Every Single Album - Lily Allen's 'West End Girl' and Grammy Nominations Predictions

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

Nora and Nathan talk about the revelatory new album from Lily Allen, 'West End Girl' (1:00), and where it fits within the canon of divorce albums (18:30). Then they make some predictions for the Grammy nominations, which will be announced next week—including who might be nominated for Best New Artist and Song of the Year (35:47). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan HubbardProducer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to every single album. I'm Nora Princeati and as always I am joined by my friend Nathan Hubbard. Nathan, how are you doing this afternoon? Well, I'm doing better than Lily Allen's ex-husband. So we have a little bit of a surprise today because we, like I think many of you, got hit by West End Girl, a somewhat surprise and definitely surprising release from Lily Allen last Friday. We had planned that today we were going to spend some time making some predictions for next week's Grammy nominations, which will come out. And we're still going to get to that. We're still going to have a little conversation at the end here about what stories we're tracking and what we're interested in coming out of that. But we felt like this album kind of demanded our attention and demanded our attention right now. We're certainly seeing all of your messages about this.

and, you know, it's... Do you think they were bots or actual listeners? We got hit by a lot of people this week. Well, I don't think they're bots. I do think that one of the interesting questions about this album, which tells the story in kind of narrative, taking you through what she felt in the moment form of the dissolution of her marriage to David Harbor

and a lot of infidelity and a lot of their relationship dynamics and how she learned about various things. Yeah, well, some of them are dynamics, some of them are... That's the word I'll choose to use for now. We'll use some other words later. Placeholder.

And I think, like, I will tell you that the thing that has been on my mind the most is, like, how do we... Or should we make some attempt to separate this album as music from this album as kind of car crash can't look away disclosure? Yes, you should. I mean, I think it is using the car crash can't look away disclosure stuff to get a lot of, of attention. And I think people's reaction to it are just the brutal honesty with which she talks about the dissolution of a marriage and the reasons for it. We've heard plenty of breakup albums before.

We haven't heard a whole lot of sex toy conversation and not realizing it was a sex den, thinking it was a dojo stuff before. You're going to have to say Pussy Palace by the end. this recording. I don't know if I am going to have to. You're going to have to do it. I'm just telling you now. I'm going to call it the dynamic room, the dynamic palace. It is, look, the thing about it is that she sort of understands the assignment of pop music these days that I'm not sure every pop album that's come out this year has understood, which is that we more than ever, I think, because of our singular screen-based existence these days have just a thirst and a hunger as human beings for human connection. And what comes with that in our musical taste in many cases is a desire to be

connected to the human being behind the music. And that means being invested in the person in their personal story. And of course, Taylor Allison Swift is the master of this and perhaps the founder of this movement, the modern form of this movement. But I think, it's why a number of albums that we've tracked have resonated with people. I think it's why Gracie Abrams as an artist is so well received because she speaks to and in that way. And so this album does that. I am so interested to see from a streaming perspective and to hear how people sit with this on a go forward basis. Like Brat, okay? People had a reaction to Brat, but it's sustained. It endured because I think the music was part of what pulled you in. And you just

asked the question, I am not sure that the music on this album, on a standalone basis, would have garnered remotely the same engagements. Not that it's bad. I quite enjoy it. I think ruminating is pretty cool of a song. Tennis, pretty cool song. And who's Madeline? Dynamic Palace, pretty cool song. Dallas Major, I'm into it. Let you win, pretty good. All I can do. You haven't even named my favorite yet. Great. Well, we're going to talk about it.

I think that what grabs you by the throat is the sequence and lyrical. You can't listen to this album out of order if you're going to get it. And it is a story. And each one of these songs is a chapter. Many of them bleed into the next. And I think it is just so brutally honest that that seems to be what's grabbing people. What was your experience of the music? I can imagine what your experience of the storytelling was.

I mean, in some ways, like, I'm still trying to find my experience of the music. I think, you know, more and more as I keep listening, I'm pulling out some melodies that I think are really catchy and some that are really fun. I do enjoy it. I think it's very good. I just, and I like, I've been a Lily Allen fan. I, in general, really enjoy her. I just have such a difficulty pulling myself away from the holy shit she's telling us about the lube and the butt plugs in the Dwayne Reed bag. It's hard to just listen to and not grimace a bit.

