Every Single Album - 'Red (Taylor's Version)' | Every Single Album: Taylor Swift

Episode Date: November 14, 2021

Grab your red scarves and some wine, because it's time to talk about 'Red (Taylor's Version).' Nora and Nathan talk about how successful her re-records have been so far (1:00) and some of the differences between the old versions of her songs and new (22:46). Then they dive into the vault songs, talking about 'Better Man' (41:32), Phoebe Bridgers's verse on 'Nothing New' (51:01), and of course the 10-minute version of 'All Too Well' (1:01:26). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Ringer Reality TV podcast is the home for all things unscripted TV. The feed will feature challenge recaps with Johnny Bananas, Bachelor and Paradise Recaps from Amelia Weddemeer, and a weekly survey of the reality TV landscape with Juliet Lippman and Callie Curry, and much more coverage across the reality spectrum from Survivor to below deck to selling sunset. Check out the Ringar Reality TV podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome at long last to a brand new episode of every single album, Taylor Swift. I'm Nora Prenziotti. I am a staff writer at the ringer and I am here with Nathan Hubbard. Hi, Nathan. Hi, Nora.

Hello. We're back. We got to listen to Red Taylor's version the other night and yesterday and today and today and this morning. And right before we started recording this podcast, we have a lot of content. It's a lot of content. We have a short film. We have 131 minutes of re-recorded Taylor Swift album. To dissect here. I was up until 4 o'clock in the morning. I know. What is she doing to us? I can't believe it.

And it takes a podcast. Here we are. I'm very excited. So, okay. As we just said, there is a lot to process. Take me through your listening experience for the first time the other night to read Taylor's version, this new release that at long last has arrived. Well, we were told that the 10-minute version of all too well was going to have the F-word in it.

But before I heard any Taylor Swift music, I had said at least 50 F-words because Spotify choked on the launch. And it could not load up any of the artist page or read Taylor's version tracks. So I was stuck and I found, listen, my purpose here was to go from start to finish and to not skip ahead to listen to this thing as she intended because this whole project is about her getting control of her music. The album matters to her. So I wanted to honor that. And I wanted to go start to back. But it wasn't possible to start. The only thing that was available was on a few new music playlist, the 10-minute version of All Too Well was there.

So after swearing that I was not going to skip ahead and cheat, I totally skipped ahead and cheated and I went to All Too Well 10-minute version. And we'll get to why that was actually, I think, an okay and wonderful way to start the process. but then after about 15 minutes, I finally got into the album and I listened to it front to back. What did you do, Nora? So I didn't have to deal with that hiccup. I mean, look, there's a lot of Taylor Swift fans out there.

This album is streaming at like, gargantuan Goliath insane numbers so far. We should have put these tracks in a dedicated data server, like a data center. Like it needs a ton of servers in a data center that is just for Taylor Swift launches. This woman needs a lot of support staff. I know.

Also, I'm asking you how you listen to this. Like, we weren't just completely blowing up each other's phones during the whole thing. I know how you listened to it. I was initially kind of mad at you that you listened to all too well 10 minute at first. But I got over there. I was mad at me.

I understood. I understood. I understood why it happened. I did not have that issue because I live on the East Coast. So I was watching Taylor on Jimmy Fallon at midnight at the drop. Yeah, and I didn't know. That was so annoying to be on the West Coast for that

and have to have you telling me like, she's wearing a crazy dress. She's now in the Diana revenge dress. It doesn't sound like she's announcing anything. And I had to wait three more hours for that crap. The revenge dress was on Seth Myers. We'll get to that. We'll get to that.

We'll get to that. There's a lot. There's so much fun pack here, guys. I'm so excited. But then once the late night appearance was over, I just listened. top to bottom. Went back into the vault after I was finished,

went to bed very, very late at night or early the next morning, technically. But did it start to finish? So with that in mind, I want us to frame part of this conversation. I want us to get sort of big picture because it's very easy to just dive into these songs and dive into the Easter eggs

and look at all the details. And we're definitely going to do that. But let's not forget that this is part of a broader project of Taylor re-recording her back catalog. So is there anything that we learned from the release of Fearless Taylor's version and the subsequent performance of that album that kind of should frame how we look at this project, this new release, and analyze how successful it's been? Yes.

But first I want to ask you, and you have to put up your right hand and tell the truth. did you listen to any of the leaked album? None. Zero? Not a note. Not a note. Well... I swear on the movie Valentine's Day, not a single note.

So neither did I, and neither did my daughters, who's like, snapped in inboxes and other messaging apps were flooded with the tracks before she got to first period in school on Friday. And so I don't think that it had a real impact, but somewhere in the chain of distribution of these files. And if you think about it, the record label Taylor's holding onto these files, there are a bunch of places you can listen to music, Spotify and Apple and Amazon, but then a lot of others all around the world where they have to give them these files with all of the metadata around them and the lyrics and all the stuff to get it uploaded into the system. It takes time.

They have to test it. Human beings have to check that it's all right. And that period takes about five hours before the leak until launch, right? Because those files went out and some human being in between Taylor and her fans

took those files and put them up on the internet. Now, in the grand scheme of things, does it matter? Not in a big way today because so little of the sales and consumption of the album are coming through physical. copies. Obviously, vinyl's huge, and a lot of people, but those are collectibles. It's not about

actually how you listen to the music. And it doesn't certainly undermine anybody going out and buying that vinyl because they're actually in it for the physical thing. But as we talk about the success of this project, and it has been wildly successful, we've heard Taylor's feelings about leaks before and how they were really crushing for her. In this case, I suspect it was less devastating to have the music out there a few hours in advance. But it's... it still is an indication that there are people between her and her fans. So I think this was a huge advertisement for NFTs and music, like these non-fungible tokens.

It's been tried before by Kings of Leon and some others with some success, but it's also left some fans feeling like it was a money grab. There's a lot happening in the world of NFTs, but the concept is basically that you can create a public record of ownership of digital goods and embed smart contracts so that Taylor could receive ongoing income as these things that she puts out are resold. And she can offer unique and exclusive rights to fans.

Like, we saw all those fans going crazy in the premiere of the short film last night. Like, how did they get in there? Well, they were part of a, right? They're part of a database that they have that measures that. But the question is, can she circumvent the distribution chain

where there are clearly still some assholes in the way who are willing to betray her? And can she sell her stuff directly? She's got this huge catalog, and there's opportunities to do this, right? The flip side of that is that there's a lot of principles in NFTs and the blockchain that are about decentralization of ownership. And to your question, the entire point of this project is about tailor consolidating ownership and control over her art. So let's see how she navigates the components of this going forward and how she uses the technology and the pieces of the technology that empower and reward and protect artists and what she leaves on the cutting room floor because it works against that mission behind. this entire re-record project.

I mean, Taylor may become a crypto bro yet, Nora. Oh, God. Oh, gosh. Did you see the Wall Street Journal article yesterday? Yes, I did. They talked about our pod. Yes, I did. But in case...

We made the journal, Nora. I'm very proud of us, David. And in case any of our listeners are not regular readers of the Wall Street Journal, why don't you tell everybody what we're talking about? And then I promise we're going to get to just, like, spilling the tea about Jake Joel Hall. I mean, we're going to crush the tea on Jake Dillon-Hall. Look, Anne Steele wrote a really great piece in the journal yesterday that talked about two things. One is universal music is changing their contract structure with artists to try to ensure that the time at which an artist can re-record their stuff is much longer than it used to be. That's a direct response to what Taylor is doing. And ironically, she's part of universal music. So there's going to be some awkwardness there given that Taylor's trying to reclaim rights for artists and Univor's.

Reversal seems to be creating contracts that are going to prevent an artist from re-recording their stuff. Now, in practice, what's going to happen is it's going to force more artists to insist that they control their art up front, which is what Taylor wanted all along. That was the first part of the article. But the second part was a bunch of data that gives us really interesting insight into the quantitative impact of what Taylor's doing. And the journalist, we got a quote in there, woo, but that meant that I had to see the data. and it is fascinating. So walk with me through this. So Old Fearless,

in 2020, before any of this started, old fearless was hovering around four and a half to five million streams per week. Woo. So that's just like standard how often somebody was listening to the old fearless stuff. And that is sort of representative

of how many pennies are going into the pockets of the people who own, in quotes, old fearless. Right? That's the base that Taylor was like, hey, that should be mine. It explodes with the release of folklore. And it goes up 60% to like 8 million streams per week. So the fearless.

