stage in London. Lest we forget, he was not the only Taylor Swift, Paramour, who made an appearance on stage at this show.

In a skeleton costume, no less. In a skeleton costume with the candlestick, with Phoebe Richards, Maddie Healy. Rocking back and forth with his back to the stage as she tried to land

the, uh, you know, the cabaret, Chicago, like to sit in vigilantee shit, right? Yes. That's the most perilous part of the show. It is incredible, Nora, that she didn't have a bigger wipeout, isn't it? For all of her little errors to her stuff? There's that, there's that video that circulated of, I think Olivia Rodriguez recently, like, really ate it on stage.

Oh, she ate it so bad. And that never happened to Taylor. Fascinating. And she wears the highest heels. Yeah. And she's running around. She lost a heel in a show, remember? She ripped it off.

Yeah, she lost a heel. Now, okay, the time when the piano, this is in Massachusetts, I think this is in Boston, when they'd had so much rain because there's always a rain show at Gillette and where the piano wasn't working. Stopped working. Yeah. That was ridiculous.

That was really funny. did show up with an injury on her hand, remember? Yes. And she, like, explained, I'm fine. I just, but she had a wound. But the wound did not, it came from other clutzing behavior. It did not come from clutzing on stage. Yes.

I mean, it's crazy. Were we a one of it led to believe that that was, like, a baking accident? Maybe. Maybe. We just don't know. We just don't know. Because, yeah, she did. She had the wrap on her hand or the bandage on her hand.

Right. Yeah. No, I mean, she made it through this. And there were times when she said she had a cold and was sort of blowing her nose. But she made it through this. The thing that no one will ever... Yeah, the thing that no one will ever tell us

that I know must have happened at some time is... I wish there was a way for us to get the truth serum on nights in which the backing tracks were a little bit higher than others. There were definitely nights where she didn't go for notes. Right. But, like, I'm telling you every single tour of substance that plays the same set list, more or less night and night out, they do a recording.

In case there is a, you know, if Chris Martin is really, really sick, they're going to run. They're not canceling the cold play show. They're not canceling the cold play show. And now, her problem, of course, was that every night she had to get up there and do surprise songs. So she had to be singing, which she was. But I would love to know how often and in what, under what circumstances, she actually was sicker than we understood. And maybe, you know what?

Maybe we'll see that in the behind the scenes footage stuff. Yeah, that would be really interesting. Or if she had, I know, who's to say Taylor Swift didn't have shin splints for two months last August? You know, like it's. That's like I said, we never saw like a bad bruise or a cut other than that thing on her hand. Well, but she wears two pairs of tights. Okay. I don't, those are things that you know.

She wears two pairs of tights. She wears the like sheer tacks underneath and then she wears the nude fishnets. Again, I will go to my grave with this information. I am not schooled in these ways. Beyonce does it too. It's actually, it's like all the pop stars wear the same combination because from afar it makes everybody's legs look really good. Okay. So how about that?

Okay. Yeah, no, that would be, I would be interested to get that in the dock, like if that ever happened. Just a little more about what, what are some of the obstacles that she actually had to overcome night and night out? Like, were there times where she woke up

and her body just felt like shit? Yeah. Did she ever actually have COVID? Because she is, is there, are there support tracks? Of course. And you'll see, like, when people post, videos from the shows,

often you'll see in comments because fans are so smart now is like you'll see people making comments that are meant as compliments like oh, the mic was on tonight. And so I think like people understand. But there were nights even in that long L.A. run

where you could tell that she had a lot of shows in a row and she was really selling out in some of them because they were recording. And then there were, were some where she was tired. And you could, like, sometimes you could tell when she was more tired than other times. But she always, you know, she always well more than cleared the bar. So to your point, it would be interesting to know if there were any times when that was sort of in

doubt. Yeah. L.A. we saw it. By the end of those L.A. shows, she was tired. I was tired all last week. For sort of no reason at all, I was just tired. That must happen to Taylor Swift, right? It has to. She's super human. Who knows? She is super human. What else are you thinking about? It's all about what she does next. It really is for me. I'm fascinated by it. And we're making the joke about her having a baby.

Like it's her life, her choice. She and Travis, whatever. We are making the joke. Yes, of course, both of us. Both of us participated in this line. I'm making the joke about it. But it's real, what I'm interested in is like, where does she want to take her life from here?

That's really what it's about. All of it, her choice, her life. But what is she going to do? Because there just hasn't ever been somebody with this level of fame, with this level of culture in the palm of her hand, will she walk away from it?