I'm not even grimacing. Why am? I mean, look, I get a little bit, I suppose. But I'm kind of amazed just by her choice to go for it in that way. And I mean, look, like Lily Allen in the past has a song about how a different ex is not very well endowed. That is just called Not Big. So she's done things that venture into this sort of disclosure territory before, but not like this. Not in a whole album format.

Not in this way where like the entire structure of the thing seems designed is designed to just lay everything possible out there. Yeah. And I find that really riveting. It's just that it's so riveting that I'm like my brain can't focus on anything else. And so that's why I, because so this album. It has done a very rare thing so far, which is that it's been streamed. So there's basically, we're recording this on Tuesday afternoon. So there's basically three days where we have the data.

It's released second day and then third day. And it has grown significantly each day. And that is really uncommon. Usually, especially for a big pop album, you know, everybody gets excited and then it comes out and everybody's listening and then day by day. it goes down. But because there is so much discussion about this, because there is such a tabloidy element to it, and because everybody's hearing where she's going in the lyrics and goes, oh, I want to listen to that, it's drawing more and more people in. And I just, I think the most interesting

question is how many of those people are going to stick around for it after they've learned the answers to those questions. And to be honest, I'm still really having to be honest, I'm still really having trouble wrapping my brain around that because like I'm not even sure where I go. Right. Well, and that's why I made the comparison to Brat because both cut through from a cultural perspective and there's all this chatter online. And one of the things we need to talk about is there, Lily Allen has a bit of a messy history, right? There's the video circulating of Zoe Kravitz, you know, claiming that she was attacked by Lily Ellen, not that they actually kissed,

which is the way that it was represented by Lily. So, and Lily herself in being asked about this album and said, I can't say everything on here is true, but who knows, right? But I think it is that. It is, are people rubbernecking and is the noise around this, people being like, holy shit, did you see in the chatter and the gossip that comes always as people deny their own skeletons and enjoy the yapping, the Travis and Taylor in the car gossiping about the VIP tent stuff? or is there something, you know, that's going to resonate with you? I will say this.

It's hard to run this album back. Like, it's hard to just put it on in the background and just let it go. Like, there isn't, like, the right situation for backgrounding this record in your life. Which is funny, because if you translated it into a language, you didn't speak, it would be the opposite. Like, she, Lily Allen does light and fluffy sound. music. She does music that is almost like, I say like I would consider myself a fan. I tend to enjoy her. The moments when I go away a little bit are when she can almost be kind of twee. She's a little bit of like that Zoe Day Chanel thing where it's almost like a little too cute. There's nothing cute about

this. Yeah. Some heavy shit. And sometimes the disconnect of that, I find sort of fun and charming. But It's just, I agree with you. You can't just put it on and play it and, you know, put it on for a dinner party or something like that. But maybe that's another reason why I'm just sort of struggling with the back and forth between the music and the lyrics. Because if you just looked at it musically, you really, it's a type of album that you really could do it, do that with. It's not a lot of down tempo. It's all kind of like mid tempo and bright sounding. But then, you know, it's Pussy Palace.

Indeed. Which it appears is like the most streamed song on this record pretty much. People are going straight to it. Yeah. It's also, it also might be the best. Yeah. I get why it's the most streamed for sure. And I think, I almost think that I'm sort of falling into the trap of not taking this album

as what it is supposed to be, which is revelation, which is like, it's a type of processing that doesn't necessarily have to come to a conclusion. It's just letting you into, it's tortured poets-esque in its way,

like letting you into this couple of week period of intense, intense, intense, personal experience and feeling. and that's where it, like, that's what it's doing. That's its medium. And in that way, I think Pussy Palace deserves to be the best song. I don't know that I think that melody is like the most lasting melody. I don't know that I think there's like a production trick going on there that I think is really especially cool.

But it's just what she's telling you. I just, I can't tell you how many times in the last three days I've been walking around the house, finding myself just singing the line, I always thought it was a dojo. Like, anytime I'm confused about anything right now, I'm just like my go-to phrase is, oh, I always thought it was a dojo. Could have fooled me.

I hope that sticks around. The thing that I love about that is that it's, is that dojo is also pretty lame. Yes. Like, oh, I thought that you were taking this crazy ass house that we designed together and we're kind of turning it into this loser man cave.