Fearless does. Right. And so just the interest, Taylor puts out new stuff. And it grows up interest in the rest of her catalog. Right. And then so through the summer, listen, it decays a little bit through the rest of 2020. But it still, it still stays pretty high, higher than it had been before, maybe five and a half to six million. Then fearless comes out the week of April 9th, and it spikes back up again

to seven and a half million streams a week. So now there's a new fearless. And just the comparison listening and interest alone spikes the old catalog by like 50%. So again, she's putting out something new, but that old catalog is growing. then it settled to like between five and a half and six million streams this year which is like sort of that's the sort of run rate. It's about, but it's still more than what existed before the re-release of Fearless.

Now, when Fearless came out, the new Fearless, Taylor's version, it did $143 million in the first week. All right? So it's just blowing. It's like whatever. Blowing it out of the water. 11 million times what the old one is doing.

But through the course of this year, yeah, thank you. I did it myself. That's what Nathan told the Wall Street Journal. The quote says, Nathan Hubbard, former ticket master's CEO, co-host of the ringers

every single album. It's 11 million times that much, end quote. That's a real number. So what happened is, like, by the, by August of this year, okay,

New Fearless had settled into like eight and a half million streams per week. But Old Fearless is still doing five, five and a half. So the net is that New Fearless is streaming like one and a half times old fearless, but old fearless is probably up 10%

where it used to be. So what does that all mean? Look, number one, it means when she generates interest in something, her entire catalog grows. People listen to other stuff when she puts out something new. And that's going to tell us a lot about her business. Let's put that in practical terms for a second. Because a lot of that sort of static, consistent streaming number with the old stuff, yeah, that's plenty of people saying, oh, I love Taylor's. Swift, I'm going to go put on fearless this afternoon while I hang out with my friends or while I do my dishes or whatever. But that's also a lot of my playlist called Songs to Cry to has it, Nora. And they just, those songs live there forever and always lives there. And it's just

always, I'm probably, and this is not me speaking as Nora Princeati, who will go to outlandish lengths for Taylor Allison Swift. But Joe Schmo, who thinks that, White Horse is... I thought you were going to say Joe Alwin. Oh my gosh. Let's leave him out of this for now. For now. But no, Joe Schmoe, Joe not Alwyn Schmoe,

who thinks that White Horse is like an iconic tearjerker and forever and always is a great song to be pissed off to. And has those songs on Mopee Joe Shmopee playlist. Those are always going to live there. You're inventing words now. But yes.

that's it. They're not changing out the songs. So there's this legacy embedded base of listening to the old stuff, which is fascinating. Well, and so that's, that's interesting, I think, as we start talking about the re-recorded on Red. We're going to do a lot of stuff. We have categories. We're going to dive deep into the vault. But we're going to talk about the re-recorded songs from the original Red first because it was funny. I remember when we were doing this for Fearless Taylor's version, the stuff with Scooter and the stuff with the re-recording project and the masters and the purpose of Taylor creating an asset for herself, but also potentially devaluing somebody else's, that felt very, very front of mind.

Do you think she's happy with this data? Well, so that's the interesting question to me, because this time around, I felt myself, I'm obviously, aware of that context. But I felt myself approaching this one as what fearless Taylor's version taught us was it's just fun as heck to go re-inhabit the release of an album that meant a lot to a lot of people. It's really fun to stay up late at night and tweet at people and text your friends and go back through something that meant a lot at a certain point in time and has continued continued to up to the present. And to get a new version of that, to see some changes, see some similarities, also got

a bunch of this old, old new songs that we haven't heard before. To live in that space is incredibly fun. I was thinking about that a lot more than I was thinking about, well, what does this mean in terms of her ownership? And is this going to be highly effective in terms of devaluing the old one? Does this replace the original red? And that's still obviously part of it. But to your question of whether or not she's happy with this, the question in there is, was she thinking about this project as one intended to create new versions of her catalog that she would own that would be very, very good assets, profitable assets, make her a lot of money, be really, really, really valuable, really, you know, well appreciated by the fans.

or was that part of it, but then the other part of it was, I don't believe that those other people who own my old work should own it, and I want to tank the value of that asset. Yes. Because if she was, let's be, like, we can be very blunt here.

The data from Fearless says that if she was intending to tank the value of the old asset, she is not succeeding in that because people love her too much. Yes. People hear new fearless and go, well, it's a little bit of that, but I also think that it's created this, this, it's really, really fun to listen to both. I went back and listened to the old one and

made comparisons, didn't you? Totally. Yeah. And there's nothing about, I think if this, if this project has had one big headline effect, it's reminded a lot of people, people like you and I don't need the reminding, but it's reminded a lot of other people how much they love Taylor Swift. And it's kind of a rising tide situation. Yes, it is. I mean, if this was, all about spite, it's probably been a mixed bag because it's not clear that she's devalued the catalog that Shamrock bought from Scooter Braun. Definitely the decay curve has steepened downward and nobody's going to license the old stuff for a film. They'll go to her for that. But, but you know, she has also, on the flip side, created this entirely new market with these

releases that's performing like almost like any other album. I mean, New Fearless is nine, to 10% of her weekly total streams across her entire catalog. She's got 10 major albums if we include New Fearless. Okay. So that's about its fair share, which is just to say like, holy crap, she's created an entirely new market by re-releasing these things. And I think, Nora, that's what the marketing setup is about with Red. She gave this one more space, didn't she? She went on the late night talk shows. Fearless definitely got stepped on a little bit by all of the content she'd released before from folklore to Long Pond to Evermore, right? All that content, it felt like maybe a little bit overshadowed those streaming numbers for New Fearless. At least she's thinking maybe it did.

And so she gave this one a bunch more space. She'd had a long runway to ramp up to it. And now I think the question is, can they set this one up to do even better than that data that we just gave you about old fearless and really start to eat into old red. There's lots to find out still here. Well, and the early returns are pretty positive in that regard because to borrow a, to borrow a quantitative phrase, 11D billion, I think is basically what it seems like it's been doing so far. So what do we think about the music, Nora?

All right. So, wow, lot to do here. we're going to talk first about the re-recorded old songs, the songs that we already knew, not get into the vault quite yet. My basic feeling was similar to fearless in that they are, I think they are effective stand-ins for the most part. I think what's fascinating about this,

and it does pertain to, you know, if we eventually get into 1989, Taylor's version, is that there was a big day. difference if and what. When? There was a big difference to me between some of the deeper cuts and the big, formerly Max Martin and Shelbeck, now just Taylor Shelbeck for the most part. Yeah.

Big smash hits. Yes. What did you think? I agree with you. Okay. Look, it's pretty hard to tell the differences between these two things. I did some sine wave analysis where, like, I was bouncing between the two streams. And through computer speakers, it's pretty hard to tell the difference.

Like, the fidelity to the original is really striking. But there are differences. I mean, look, the mix is different. It's consistent this time because Serban Ganea, who's the Canadian mixing engineer, worked on a bunch of the Mac stuff on Red originally and then more and more on reputation and sense. But he mixes this whole album. And that has something to do, I think, with what you heard. And look, the fan base is acknowledging this.

This isn't shade. This isn't, you know, disrespect. But there is something that's different, as you said, between the hits, the new hits and the old ones. Doesn't make them worse. But there is something different. And the obvious thing to point to is her voice, right? It elevates the ballads and the stripped down songs. But it doesn't have that frenetic woman at the dawn of adulthood on those rockers.

And again, I think the fan base is acknowledging that without throwing darts. They're great and fun. They have different energy. That's okay. But we have to acknowledge it translates. There's two things. I'd say, number one, and we joked about this on the social stuff that we did, but there's a phrase in music called valformance. Her vowel formance, the sounds of her vows, through coaching and maturity, those sounds are now coming from the back of her throat instead of the front of her mouth and through her nose.

And we can tell differently. I mean, the joke we made is her vows are all grown up, right? What did you say? They've been to boarding school? They've been to finishing school. They know which forks to use. Yeah. Yeah.

And then the second part is her vocal timbre, which, and that's just the character of those sound waves and frequencies that she's emitting. They're lower and they're more grounded now. That comes with some of that breathiness. And you can't escape that. I have a sneaking suspicion that they might have put a little bit of a filter through Pro Tools, the software that they used to record these things, that they might have put a little bit of a filter on her voice to thin it out and try to make it

match the older voice. But I just think the difference between these two things in some moments is energy. Did you hear a whole lot of actual sort of instrumental or, you know, melodic differences between the two versions of the, you know, traditional sort of deluxe red re-records? So the primary difference that I felt existed was most clear on, let's use, we can use 22, and then maybe we can talk a little bit about we are never ever getting back together. Because songs like that were the ones where it did feel different to me.