Is she capable of walking away from it? I don't think she is, Nora. I think she's capable of going and, you know, starting a life or whatever she wants to do on her own. But I don't think, I think what makes her great is that she has to stay in work mode.

I just do. So then do you think what that, but there's, okay, but so this is what's interesting to me is to me, at least there's a difference between work mode, which I would think about as we know that Taylor Swift has an immense and never-ending drive to create and to process her life through creating music. And I cannot, for as little as I feel like I know about what she's going to do next,

the one thing I cannot imagine is that she is somehow going to flip a switch and no longer be the type of person who wakes up at 2.30 in the morning, because she has an idea and doesn't go downstairs and find her piano and take out her voice recorder. I don't think there's any chance that that changes.

The thing that feels very unanswered and open to me is, again, going back to that idea from Miss Americana about her wanting to squeeze every drop of being a center of culture, pop star,

out of her life and her career that she possibly could before people moved on. to me, like, really the only, the question that unlocks everything is does she still feel that way? Right. Is that still her goal?

Because if that question was framed basically to say at some point people are going to get sick of me, you know, there's a certain amount of discourse now, and I think you can take a cultural temperature and come away with a certain amount of the tour went on for a long time. There are other artists like Sabrina Carpenter, Chapel Rhone, you know, to some extent Charlie reemerging, who have put themselves at the center of pop.

Even in a sneaky way more so, not by scale, but by kind of the cultural heartbeat than Taylor Swift is anymore. Right. And she's seen Katie Perry trying to get in the door and not be able to get in, right? But on the most basic level, I think if you ask yourself the question, has culture begun to push Taylor Swift out the door? The answer has to be pretty unequivocally no. Okay. I mean, that book sold a lot of copies. And I don't like, I don't know that there was all that much put into that.

Yeah. There is still very evidently a real. appetite for her to keep doing more. Yeah. That's not me saying that it's the most it's ever been and that there aren't maybe some early signals that she's doing this at the right time and that things are turning.

But what I am saying is that on a basic level, I think if that is still her objective, she probably can't look around and say, I have concrete evidence that people no longer want to hear from me and therefore it's time for me to change. And so if she changes, what she's operating in order to do,

which to my eye for the last two plus years has been with the objective of being the biggest pop star in the world. If she changes, that has to reflect a change in philosophy of, I'm not going to try to squeeze every last drop out of this. I'm going to do this on my own terms.

She's gone away before, though, Nora, right? She's disappeared when she's known... But I think she felt pushed. I think now I think she felt pushed and I also think that the snippet that I'm talking about and I am drawing a lot of insight from, you know, one conversation that we saw in a documentary, that was with all of those experiences after 2016 in the rear view. So maybe that's something that she came to feel more strongly about coming out of that.

Like I really don't know. I do return to that moment a lot when I think about what comes next for her just because I think it's kind of the key. Well, I'll offer a counter because there was, I don't know, seven years ago, five years ago, I had a conversation with someone in her camp. And this is not a violation of trust by any means, I don't think, who said, inferred that she might not do it forever. that it wouldn't completely surprise them if at some point she put down the sword as we've been talking about on this thing.

Now, that was before a whole lot of things happened. It definitely was a pre-COVID conversation. It was a pre-lover conversation. It was a pre-renaissance of folklore and evermore. So, like, completely different world. But that lives in the back of my head occasionally, wondering, I can't believe it because there's nothing about the way that she operates

that makes me think that she can stop working. But she's just at this pivotal moment. And no one has ever been at the top of this mountain before. And I just don't know where else there is to climb right now. So maybe she takes a breath. Well, we will find out. We will be there every step of the way to break it down. I am certainly excited to see.

Nathan, this has been a very fun conversation. It's an exciting, like, it is a really, the Ares Tour was really special. And in some ways, I think, while I've felt a little bit what you did of, you know, it ran its course, it was time, it had been so long. The more we talk about it, the more I find myself going, Taylor Swift created this really amazing space that meant a lot to a lot of people ourselves included. Most culturally impactful tour of all time in my view. And it has irrevocably changed live events, in particular in the concert business. And then some. And now the question is, is Taylor Swift still a musician?

Is she a paparazzi figure? Is she both? God, I can't wait to see. It was rare. We were there, as they say. This has been every single album. As always, I'm Nora Pinceati. Thank you to Nathan Hubbard.

Thank you to Kaya McMullen for. producing this episode and we'll talk to you next week.