Right. But what comes with it is Dojo, like the inference there is oh, I'm like a whiny man in my feelings and I need my space and I just need to have this place. Yeah. Like it's all of this just like weak-ass shit that you can see, just in that phrase,

you can see all of the scaffolding of the manipulation and lying behind it. Well, and it's not right, because it's not like I thought that you were doing something good and you were doing something bad. It was, I thought you were doing this kind of lame thing, but I didn't think you were doing that.

Yeah. And then I took the F train, and we miscommunicated, and I showed up at the door, and I learned some things, and I saw some things. Stuck on the F, there's a problem on the line. I couldn't be more stressed. I'm losing my mind. And now I have put them on an album for all to see.

Have you? So just, just regarding the Pussy Pallison question. Because this is like one of the conspiracy corner. It's not even conspiracy corner, but just like Easter eggs of all time. Have you seen their... architectural digest home tour from 2003 of the palace. I did not. No, I did not.

I saw some, I saw like an awful online story about someone who maybe threw themselves to their own death from his apartment. So that's a different apartment. Okay. I believe, I believe that was his like West Village apartment. But this is, this shit gets dark. has some pretty cursed taste in real estate. Yeah, but this gets dark when you start to get beyond the album. Like, if you are rich in Lily Allen lore,

some of the things around this, I guess, don't come as a surprise. But if you just listen to this album cold and then start fucking Googling, you're not going to love what you see. Yeah, no, for sure. And in a lot of cases, in more serious terms than a carpeted bathroom, which is one of the things that they have. Okay. Like, among the lighter category of disturbing things that you might see is this home tour in which he has this very special room, which, God, now this all has a whole new connotation.

But they have a carpeted bathroom. And it was very important to him that all of the faucet knobs be swans. Okay. And so they're all swans. And it's a distinctly wet area. Like you would take a bath there and there's just carpet everywhere. And it's so disturbing to me. Like it's just so upsetting.

How does that not become so gross? No, I know. That's why it's upsetting. That's like never changing your bath mat. Yes, 100%. I don't understand. People's feet are disgusting. It's disgusting.

And they, so imagine you've chosen to carpet your bathroom. So every time you take a bath or take a shower and you get out, you are like dripping water and like shampoo remnants or whatever. I don't want to imagine this.

On to this carpet. And then architectural digest is like, hey, we want to showcase your space. And you're like, yeah, I want to tell everybody about my carpeted bathroom. She had an only fan

where she just like showed her feet. Yeah. There's some weird shit around this. It becomes darker and fucking weirder when you unpack all of it. If you just take it as the album, you're like, wow, what a piece of art. This is insane. I'm sorry for her. I'm rooting for her.

And then when you get out and read all of the detail, who knows what's true at this point, but there, as you said, there's some verifiable shit. Does it matter to you if she? She is a reliable narrator. Oh, that's a good question. Yeah. Because I think there is a courage in truth-telling pain like this and detail like this. I certainly agree with that.

And I think it makes a difference about how I feel about the art. I guess I think that there's a difference between whether I think that she, She is like a reliable narrator or if there's an element of introspection that's maybe missing. Because it's, I mean, look, like I don't know, but I don't know anything by looking into the backstory or knowing the backstory that makes me think that these things didn't happen. It's more that when you know some of that, you wonder, well, how does she think about how those things? fit together. And I would say that this album, which I think is mostly pretty strong,

gets weakest towards the end when it starts to seek some conclusions. Because I don't think this is a great thing to draw conclusions from. It's like all it, right? It's all feeling and reaction and this is what was going on in my mind as a result of these things.

things. And then when you try to tie it together with a neat bow, it falls a little flatter for me because then it's like, well, Lily Allen, like, you've got some of your own shit too. How does that work in relation to how you feel about this? And I don't think that she really goes there, which doesn't necessarily bother me when it's at its most almost like word vomit revelatory but starts to creep into my experience of it in the last few songs where I feel like she's looking for kind of that ending note. Well, she's at least trying to move through it

by the end of it. And is she or has she or has she not? It's hard to tell. She at least says that she feels very removed from these feelings. But it does matter to me whether or not this is true or not. It does.