And where honestly, I think I prefer the originals because it felt very, because her vocal is sweeter and thicker, it blended into the mix to me a little bit more. The original 22 to me, it has that like nice chunky guitar going and sort of giving you a, a rhythmic bass line to it.

Feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipsters. And then she's just kind of yelling it in your face. Yeah. And the... I don't know about you. Right. And the thinness, the thin quality to that vocal does make it stand out. Now, if you're just listening to the pure vocal, it might be a little less sort of juicy and sweet and hefty and nice.

But I think for that. song, it's a really nice effect because it just sounds like someone at their 22nd birthday party being like, I don't know about you, but I'm, I've got the karaoke mic and I'm just going for it. Yes. Now the, so that guitar is really, really faint. To dress up like hipster in the background. And it's just part of this more layered.

I think there's a little bit of both. I do think that the mix feels, it all feels a little bit more condensed. And a little bit more just everything is in layers that are closely on top of each other. And it had a little bit less of that urgency and that energy. But then you contrast it to something like

the song I almost do. Yeah. She can actually do. the descending melody on a line like, we made quite a mess, babe, as three distinct notes instead of just sort of sliding down. Yes.

And her voice now, like that song to me just hit in this. They make some changes in the production where, you know, I love that the guitar player has just a lot more to do at the end of that song. I think that's great. Yeah.

The question, as we get back to how this all feeds into the overall success of this project is, okay, what's the relative value of a 22 that's on eight guillillion playlist? 11 million. 11 million, guillian, babillion, quesillion, quillian, playlists. Versus I almost do, which is now you could say a song that hasn't had as big of a life, you could give it a little boost by doing this. Yeah, for sure.

Maybe the task of replacing an iconic song like 22 is just going to be harder. The funny thing about it was that the sort of shininess of the new 22, it made it sound younger to me in a weird way. Like 22 sounded a little 16 on this. I mean, she's playing a character in some of these songs in ways. Like, she's playing a character on say, say, stay, stay, stay, stay, say. That's the Paul McCartney Michael Jackson song. good Lord.

On Stay, stay, stay. In the original, and you're right. In some of these, she has to play a character. And I can only think that those are the things that are sort of contributing to this. I mean, there's slight differences. I almost do. Like, in the original, she stumbles rhythmically out of the chorus at the 210 mark, and she cleaned up that in the new version.

And, you know, there's slightly different drum intros into the chorus on I knew you were trouble. And, you know, there's richer production on the drums in comeback beach. here. But like, I don't know that any of those things matter. I mean, Holy Ground was different, for sure. It's like, whoa, there's the synthesizer. It sounds like flash dance. It's like restoring dinosaur bones or something that we thought was like a land roving animal and all of a sudden you're like, holy shit, this thing has wings. I mean, I really heard the difference in Holy Ground, but for the most part, the fidelity is pretty true. It is about the energy, though, and that's where I want to bring you to

We are Never Ever Getting Back Together Because that's the one Yeah What's up with the cocaine animals, right? As you talk to me, what are we hearing? I really don't know. I don't know what happened on the Wii. The Wii

The Wii does not work for me. I have to be honest. It just sounds insane. What is going? How did it happen? Max Martin's really good at his job. Yeah. I mean, look, I did the analysis on the two, like with the sine waves, and it's hard to tell the difference.

But I think, let me give you, I mean, look, there's this pulsing wave of sound in that mix of the original, right? And I think a lot of this actually is about the mix and a little bit sonically what you identified, which is that snare drum, right? The snare drum on the chorus and really through the song, it's a little bit more splashy on the two and the four beats, on the new version. And on the old version, what you articulated about 22 is the same here. The snare is more integrated

into the mix in the old version. And so the instruments end up carrying the rhythm. And it feels more eighth note driven, which is the groove that you get on We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together. In the new one with that snare really standing out, it has that rhythmic focus on the two and the four,

so it becomes about quarter notes just a little bit more. It's very marching band. Yeah. And I think it changes the groove a little bit on that outro. I mean, there are subtle differences like, you know, the squeak at the end, the sort of vocal exhale at the end, on the old she had a squeak in that breath. Now she's been, she's learned so much and that instrument has evolved that it's just this exhale. Right.

But that doesn't change. I mean, there's an awkward silence on the gated acoustic guitar in that intro on the old that's really cool. And it's not there on this new version. So you can just sort of, it doesn't feel quite as processed. And I think you're right. Something between the mix and the absence of Max and the way that there was those waves of sound. It's so subtle. You can't even see it visually when you lay out the sign waves, but it's there.

And you felt it. I felt it. And the fan base is feeling it. They're okay. It doesn't make it bad. But I do wonder going forward if this song and a few of the other hits, including the Mac songs, are going to be listened to more from the old. catalog. And interestingly,

is it going to be hard, as we've talked about through the entire every single album podcast, is it going to be hard to replicate the more complicated software-driven albums that are yet to come in 1989 reputation and lover? Right. And this

would serve as an example. Not that that can't be done or she won't do it effectively, but just that it's hard. Because I do think there are exceptions like Holy Ground, but for the most part, the primarily Christopher Rowe produced tracks

the fidelity there I think is pretty close yeah it is the ones where you bring in in Shelbeck seem to have more trouble and that's not that's not a pointing fingers comment

I think it more speaks to just the nature of what those songs are yeah yeah but there was a pretty clear distinction between those really heavily produced poppy, more filtered, more largely electronic tracks

than some of the other ones. Speaking of some of the other ones, what hit for you in a way that it didn't before? Because for me, there are a lot of things that fall into that category, too. No, I think you're right.

I, you know, originally said that begin again was one of my favorite sort of retroactive looking back songs. I love the richness of her voice on that song. I love the, state of grace acoustic.

Speaking of changing voices, hello, Gary Lightbody and Ed Shearren. They too have grown quite a bunch. And those songs for me stood out in a big way. I mean, everything has changed is right. I mean, it's the two of them standing in front of like a Noyman microphone. It's all just richness and confidence. It feels like there's a full orchestra versus just a cello on the original.

But it appears to just be Butch Walker on the keyboards. I don't know. She sings it differently. like, you know, at the 305, that sort of breakdown, the old one, she would really use an H on the, I just want to know you better. She'd be like, I just want to know you. And on this new one, she just gets it straight with the Val, again, Valformance, right? So it's just, it's, it's all the confidence of these two people who wrote this song on a trampoline before they were who they were. And I love the revisiting of that. It's my most improved song.

Ah. For sure. Yeah. I believe, and I want to be very clear, I've always liked this song. On the powerhouse that is red, it was one of the tracks that I could have, if forced to cut, I could have done without, if we remember from our original recording.

Right. Of Red. Yeah, you said that. I think, I think it's fantastic. I think they sound so good together. They do. I think the guitar player is just having so much more fun.

All those, little, all those little blue notes are just emphasized to such a greater degree. I love listening to them. I think the fact that you get a little bit more to listen to in the background, but it's still fairly sparse, just lets me enjoy the way that her voice sounds with Ed Sheeran's voice, which has always been really, really good. That was always, to me, the argument for that song. It's just, I don't know if I want to. It's also the, yeah, it's also the entire basis. of run, but we'll get to run. Yeah, we'll get to run later.

But I thought it sounded fantastic. I think... Did you have the same experience with last time? Yes. Ooh. Yes. Yes. Not necessarily to the same...

I think my reaction was basically just like, it's pretty similar. I think that's one of the songs where the fidelity to the original is really, really effective. The long outro, it still totally hits. I will say, one of the things that I was thinking

about when I was listening to that song is just, what is it like for Taylor to call Gary Lightbody in the year of our Lord 2021? Hey Gary, it's Taylor. What's going on? What you up to? Oh, not much. Yeah, I'm just at Whole Foods.

I'm in Whole Foods at 130, trying to figure out what I'm going to do for dinner. Gray's Anatomy isn't really happening anymore. Taylor's like, when works for you? And Gary's like, oh, maybe you should say one works for you. Really, just throw out of time. and I'll see if I can match my calendar. I think I can probably be a little flexible.