I guess it would matter to me if it was completely untrue, I guess I believe that it is mostly true. I just guess, but we are obviously getting one person's side of it. Yeah. I don't think I really want to hear the other side of it. I don't either, although I do believe

that there is a stranger things press tour beginning fairly soon, which might be an interesting experience. I'll be most interested, though, with all of the chatter that we got, there is very much a holy shit listening to this. And it's good, but the holy shit is in the narrative. And I will be interested to see if people come back and revisit this,

or if it's like one of those things where you just set it aside, put it on the table, I don't necessarily have to come back to that. It's now a book in my collection that I know is there, but I don't go back in reference phrases or chapters on a reference. regular basis. Well, you know what song I know that I will come back to, though? I find 4chan Stan to be incredibly catchy. You do? Yeah. And you don't have a problem with, do you think she really knows what 4chan is? Yeah. Or no, I don't, I actually think that that's sort of like, there's something sort of lighter and sillier and messier to, like, do I think,

that she knows what 4chan is in general. Yeah. Even if she does, 4chan stand in and of itself doesn't really make sense. That's what I'm saying. Right? Like you're not a stand of 4chan. You might be a stand of something who's, you know, acting out that stendom via 4chan. But it's almost funnier to me if she doesn't have it quite right because she's just like, I'm not involved in that. Like, that's not my world. So no, it does, it, it, it, it doesn't bother me. I also think that it really benefits from having those A sounds in words like sad, sad man, that sounds so good with a British accent.

Yeah, she does, she does Brit pop very well. I really enjoy that. And I just, it's, it's one of those little mini hooks that there aren't, tons of them, but I will come back to that melody. And that's the song that I find myself wanting to reach for. I always thought it was a dojo. Is there anything that jumps out at you is as difficult? Are there any blasted into the suns? Uh, good question. Do you have one? So blasted into the sun, no. Like a fruity loop you didn't love. Fruity Loop I don't love.

I don't love beg for me. Right. It's, it's just that it's up to that point been so revealing. It's almost like I have this need to be shocked or interested or sort of taken to a new place and those songs don't offer it. I think these are different stages of the grief, though. Yes. No, I agree.

I agree. And she starts to try to put herself out there. but still has those feelings of like why, why did you not beg for me? That's what I want in my life. And then finding the strength to not just go back into that somewhat, what sounds to be somewhat manipulative, potentially emotionally abusive situation.

And then sort of concluding, you know, fruity loop, I don't know, this whole album could be, this motherfucker is weird. It could be the title. You know what I knew that? Carpeted bathroom. I've shown this for you.

You're stitching it all together. I mean, there's just some weird shit. I mean, there's also... Stranger things, indeed. In the AD thing, where they have one of those couches where it's on both sides of the... There's like the back and it goes on one side and then the other side. And they talk about how good it is for arguing because you don't have to look at the person. Man, if you need an arguing couch...

Yeah. Yeah. there may be some signs but even in those songs it's not like I the stuff when she starts to come out of it and is going back and forth

like I love Dallas Major I think that's really fun and really cool and the whole story of it is awesome but it gets a little more platitude in this I think about Lily Allen is Dallas Major on Raya so I'd be quite famous

like matching with people and then It's so funny. She's also so distinct looking. Like, you wouldn't think for it. If you know what Lily Allen looks like, you're never going to be like, is that Lily Allen? You're pretty sure. Well, like, contrast it with like, there's no way John Mayer's on Raya like as anything other than John Mayor. He's using the name John Mayor on Raya to find as many dates as possible. Whereas Lily Allen was like trying to wade back into dating. What should I call myself? I know, Dallas Major. without it being a thing. Very different approaches to the same service. So can I give you a combination

like collaborating influence slash conspiracy corner slash next album appetizer all in one? Yeah. I think she's got to take this to the stage. Interesting. I think this has to be like a one-woman show or a musical or something

because where this all starts is West End Girl. I said I got some good news I got the lead in a play That's when your demeanor started to change You said I'd have to audition I said you're deranged She gets a job In a theater production on the West End

And where our story starts Is her sharing this news With her actor husband Who doesn't take it very well Seems to imply a little bit of jealousy or controlling stuff going on in his reaction to it. And then when she goes and does that, it leads to everything that follows or is part of everything that follows.

And you get a lot of her as an actor in this, when she acts out her on the other side of the phone call or the Madeline stuff. Yeah. And she's really really good. What a fucking line. What a fucking line. Oh my God. That's incredible.

That's an incredible moment. That's one of my favorite moments. That felt very brat influenced in a good way. Yeah. I mean, quite a bit of this felt very brat influenced to me. But I just think she should go put this on. Like she's clearly, she's clearly taking a lot of inspiration. from this experience.

She didn't necessarily know that she was going to even make music again because she was finding fruitful work on stage. And why not put the two together? Well, I think it might be somewhat reminiscent of the first half of the 1975s last tour where they did being funny in a foreign language as him sort of kind of doing a one-man show and slowly descending into chaos and then eating the meat and climbing through the TV and shit

and then they come back and do a bunch of the greatest hits. Like her, something, something analogous to, as you say, sort of like the one-woman show acting it out could be really interesting. It definitely, look, let's just say this. I think, for the most part,

Lily Allen, a month ago, would have mostly been regarded as a little bit of a mess British singer songwriter who had her heyday and... Which was at this point pretty long gone. A decade ago, plus. Yeah.

Yeah. And that that was it. And that, you know, the assumption was she's like Jewel now, which is like great, understand, but best days behind her, except that Jewel doesn't have the messiness. But, you know, like, she'll show up in the tabloids every now and then. And it's like, oh. She'll has her own brand of messiness.

What happened to Jewel? Yeah, exactly. So that's the way that I thought about her. But boy, now, boom, she's like right in the conversation. And so mission accomplished on that front, like all these things, let's watch to see the stickiness. Was it a, was it just like a viral TikTok or did she reinvent herself as an artist? This does feel like a pretty intense piece of art. Definitely.

And it startled me. It made me feel things. It left me with questions. It does, you know, I think it's a difficult album in some ways because it is definitely lyrics and storytelling first, music, second. But she accomplished in 45 minutes quite a bit of what we sit here asking artists to do all the time, right? And so, you know, it's, we're going to talk about the Grammys a little bit.

it's not eligible this year. I wouldn't be shocked if we're talking about it when the 2027 ceremony norms roll around next year. I will be really surprised if we don't see it on a bunch of year-end critics pick best albums list. The Metacritic, I think it's like 89 or something. It's really high.

And I think some of that, is maybe a little bit prisoner of the moment in the sense that it's just so captivating. Yeah. It's going to be the cool kids album for at least two or three months. And that's a real, like if you'd put predictions for Lily Allen on your bingo board at the start of this year, like this would not have been there for me.

No, no way. I mean, I think what's going to be interesting as we get into the Grammy thing is, you know, I have a sense we're going to get another Charlie XX record, a sort of brat two in 26. I have a sense we're going to get a Phoebe Bridgers record in 26. And you have a Taylor Swift record that's out now. There are going to be some, yeah, I have a sense you might have a Harry Styles record in 26.

So you've said. You know, there could be a third Beyonce, the rock record, like, that's hanging out there. So does this get subsumed by stuff that comes out a little bit closer to the voting, which is going to take place, you know, there's a whole summer to happen? Not that I think that it's going to be a super strong contender, but that's going to be the life of a showgirl year, too. That's what I was saying, the Taylor Swift stuff, yeah, for sure.

I mean, it will get attention because it will have streamed enough to command that. For sure. So we'll see. But certainly not on our bingo cards and a really fun, really fun entry into the fall that we did not see coming. Do you have a best lyric and an album grade? We didn't really go through. I mean, the best lyric is, I always thought it was a dojo. So I think I've established that. Yeah, I mean, gosh, how do you grade this? This is a hard one to grade. It's really hard.

You know, I was going to go like in a B plus A minus zone. Right. Because like I tend to wait pretty heavily if something, like an album that excels at one thing, I am more generous to. than an album that is like okay at a bunch of things. Okay. And she's just done something here.

Like she's done something in the way that she is telling this story that has gotten the type of reaction from a lot of people that I want to give credit to. The more that I force myself to like really take in the music, the more I go, not that it's bad, but just that it's a little bit less spectacular. Right, which suggests that you're coming back for the car crash, not the essence of the song, and that would maybe make you downgrade it just a little.