I can work something out. I got to eat a sandwich at 2.30. But other than that, I think I'm good to go. Yeah, I mean, look, and his voice, you can hear a little bit of the aging in it. But I really, he goes hard at the louder notes and the like coming out of that breakdown, you know, the whoa, whoa, like he goes pretty hard at that.

And he sounds good. You're right. Oh, he's going for it. We love Gary. This is a pro Gary Light Body podcast. anything else from the re-records that stuck out to you? Well, there are some moments, and this happened with Fearless too, that hit harder lyrically because we have more story. She's spilled a lot of tea.

So, for instance, in Begin Again, the line, I think it's strange that you think I'm funny because he never did. Now, we really know that Jake never thought she was much of a comedian. God. Where is Jake? Like what is with that? In a bunker somewhere? Kaya said he must be in a bunker.

I mean, I think she's right. This is, we're going to get into this. I mean, Yeah, it's a tough scene. Man, we do not let go. It's a tough scene. We just don't let it go. And all the other songs,

oh, the songs that didn't make the album that we just learned about the, there really is a very rich tapestry of poo poo on Jake that's happening on this album. Well, and I think we'll talk about this later, but one thing that we'd commented on in the original show that we did about original Red was how Jake kind of fares in the history of Taylor Partners and how the fan base views him.

To me, that has changed. I think there's a signatory difference now. Everything has changed. Everything has changed, to borrow a phrase. Another one that I thought was funny was you can really on Starlight. that to me is exhibit A on the vowels growing up and going to finishing school. The lack of twaying on Duchess and a Prince is now like, Duchess and a Prince. Whereas it was Duchess and a Prance.

They've been doing equestrian. Yeah, totally. Vals have been riding horses. A very accomplished dressage contestant. Well, if you're not going to talk about it, I am. What the hell happened with girl at home? It's like Taylor just was like, who the fuck cares? Call Elvira.

I love that she subtly told us. Elvira! I mean, she subtly told us, yeah, I did not get that one quite right. Elvira, I can't change the words, but give me a Cassio keyboard outro, and let's turn this into some pop dance thing. did it work? Hyper pop girl at home. No. No, it didn't work.

Is girl at home good now? No, it's not. The problem with girl at home is the lyrics. The thing that does work about this, though, is that like Taylor's completely in on the joke now, which I just love. She's like, yep, yep, you know what? I made a stinker.

We're going to throw Elvira onto here and just do it up. I love it. Collicab lose my number. Well, I appreciate that she went for it, and it made it very enjoyable because I almost skipped it because I was like, I don't know, I don't even want to deal with this. No, it's so funny.

Yeah, it is hilarious. It's the best joke of the album. And again, Jake, she's fucking funny, dude. She's hysterical. Anyway. Baffles me. But that was clearly the most different. And I just appreciate.

that she's not above taking a stinker and turning it into a comedy from a drama. So it's good stuff. Yes, I completely agree. And I do, to be clear, I think Calla Cab lose my number is a great lyric. I think there are some not great lyrics on this song, but I think that's a great lyric. Well, if we look at the lyric genius data, I mean, people are looking at the new stuff, as you would expect, like 20 to 1. the old stuff. They're checking out the liner notes. They're checking out all those things. They're, of course, looking at all too well 10 minute version, like $11 million to one. But we know, by the way, that as we've been on this pod, Taylor has broken the single-day streaming record on Spotify for a female artist, breaking her own record of 90.5 million streams, speaking of $1.1 million, in a day that she's set with folklore. So this thing is crushing.

People are listening, but it really looks like from the data, that people are listening to the new stuff. So let's get into it. Let's do it. All right, we're going to move to categories and we're mostly going to talk about the vault tracks here more than the existing songs. I do just want to say, we're not going to categorize or rank Ronan, by the way. That just feels like its own sort of special thing. On Ronan, I don't really have much to say on this one other than it is achingly gorgeous. It is incredibly difficult to listen to it is highly triggering for a lot of people. I heard it, and I don't think I will listen to it again,

simply because it is a beautiful elegy, but I don't want to keep going back. I think it serves a purpose for people in mourning or who have gone through an intense period of mourning if they want to revisit and tap into those feelings. A beautiful song, but one that I probably won't revisit that much going forward because it's just so grippingly painful to hear.

Yeah, that's right to me. It took me until the morning after, to listen to it the first time. Actually, I should have said this when I said how I listened to it. I skipped it because I just didn't feel like I was in the right place for it. It's stunning. I've heard it now. Tough song to listen to a really lovely song nonetheless and, you know,

lovely to see his mom post about it this week. But I think we're just going to keep that separate from some of this discussion, which is going to allow us to really dive into the new songs. And all songs are eligible for the categories, but I think we are going to. going to really focus on the new songs. Because as you said, I've definitely listened to them more than the old stuff. Those are the ones that have been on repeat for me. So this category will only deal with the vault tracks. Best new song. Nathan, what you got? Man, am I allowed to use, is Better Man a new

song? Okay, that's a great question. I knew that was where you were going to go. Let's talk about Better Man. Sure. You know what? Yeah. This is your podcast. All right. Because I'm really, yeah, it's your podcast. I'm between Better Man and nothing new for this one. Okay.

So, I mean, look, welcome to Better Man Island, everyone. You mean the 2017 CMA Song of the Year winner is actually good? Hooray. I mean, look, I love this. It actually took me a little while, though, to get hugely excited about it. because she altered the cadence or the melody on almost every big vocal moment from the Little Big Town version. You know, the cadence of the way she says Better Man is different, right? And she altered a lot of the melody from the Live at the Bluebird version that we heard as well.

That was much more true to the Little Big Down version. She had her own. Yes. But this is a different, this is a different song. Yeah. I mean, look, thank you for the country backing vocals on, it was always on your terms on that line. I mean, her backup singers, Caitlin Evanson and Liz Hewitt, they're her road singers, and they really shine on this track all the way through. From that line, it was always on your terms to the stuff on the outro. I thought that was great.

I have to say, I really miss the second you can't say that coming out of the bridge. Right? You know, you can't say that. And then on the little big town, she goes, you can't say that. And that's missing here. I miss it. but it's clear to me why she didn't include this on red now. For whatever reason, the tracing of this song in her mind is as a country ballad.

It's just really hard to get out of that and reinvent it. It usually takes the song being bad, like girl at home, to do that. Like, I wrote a song for my brother, and I realized, like, it was like a rocker, and it took me, like, it sucked. And then we slowed it down and turned into a ballot. And it was like, oh, okay, this actually works now. For her, this is just always going to be a country ballad. And that's maybe why she didn't put it on. But to me, this is like the song, End of the Innocence,

which Bruce Hornsby wrote. Don Henley re-recorded. I'm glad we have them both. They're both eminently listenable. They remind me of each other, but they are very distinct listening experiences that augment each other instead of being in competition. And so once I got to that point,

I really was deeply in love with this version. I'm so glad we have them both. I agree. I agree. I would say I don't understand why it wasn't on the album because I hear all of that, but I just think that it's a fantastic song. It's funny. It was so successful as a Little Big Town song that it's hard to come up with the alternate reality cases of what would have happened if Taylor had just dropped this when she dropped it because it's you can't pull out. Well, it would have been a number one for sure. Well, it already was. Right. It would have been an award-winning song. It already. was. Right. And the treatment of this versus what she did for Babe is noticeable, right? Babe feels like more of a carbon copy of that version of the Sugar Land song, doesn't it? Yes, but with, it's funny, it feels, it feels copied to a degree, but some of the little subtle flourishes, its identity is as a, is as a rooted in country song, but a lot of the little flourishes on that that that I think are so nice, are poppy.

Like the little promises promises. Well, but she wrote this with Pat Monaghan. Right. She wrote this with the guy from train. It has major train vibe. I opened for train once as they were breaking. And they were like the protege of hooty and the blowfish. And I was talking to Hootie's manager.

Seriously, I was talking to Hootie's manager backstage. And he's like, train is hooty but happier. I was like, how's that being fucking possible? But it's true. they write like the happiest sad songs and this is no exception right there there's a little teeny bit of riana's umbrella in the end like stay stay like the a yeah right which taylor has covered yeah i mean i just wonder if the you know taylor sang on the original sugarland version backing up jennifer nettles and i just wonder of her participation in that has her sort of more true to the

melody. She definitely makes some melodic choices that are different here. But I did, I expected to hate this and I loved it. Oh, I loved it. I totally loved it. I thought it was fantastic. It sounds a lot like all you had to do was stay. Let's be honest. I mean, this is a little bit of a rewrite of that, you know, with that with the happy, sad train layer on top of it. But that one stuck out for me. It's just interesting that this was a, you know, a cover of somebody else's cover of her. And this, this one just felt a little truer to the original than Better Man, but I understand why she had to separate Better Man from the Little Big Town version because it was such a big hit. I just think part of what works about Better Man is I think Better Man is a better song for one person to sing. There's something about the directness of, I just wish you were a better man, that coming from one voice and particularly as a motive of a vocal,

list is Taylor. You can tweak the melody all you want. That's always going to hit. It's just always going to hit. And it really, I would venture to guess Better Man Taylor's version is the song I will listen to most from this. Well, so it's going to be in competition with me with another song that was meant to be sung with two people. And that's nothing new. The duet with Phoebe Bridgers. Phoebe. Yeah. And this is, look, I mean, let's talk about this. I want to understand how it hit you. I'm a little bit of a farb to be sure, but this is important in all kinds of ways. I mean, Taylor's an indie rock junkie. There's no doubt Phoebe is the it girl at the moment. A very poignant and intentional choice from her to pick Phoebe from Taylor,

to pick Phoebe who's been, you know, the subject of this is really like once you've had your hit. Like it's the Carol King, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? She's been, you know, the target of David Crosby for her guitar smashing and shit. But let's be clear, it is monumental. Taylor gave Phoebe a verse. This is the first time she's ever done that with a woman on her song. The suspense that builds up is great. As soon as she isn't singing back up on the first chorus, you're like, wait, is she going to get a verse? Is she going to, boom, she got a verse. Yep. It's really wonderful. I love this song. I think you have to, the first time I listened to it, I didn't get it immediately because there, there was a lot going on.

If you do not let the bridge of this song hit you and experience it like a piece of a song, but also just absorb the storytelling of it, absorb the, you know, Taylor writing about meeting a 17-year-old budding pop star who says, oh, you paved the way for me and then she cries. Yes. If you don't get the juiciness of that, this song doesn't hit. She'll know the way

And then she'll say she got them laugh from me I'll say I'm happy for Then I'll cry myself to sleep If you dive into that It is It detonates Yes And so for me I think I was probably

Like reading tweets A little bit the first time that I heard it And I was like Oh that sounds great They sound great together Phoebe got a verse Yay Phoebe! And then the second time I just went Holy guacamole.

Yes, you nailed the context of it. I mean, the song on the surface sounds a decent bit like souvenir by Boy Genius, which is the band of Phoebe and Julian Baker and Lucy Dauca. So it's a very, it's not exactly a tribute, but you're going to recognize the guitar strumming pattern. If you go listen to that, the Farbs love this song. But you hit the importance of this. Like, Phoebe's accustomed to all these kinds of collaborations.

She's like the DJ Collet of indie rock. She's done duets with Connoeer Burst and Jackson Brown in the 1970s. But I can't help but look at this through the same lens as the Olivia Rodriguez relationship. Taylor has... Hold on. Hold on. I need to process Phoebe Fritzis is the DJ Callet of indie rock for a second. She is. She shows up everywhere. Like... All right.

She's like a rapper who just... She's like a rapper who shows up on everybody else's verse. But look, I mean, she... Taylor has this musical family tree, right? And she is decidedly one generation removed from the best new artist category at the Grammys at this point. She took Olivia Rodriguez under her wing, which was kind of funny because she suddenly ended up with writing credits on her album after that.

But it kind of seemed like she was like, girl, let me teach you about how this business works and it's going to work going forward. Nobody fucks with my songs and I get paid on all of it. Right. Part of how this business works is that I stay winning, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. And so the reach out to Phoebe sort of feels the same way on the

indie rock side. I mean, look, it's like, it's a much less dramatic version of Madonna at the 2003 VMAs where she did the performance with Brittany and Christina or like the, where she brought Red Fu and LMFAO to do party rocking and sexy and I know it with her at the Super Bowl. I think she has some regrets about that, by the way. Every day I see my dream. Every day I see my, every day I see my dream. Red Fu is is not doing great. he's like living the vegan lifestyle playing tennis and that's it. Except I think he had a major injury so he can't play tennis anymore. Anyway, the point is like this feels like it's about establishing an enduring legacy

and a connection to what's next. She's smartly planning these Taylor Swift seeds with the next generation, both in pop and indie rock. And that's the context and depth of this song, in addition to it being a really great song on the surface. Phoebe also, by the way, and she tweeted, She was 18 when Red came out. How old was she when Red Fu came out?

There has already been a lot more Red Fu conversation on this episode than I ever anticipated. Yeah. Phoebe is not a one-hit wonder. Phoebe is not a one-hit wonder. So, yeah, Phoebe was stunned by this, but it's a big moment because, again, she's listening to the fan base.

And the same way that she did girl at home, she heard everybody being like, well, didn't Taylor give a woman a verse. ever. Here it is. But you know what? I think this, and we've talked about that, and I always had a strong feeling that some of the backup vocal spots

that she did give other women, those were not throwaways, those were important pieces, and she would do this when it was right. I think this kind of proves that. This is the right moment, the right person, the right song. I totally buy that Taylor has taken

Olivia Roderick-O under her wing in a substantial way and cares about that relationship, there's always been something that seems a little bit, there's a business element to that. And there's something that seems really, really authentic about the relationship with Phoebe,

particularly because it's this song that she chose her for. I don't think that a song with this topic, she would think lightly on who to involve in that. I think Phoebe's the absolute right choice. It seemed like it meant a lot to both of them. There's something that feels very real and close about the choice to do this with her.

And you can tell that stuff. Like, I think everything she does with Haim feels very authentic. Yeah. And again, that's why, you know, some of the no body, no crime backup roles, it doesn't feel like a slap in the face to me. It feels like you guys want to hang out together. because you're friends and you think that this part is really cool and it's going to make this song really awesome. And so let's do it. Yeah. I think there's a different version of that going on here where it feels like she understands Phoebe and therefore put her in a place to really thrive

in this song and that included a verse. And it's great that that happened. But I think that it is just part of a lineage of this stuff being handled appropriately. I get why people wanted her to do that, but I just, I still feel like it was always a little overwhelmed. Are there any other new songs that you think are in the conversation for Best New Song? I mean, a number of them are clues to what was happening during the period. There's more producers and songwriters that she hadn't worked with Forever Winter is with Mark Foster of Foster the People. You know, again, another sign that she was just steeped in indie rock. The very first night is with the espionage guys who are basically trained guys. And so she clearly had this train

obsession. I don't know. Anything else that really, you know, the message in a bottle was sort of a max on the dance, you know, sort of left on the cutting room floor. Any of those resonate for you? I bet you think about me. That's totally in the conversation for me. I love that song. I absolutely love that song. I love how she sounds with Chris Ableton. I think it is so funny. It's unbelievably funny. It's hysterical. Now, it's maybe a little. Now, it's maybe a little,

Taylor should maybe cool it on the, I'm a simple farm girl stuff. Yeah. She had a fairly comfortable upbringing. I think 2021 Taylor might be in on the joke to a slightly greater degree than 2012 Taylor was. And I will say, I think if she had been able to fully

like satirize. You know, I was Taylor Swift at this point. I had had some pretty solid life experiences and was pretty in control of a lot of things. But like, sorry if you're going to treat me like a hick for not being of noble Swedish bloodline. Like that would have taken this from very good to iconic Taylor Swift satire. But I just think the song is a riot and really fun. She sounds great with Stapleton. I think a pretty bulletproof combination is Taylor plus Desner plus harmonica.

Yeah, yeah. Get those three elements in an ecosystem and... It wins every time. Well, I mean, look, this song was co-written with Lori McKenna. And Lori co-wrote Girl Crush, the Little Big Town hit, with Liz Rose, who co-wrote all too well. Which Harry Styles covered. Exactly. So there's some vibes there.

I mean, look, the interesting thing about Chris Daibleton, he's the link between this Taylor album and the Adele album that drops in a week. He's featured on both albums. By the way, who has more balls than Tiger King 2 dropping November 17th in between the Taylor and Adele albums? Like, is there anything?

Who is crazy enough? Tiger King 2 is like, we got this. I can't believe. Taylor moved her album to get out of the way of Adele. And Tiger King was like, Fuck it. We're going in between. I cannot believe that I was the first person to bring up Valentine's Day on this podcast, and yet you have referenced.