A little bit, but also maybe it is the car crash. You know, maybe the medium is car crash. And so let's say that I net out to a high beat plus. Okay, I can live with you in that space. Okay. I'm glad to hear it. Let's touch down very quickly with our remaining time on the Grammys. I have like three main questions that are on my mind. Would you like for me to just go through them? Do you want to lead off with anything that is on your mind leading up to next Friday's nominations coming out? I mean, I want to hear your three questions, but I will say this. Just I think this is kind of,

kind of a boring year. So, yeah. We've had a couple of, like, exciting years with big storylines. And I don't know. It's not that it's the, it is not as heavy hitting a year as last year, certainly. There's not much at stake. Like, Kendrick is the front runner for album of the year, which probably, I think, will probably happen.

The Grammys love Kendrick Lamar. it's a deserving record. They have some making up to do. The Grammy felt like last year felt like such a coronation of Kendrick anyway because of not like us, that like that feels a little bit less exciting. If there were any world in which Bad Bunny could get that, like that would be really cool. But I think it probably goes to Kendrick. But I think in the absence of some of those like really competitive, heavy hitting categories,

there are some interesting questions about kind of who sneaks into what. Okay. And best new artist is like, to me, completely wide open. Sure. You could talk about role model, Lola Young, Olivia Dean, who we've been talking about, Addison Ray is eligible, the Maria's, Pink Pantheras, M.J. Lenderman, Cat's I, there's like a hundred different possible names. Zach Top.

That are all believable to me as nominees. That it makes that hard to predict, but pretty interesting. Yeah, this is a quasi-popularity contest where the rules just don't make sense to anybody because there's a bunch of people who've been around for a bit who could get a nomination.

I mean, Renee Rapp getting a potential nomination would be bonkers. You know, Zach just put out his second album in August. So is he a new artist? Because the first album had a big hit. I think this is more of a like temperature of what's cool and what's coming. And I'm with you. I think Addison Ray will be on this list. I think Sombor will be on this list.

Sombor, totally. I think Katz Eye is moving a needle and it will be. be strange if they're not on the list. I think the marias are the frontrunner to win this award, but I... Do you think the marias are the frontrunner to win this award over someone like Addison Ray? Yeah, I do. I do. Because I think I think somebody like Addison is a little bit more polarizing with these voters. I still don't think the voters have figured out what Addison Ray is and is she really a TikTok or dabble. I think that's going to be Alex Warren's problem with this Grammys, too. is, you know, the song...

I have no issue with that either. Has a lot of streams. You know, the cooler than now crowd will say, there isn't much here and there isn't much behind it, and this is really a TikToker who wrote a song. I wouldn't define myself as the cooler than thou crowd, but I would say all of those things. Yeah.

Well, I don't know that the Gramies have covered themselves in glory over the last, you know, decade or so in terms of how they make some of these decisions. And so I don't even know what these things mean anymore. But I do know that the Marias have just very quietly built up. Their festival performances this summer were something to see very quietly three songs in the Billboard top 100 that they've had hanging around. Very distinct, sort of almost like female fronted nine-inch nails kind of thing. On the other hand, you know, unfortunately, this somber record is pretty good.

It's not transcendent, but it's pretty good. And he's something to look at. I thought freshly 20 was a bar. I totally respect people having opinions, but I am a 20-year-old artist, freshly 20. If you're 25 years old and you're going to come to my concert and not expect people younger than you to be there when I, the artist, am five years younger than you, it's just a skill issue.

Yeah. It's not a becoming look, so to speak. But calling yourself freshly 20 is so funny. Yeah. Well, there's there is a lot to choose here. I don't know that this award means as much. And in fact, it's sometimes been considered like the, you know, it's like how when hockey players win the conference finals to go to Stanley Cup,

they don't touch the trophy. You just don't. You know, the old Sports Illustrated cover used to be considered. Right. Right. Or the, right. now that the cover of Madden, like, people always get injured. It's like a total curse. So that's a little bit how this feels. I think they've course corrected that in the, you know,

in the last years at least tried to bring a little more weight to it. But I don't know, it'll be interesting to see who wins. I'm just not sure that we're looking at a whole bunch of latent Harry styles, Taylor Swift sitting in this category. I do think the marias have a pretty interesting career path ahead of them. I'm somewhat biased. So here's question number two. Sabrina got man's best friend out just in time to be eligible. Yeah. And she'll certainly get nominated for a pop album.