You love that movie. And Tiger King, too. There we go. There it is. Congratulations to Taylor Lautner on his engagement, by the way. Yeah, that's the big news of the day. Forget Taylor breaking all the records. That's the big news. So let's keep going through the categories, because I think the next thing is Peak Taylor. And you're always better at these than I am because you just have a sort of intuitive sense. What is Peek Taylor moment on this album? The only thing in the conversation for Peake Taylor?

Here we go. Homegirl released a 10-minute song. Okay. All too well is 10 minutes long. It has an F-bomb. It's real. We got to hear it. It's here.

It exists. It has a lot of drama. There is a lot that we learned. We know a lot of things that we did not know before. I mean, come on. I think it's the only answer. I walk to the door with you. The air was cold.

But something about it felt like home somehow. God, it's so much better. It's so much better than I expected. It is an incredible accomplishment because it had so much hype and so much lore. And she took the covers off of it. and holy shit, it's better than I thought.

I mean, I'm really stunned at the fact that Jack Antonoff did this. I mean, it's like he borrowed a little bit of the Imogen Heap touch from Clean, but then like the synth is so good, like that synth right at the start, I'm convinced he took it from Living on a Prayer, the start of Living on a Prayer. Like you can take the jersey, like you cannot take the jersey out of Jack. And that's what it sounds like. A little bit of the rest of the song's got that take my breath away stuff, the synth stuff. But like, there's cool production elements from every album that followed from Red on here.

The synths from 1989, the rhythmic chaos underneath the surface that we hear in Evermore. Some of those plotting drum beats from reputation and getaway car and the like. I just, this, I don't know that I'm going to go back to the old one. You know, I was not in love with all too well. I got all that it's about. But I fell in love with this song. I can't believe how good it is. Jack Antonoff with a light touch

is not something that we always get. When he does it and it works, it's pretty spectacular. And that's, I think, what we got here. I too was blown away by this. I thought it was going to be this really wonderful gift that Taylor gave her fans of, you all really wanted to see this,

so you get to see this. I kind of thought that was the bar. Me too. It's all too well to me, the original is so successful because of its structure. It's not a musically complicated song. But it builds... With or without you.

Yeah. Or champagne problems, right? But it builds in such an effective way that when it detonates at the bridge, it is to me just devastating. And one of the songs that evokes so much more intense feeling than almost any other song in the universe.

And it seemed like, one, a really big challenge to double the length of that, right? Which inevitably means that it needs a different structure. Yeah, we had a lot of speculation around how she was going to do that. Right. But then also, you know, I trust her to make good decisions most of the time. So part of me felt like, well, if this ended up as five minutes on the original version, that was probably because the editing was a good idea. And I will go back to the original.

You will? I'm not going to listen to 10 minute all too well exclusively from here on out. Because there is something that is really potent about packaging that in a slightly more condensed form. By the way, not a short song. Never been a short song. No. But the seamlessness with what? which it flows with the extra verses, with the extra storytelling.

Yeah. She triples the size of the second verse. She doubles the size of the second chorus. She adds an entirely new bridge. And then she gives us this three-minute outro. Yeah. And it's the third verse, I think, to me, the one that starts, they say all as well, that ends well, but I'm in a new hell and ends with the anecdote about the 21st birthday

party. you've already been built up by everything that comes before. And whereas in the original version, you've been built up and built up and built up and then she just explodes. And you have that huge release. There's something about the new version where it's, you're almost, you almost want to say like, enough already, Taylor.

Like, I can't take it. I'm with you. I mean, to be clear, when that ends, I mean, you called it a third verse. Maybe it's a second bridge. but when that ends, it's at the 550 mark. We still have five minutes left in the song. Right. Right.

And you've already done six wind sprints and you're being asked to run up a hill. Look, who the hell is the actress in the bathroom? Is it Aniston? People think it's Jennifer Aniston. The theory I've heard is that she and Jennifer Aniston had a publicized moment where Jennifer Aniston told her it was going to be okay

in 2011. and that made it into the press, basically Aniston being like, you're gonna be fine, you got this girl, it's okay. And that is theoretically, some actress asking me what happened to you. Yeah.

Which again, is just all-time direct Taylor being like, you! Yeah. Well, I mean, at this point, we're at the six minute mark when we get back into the sort of be my old self again, you know, you keep my old scarf. But at that point, like,

she has just shotgun tea, all over the kitchen. She's blown out the refrigerator light with the... She just is fillet him alive. And we get through that last full verse. And now we're at the 725 mark, like 7.30 seconds in.

And then the song totally changes to this outro. We get these chord changes that sort of resolve to the major. And she starts with this just between us stuff, which is fascinating because nothing in that relationship. stayed just between them, did it. All of the tea spilled. And there's the, you know, did the love affair Mamie, which is just this, ugh, it just is a slaying line. There's the how it glistened as it fell,

which it feels like a hat tip to Evermore, but it's just this full minute of these killer lines. And then the last two minutes come in, and she's like this ghost haunting him. I was there, I was there, almost a full minute long fade out. She's like my kids procrastinating going to school, just trying to drag it across the line at the end. But it's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's a coincidence that this thing is 10 minutes and 13 seconds long. Yeah, no way. And it's just like it's not a coincidence that the album runtime is one three one. Yeah. This is where I want to talk about how we feel about Jake now, because I remember us saying, or at least I said on our original Red episode, that it's not that Jake gets off, comes off looking good on Red originally,

But it never felt like he got filleted in the same way that, say, John Mayer did, because there was this idea that I felt was very much held up in all too well, specifically, that the highs were really, really high. This was a deep and meaningful and passionate and big relationship between the two of them, which was what made its downfall so painful. so painful. And while you understood that clearly he did some crappy things and he really hurt her, you came out feeling like he did that, but also the hurt was so strong because it had been really, really good. I don't feel that way anymore. I really do not feel that way anymore.

I mean, the way that I felt listening to the 10-minute version. version was that the emotional stakes were so high not because it was so good, but because it was so toxic. And that there was a really sort of painful, traumatic relationship where he was pretty crappy to her on a consistent basis, but there was something intoxicating about it. There's been a pretty prevalent TikTok theory that I can certainly see the reading in it that this song describes a first sexual experience and that the scarf is potentially a metaphor for that. I remember us asking, okay, well, if you leave the scarf at the sister's house, how does he still have it? That's an explanation for that that I think could make a lot of sense. And coming out of

the 10-minute version and the short film, which we'll talk about experiencing this song not as the hurt is having this amazing thing not work out, but knowing that the hurt was kind of ongoing and that there was a lot of pain associated with the relationship even while it was ongoing, I get why Jake might be in a bunker somewhere. Well, and it's the film that is devastating from my perspective because she doesn't try to portray herself as angelic in that film.

You didn't even look at me once. What are you talking about it? I'm catching up with my friends. Trust me, they were enthralled by you. Of course. I'm sorry. You're really making the entire night about you. Look at me.

Holy shit. Holy shit. I can't. There are moments where Sadie's character is screaming and dealing with her own stuff and doesn't try to be perfect. But what gets portrayed is, you know, not violence, but volcanic sort of anger and eruption and erratic behavior, which feels like the element that was missed

in what we were shown on the original red. And the additional verses, plus that film, offer a sort of much darker side to the character of this individual, whether she meant to do that or not, it ends up, even though she talks about her own flaws in that relationship and some of her naivete,

I'm going to leave the speculation about her virginity to others. But you certainly come away seeing the darker side of what was going on underneath the surface and why it might have contributed to all of these other songs that got left on the floor

that are now very clearly about Jake. This is a Jake album. Yeah, right. It ties... Look, I think most people were pretty clear on songs like the moment I knew also being a part of that story.

but now it is, there is written proof, right? We understand the song 22 in a different context, knowing that that was her 21st birthday that he didn't show up to and it devastated her. And then the next year she just wants to celebrate and have a good time. And that triumphalism of that song is so, so powerful. Even though that was the one thing,

even though I didn't feel like the new version of 22 sounded musically as good as the original. version. That was one of the songs where I preferred the original recording. The story of it is pretty darn potent, knowing what we know clearly now. And Nora, that's why my award for the Tom Hiddleston Award goes to Joe Alwyn. I mean, what a man. Who is, who could possibly be this comfortable with just a full frontal nudity rehashing of this relationship in public? So many years. Exactly. I mean, I'm all in on Joe. What a guy.