I think she'll probably get nominated for album of the year. I think Manchild will get some nominations. Yeah. But whether that record ends up having a real chance in those categories, I think will be revealing vis-a-vis the Grammy's relationship with Sabrina Carpenter. Because there are some elements of what she does that make her the type of artist that the Grammys don't always totally get. or don't always totally want to award on the flip side. She was a major presence last year and was really, really fun to watch.

And I think she's done the work around the Grammys, too. For sure. So the reception to man's best friend, I don't, you know, I think you will see her get nominations, but whether or not that comes across as very warm or just sort of in the middle, I think will be interesting. Yeah, because there's a few other, like, Grammy Darling, like the Elton John Brandy Carlisle collaboration that I think didn't really land with too many people in a big way, although I think it's... But like 100% of the people that it landed with are Grammy voters.

Correct. Correct. And they are both, they've both done the work around the Grammys for sure. So it feels open. I mean, I think there's a lot of assumption that Lady Gaga is going to play in a lot of these categories for mayhem. Well, so that's, that's my last question, and that's probably my biggest question, is what is going to happen with mayhem? Because I guess I feel like it's going to get a lot of nominations. Yeah, I do too. To me, that will kind of complete, like, lest we forget that the initial reception of that album was good but not great. We talked about reheating nach. And I'm not just talking about us.

I'm talking about, you know, the discourse writ large. We talked about reheating nachos a lot. And we had this discussion a little bit when we talked about some of the concert moments from the spring and the summer that had resonated. I think when she took that out on the road, and I think when she did Coachella and started putting that album in front of people, I think it has helped make abracadabra into like a huge song this year. And I think it has made that it has sort of landed the plane on that album as a unequivocal success in a way that I don't know that it would have if it hadn't gone out into the world that way. Yeah, I also think if it had gone head to head with any of the big female pop albums from the last two years, it wouldn't have held up well. And so I think, look, I agree with you.

Gaga's shows this summer were fucking awesome, full stop. Incredible. And you know who else's shows were pretty cool this summer? Duolipa's shows were pretty good. And they both took those albums out on the road. And they did just fine. They did just fine. my own personal taste is that that's what I thought.

I thought those albums were just fine, not great albums, just fine. And I think looking at the contenders for this year, there hasn't been an album that has made people freak out in a little while. And that's just fine. We had the Taylor record that some fans freaked out over. Actually, everybody freaked out. They just freaked out in different ways. They freaked out with, oh, my God, this is a total millennial album.

oh my god this is terrible oh my god this is the best thing ever right so like it created all sorts of extremely hot um opinions uh strong opinions strongly held takes but i'm not i'm not sure that outside of the kendrick record there's anything that's sitting out there right now where you're like well this one definitely has to be there and that is why for me nora i think justin beaver's swag album has more of a chance than people think i do oh i love this take yeah i agree with you. I agree with you. Not to win, but to be nominated. To be nominated, I'll say, I think Daisies has a chance on song. Sure. Song of the year, good God, I don't know what's going to happen. Well, and that's why I think one of the most interesting questions for the Grammys is,

how is Hunter X going to do? The K-pop Demon Hunter's thing, which is basically like an animated show, are they going to take it seriously? Okay, you tell me if I'm wrong. My answer to that question, this is just going off my gut, is no. I don't think the Grammys are going to get on board with that this quickly. Well, we'll see. It's been streaming like crazy. They also tend to ignore Morgan Wallen who streams like crazy.

Well, Morgan Wallen also ignores them, but... Right. There's precedent for this. But... Yeah. Yeah. I guess we'll have to see. I mean, I don't know, maybe they're listening to their kids.

I just think that the Grammys often have trouble with kind of, you know, it's the TikTok artists or even the sort of pop-yest pop artists are just not always to that Grammy voter taste. And I feel like K-pop Demon Hunter's Netflix soundtrack is like an additional bridge further in a direction that they just don't tend to be inclined to go. but we'll find out. The nominations are coming out next Friday, and what we are going to do is we are going to do a quick turnaround, not live, but almost live, reaction to that,

and just go a little bit after they come out, break it all down, and get it up for you guys as soon as possible. But just to share the note that the pod will be out slightly later than usual next week because that is what we will be doing. And with that said, this has been every single album. I'm Nora Preciati. As always, he's Nathan Hubbard. Thank you to Kaya McMullen for producing this episode.

And we will talk to you next week.