I love Joe. Who could be so comfortable with this? And like most people would be in any relationship, I think, like, really, we got to go back to this. Can we be moving forward? Why do we got to? But like, what a guy, man. The best. We love Joe. Joe's great. Very proud of Joe. And yes, I'm sure he's been, been. I'm sure that's something they have to talk about, right? Not easy. Yeah, no, just an understanding that her past relationships are a huge part of her work. And that she at this point, you know, she's certainly comfortable, this is something we've talked about a lot. She's certainly comfortable doing it in the work. She's varying degrees of comfort having it spoken about discussed in the press and publicly.

But, I mean, she is not afraid to put a flannel. and a collection of Jillenhall-esque beanies on an actor who is the same difference in age as his counterpart in the short film that she was at that time. Like, she's not afraid to drop a reference. And I'm sure that's something that Joe has to be comfortable with. The guy, the name of the actor staring in the window at the end of the video is Jake. Jake Lion! What an Easter. I love it.

It's so good. Through and through. She's a complete maniac, and she's also the best. My Hiddleston Award winner is, it was a tie between the Elvira girl at home. Yeah. The Willow Girl at Home remix and the crazy cocaine bear,

We and we're never. Oh, the singer's on, yeah, and we're never getting good. Yeah. Oh, boy. Cocaine bear. But since we're already sort of, of talking about it. Let's do the most purposeful

the cocaine bear singers. It's the ones from the, they took the bears from the music video, gave them hard drugs, and then put them in front of a microphone and said, say, we! I wish we had a whole album of that. I do not. The Elvira Cocaine Bear remix.

Why not? Let's do it. I love you, Joe. I love you, Elvira. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Let's talk about the Easter eggs, though, because we were sort of getting into it. And the all too well short film is just chock full of them. Okay, talk to me. My favorite.

Okay. All right. So the actor in the, as you said, the credits playing him later on is named Jake Lyon. Yeah. Which is that guy real. I don't think so. Jake Lyon is like a gamer and I don't think it was actually him. And we never see him.

Right? We never see him in the video. He's just like on the phone. Good Lord. There's also, so the car they drive in the film is a 1989 Mercedes S-Class, which a nod. Maybe it's a nod to her birth year. Obviously, the difference in age is a huge piece of the narrative here. So it could be an extra reminder that she was very young.

Or it could be 1989. It's next. Heck yeah. Heck yeah. Yes, it could. Was there more, like, are there crazy photos on the wall? balls and shit? Or like, I just, I was exhausted. I mean, seriously, the one, the one thing that I liked about, we were never getting back together was, this is exhausting. Never as a lyric been more

spot on. Well, so Taylor wore a black turtleneck and red lipstick in her first TikTok, which is very similar to the Taylor-esque outfit that Sadie wears at, wears in the film, where specifically at the dinner party where he's super crappy to her and drops her hand. and doesn't pay attention to her and is really mean. And I hate him. She is 11 years younger than Dylan, which felt to me, we knew this going into the film, right? And felt to me like, oh, clever twist, Taylor, there's an Easter egg.

There you go. It was really effective because she looks way younger than him. And it made me uncomfortable in the beginning. In the scenes where they're walking through the forest and making out. There was an element of cringe to that for me that I didn't realize, you know, look, actors and actresses play roles where their actual age in real life is significantly different all the time and sometimes you notice and sometimes you don't and sometimes it feels weird and sometimes it doesn't. I just figured this would be relatively seamless. It was not. And it really

made me, I mean, think about just how different a place in her life she would have been at 19 and just how kind of icky that feels. I mean, look, you know, she's old enough to make her own choices, but watching them on screen, I felt was compelling in that way. Something I really need. She directed it, yeah. Yeah, and I don't think that that's an accident. She wanted you to see. Yeah. Something I need to know. If it is true, is if Jake Gyllenhaal ever threw Carkees at his teenage girlfriend and said the phrase, fuck the patriarchy. It is almost too specific and weird to be fake. I must know if this happened.

I must know if he credulously said that phrase while handing his teenage girlfriend Carkees to allow her to drive. Oh, it wasn't a key chain that said fuck the patriarchy? I took that as, I didn't, okay, so you're hearing it as fuck the patriarchy keychain on the ground. That's what I thought. I'm hearing fuck the patriarchy as like a snippet of dialogue and then. Oh, God. He threw the keys. It's not, I heard it as like, oh, no, you can drive.

Like, fuck the patriarchy. God. All right. Well, now, yeah, that's something I can't unhear. Sorry. Sorry. Fuck the patriarchy and that interpretation.

I think you might be right. I just was sort of thinking maybe somebody had a cute little keychain. Oh, damn it. Well, we do need to figure this out. So next time we get Taylor on, we'll ask. I'm holding my breath.

But yes. So I think that's what I got from the short film. The other one I want to bring up, which you alluded to, is the dress that she wore on Seth Myers' show, which bears a striking resemblance to Princess Diana's revenge dress,

which was a dress that she wore in 1994 to a Vanity Fair party at Kensington Gardens. And it was important because she, Princess Diana, knew that that same night Prince Charles was going to be in a documentary that was going to air on TV. And in that documentary, he was going to confess to adultery

into his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles. This is some tin hat shit. She's got to be, it's sleeveless. I went back, and we talked about this. The thing she wore on, on which one? Fallon or was it, was it Seth Myers? She's wearing sleeves. The Diana dress doesn't have sleeves.

Yes, it does. It's off shoulder. It's off shoulder. But the tailors actually has full-length sleeves. Diana was cut off. Why am I talking about dresses for crying out loud? Because it was an important dress. It was an important dress.

It was an iconic fashion moment because originally she was going to wear Valentino, but then Valentino released an unauthorized press statement, advertising that she was going to be wearing them. And then Princess Diana was like, that's gross, not doing that. The dress that she wore, which looks like Taylor's dress, she'd gotten years before, thought it was a little too risque, thought the off the shoulder was a little bit too sort of attention grabby. but then she decided, you know what?

I'm going to go for it. It looked great. Gets termed the revenge dress. And I am here to tell you that there is no chance that was not an influence in Taylor's dress from Seth Myers. It looks so similar. It's a different dress, to be sure, there are different elements, but no way. Oh, boy. We're off the deep end here.

It's a great dress. Google's a dress. If anybody hasn't seen the dress, Google the dress. Google the dress. All right. What's next? Let's talk about most important collaborators so that you don't have to talk about dresses anymore.

Do you think is it? Yeah, this one I feel pretty good that we covered, and that for me was Phoebe, for all the reasons that we mentioned. This is about more than just the music. This was about the message of the song and the relationship and Phoebe's challenges as a female artist going forward. I think that's right just because the storyline about the spots she puts female collaborators in

had been so present in the past and this one obviously works out really, really well and it's the right choice, it's the right moment. It's a great, great song. I think I would be remiss not to mention that okay, so Aaron Dessner produces on Better Man, on I bet you think about me,

and on Run, which is the other Ed Sheeran song. Run, I think, is fine. It doesn't blow me away. The other two, though. Run featuring Ed Sheeran and Penitonics. I'll be home. I'll be home.

And the surviving cast of Glee, or like it's God. There is, there's a weird amount of like Acapella vibes on some of the new stuff because the promises, promises thing from Babe

also kind of has a pitch perfect thing going on. But I think minute for minute Aaron Dessner's work on this album is really, really good. It's not, it's a small percentage

but it hits above its allotted time. And I also think that Jack, just for, look, all too well, 10 minute. Gotta give it up. That's a big deal. Bring in the Bon Jovi-Synth. I love it. Jack Antonoff for Bringing in the Bon Jovi-Sinth.

I would say Jack Antenough for not only doing really good work on that song, but also, look for being the person that Taylor chose to do that with. I think it makes sense that she chose him. He's who I would have assumed that she would have chosen to do something like that with. But obviously that's a big, big choice. Well, speaking of choices, we have tough ones to make. And that is, what should now across this entire 30 song opus, what should have been cut from the original album

and what should have made it? Okay. So I'm going to push us here to work a little harder than the cop-out version, which is just to say what should have been? there instead of girl at home. Yeah. Right. Because I think, I think everything in the vault is better than girl at home.

I, so it's between, well, it's between all that you think about me and nothing new, in terms of the new, new stuff, what I would want to have put on, on the original album. I am, I lean towards nothing new being the one that really should have been on there. The only argument that I could hear against that is, do you have the lucky one and nothing new on the same album? Does that feel like there's some redundancy to that? Eileen, it's a good enough song that it doesn't matter, but I can see that being a potential discussion point.

Yeah. Look, putting a country waltz on this album, which from a 30,000-foot view, was designed to breadcrumb her journey. from country to pop would have been a difficult choice to make. I do think that's why Better Man didn't ultimately end up there.

And I think from that perspective, I'd put nothing new. And if I can't cut Girl at Home, and I'm just thinking about the original release before the deluxe tracks, I probably cut Sad, Beautiful, Tragic because it is a re-record of a re-record of the Mazzie Star song.

And, you know, of fade into years. So it's still the same song that it was before. I like the title more than I like most of the other parts of the song. And I do think her voice sounds better on it, but it's still what it is. And I would love to have seen nothing new in place of that. Do you think I'll bet you think about me could have gone on there, even though it is country, it's sort of, it's rowdier country, it's more up country? Yeah.

I think that the flow of the song list, the track list, once you get to stay, stay, stay, which is a parody of a country song. And by the way, shout out Taylor, because the runner up for Peak Taylor is her redoing the laugh on say, say, say, or stay, stay, stay. It was good.

It worked, but she's playing a character there that is really parodying country. And I think everything that came after that on the album was her working with a bunch of these indie rock producers and doing the chemistry project to figure out what worked and what didn't. So if you're going to,

put a country waltz on that. It has to go before stay, stay, stay. And for me, there just wasn't a place for it. I understand why it didn't make it. And I think it would disrupt the intentional, as we now know, very intentional. God forbid, we ever think she does something that isn't intentional. The intentional revenge dress, coughs. The intentional breadcrumming of where she had been to where she was going. Right. It's notable to me that what's not coming up in this conversation, but I think is pertinent to the point you just made is the songs that don't have collaborators here, Forever Winter,

the very first night. We talked about run has Shiren. We talked about that a little bit. And then message in a bottle. Yeah. Message in a bottle is interesting to me because it's the first song she ever did with Max and Shilbeck.

She wrote it the day she met them. Sound like a Disney Channel song. Yeah, it's not very good. for you but it's an interesting artifact to me just in terms of I can see that being

it feels very much like well let's just try this let's try this you know this is a sample dress that we're going to try on for size okay it doesn't sound super weird

for Taylor to do like kind of decommy pop pop pop it has the hey Stephen mm-mm thing right in there which is kind of funny to me Dynamite

BTS Dynamite vibes on the intro and outro of the chorus. Yeah, it's, I will say, one thing, I don't think this song is that great. I think the lyrics are just like so generalized and don't mean anything. It's barely a Taylor Swift song to me. But again, I get it as like a warm up track she would do with those guys just to confirm this isn't a crazy idea for us to work together.

But I don't think that it has her like hitting hard in any way whatsoever. It's going to be a good spin song. It's got a good, like, on the bike cadence to it. All right. Well, look, Forever Winter, which you alluded to before, for me, is just a rewrite of the song, Mine. And so there are, I understand why that one was on the floor. It's fine.

But it really has... It's not as good as mine. It's in the same key, has a lot of the same melodies. It's one of those... She's done this before, where there's stuff on the back parts or in the deluxe editions that are kind of rewrites where she was tinkering with the same idea.

So I don't think there's anything else in the new stuff that should have gone on. you know, if we're eliminating the 10 minute all too well from it, because I would have loved to have heard that. But any other cuts or stay? No, I mean, I think that does it. So that gets us to what you think is the best new lyric. And I don't think that we're going to disagree on this.

It's really going to be about what's the runner up. But go ahead. What is your best new lyric? So it's funny. I don't actually, I don't know where you're going with that necessarily. I have, you kept me like a. secret, but I kept you like a mouth. Of course. Oh, okay. I didn't realize that was so obvious. I think it's super obvious. I mean, it's really, really good. The backup, just to be clear,

the backup would be from, I bet you think about me, which is where she's just roasting Jake at the end, like at your cool indie music concerts every week and your million-dollar couch. Your organic shoes and your million-dollar couch is so funny. And then when she's like, she's insane, she wrote a song about me. It's so, it's like infantilizing. Yes, it's the preemptive strike. It really is.

It just, that's the one where I was like, whoa, you really. By the way, I also think I'm harder to forget than I was to leave is a very solid singer. Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. But I do think that line in the all to all version is the one that grabs. And there are others in that sort of prep of the outro that, strike deeply. I will say the other thing,

this isn't a single lyric, so I don't think it works in this category, but the portion of 10 minute all too well that we talked about, that kind of third verse, alternate bridge, they say all as well, that ends well,

all the way through the birthday party story. Just, just, one, I think it's really amazingly written because it has this combination of really clever and sort of high execution wordplay every time you double cross my mind, but then also really well-chosen moments where she breaks up either the rhyme scheme, kind of goes outside the box just to say exactly what she wants to say, particularly

you said if we had been closer in age, maybe it would have been fine. And that made me want to die. Just that's what she wants to die. wants to say. I don't even, you know, find, die, kind of. But to me, she's just saying that because that's exactly what she wants the lyric to be. There's real power in that. And it also comes at that moment where you want to take a breath. You want, look, we talked in the original episode about red, how you need the back and forth frenetic sequencing of the top part of the album Red, just to catch your breath

and just to have something bring you back up after a song like All Too Well just throws you on the floor. The thing about the 10 minute version is it throws you on the floor and then it leaves you there and it keeps going.

And that portion is the best example of that to me where you're already devastated and then she does not let up. So I think that is, it's not a single lyric, but it's a piece of really spectacular writing. I also, I think, how can a person know everything at 18 but nothing at 22?

Mm-hmm. From the Phoebe song, yep. Is a bar, as the kids say? Taylor delivered a 10-minute version of all too well. We are dangerously close to delivering a two-hour version of our podcast. So I think it's time for us to give this an overall grade, which will, I think, be fairly unsurprising. But I also think we should talk about what comes next before we wrap it up.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. This is an accomplishment. I'm given this an A. It really doesn't get much better than this. But we've identified a few things through this. First is what's next. Second is, is the stuff that's next, which requires all kinds of work that, you know,

if we're being honest, the sine waves add up, but the energy is different for some of these albums going forward. How are those going to sit? When do they come out? And what else are we going to see from, Taylor because we've had this tsunami of content. I'm just not sure that she's going to stay quiet between now and New Year's. What do you think?

First of all, am I wrong? Does this album get an A? Are you going to surprise me? So, What? I'm grading by Taylor standards here. And I gave it an A minus. Wow!

I think there are... Well, hold on. Let me argue this for you. I'm not disagreeing. I just, you've shocked me, and I'm proud of you. Go. There are A. a plus plus plus new songs.

And some of the old ones have totally, totally come to life. I think, and actually, I'll be honest, I'm not really sure what the right grade is for this because we don't know the answer to that question of how does she feel about the performance of the re-records thus far? Is the fact that the old versions are streaming more? Is that a success or a failure in her eyes?

if she is past that and she's just living in this space of the people who love me and who I've, I've meant an unbelievable amount to get to spend these really fun evenings talking to each other about my work, reliving songs that meant a lot to them, enjoying incredible new songs, living in this space that's really, really fun and exciting and thrilling for a lot of people, ourselves included, then it's an A because it totally accomplishes that. Where I'm leaving room is, look, if we are pinpointing weaknesses in Red Taylor's version, they are on these smash hit singles. Yes.

Those are the songs that are on playlist after playlist after playlist. So if in her eyes people not going back and replacing 22 on my party playlist with 22 Taylor's version, if that is a net negative, then the end goal was not perfectly achieved here. Well said. Other than that, I think it more than clears the bar. Do you think a Swifty has an obligation to swap out those songs in their playlist? You know what? I actually don't. I think that most people naturally will do it.

but I think if you want to listen to the old 22, I mean, okay, I think a Swifty who believes that they should swap out 22 for the old 22 on their playlist shouldn't not do it because it takes five minutes or whatever, just go do it. If you want to listen to the old 22, I think you should go listen to the old 22.

Yeah. I have a feeling that anyone who's listening to this, enjoying the new album, being there for all of this stuff, probably their bar of buy-in is ultimately helping her achieve her end goal here. And I don't know if this is sort of rose-colored tailor glasses. I have a feeling she feels pretty good about how this is going. I don't know. That's why I'm leaving a little bit of room in the grade

because it is possible that she feels like, shoot, this is not going how I wanted it to because it's not tanking the value of the old album. Yeah. I think that's what the setup of this album was about. And I actually think that you are wise to give it an A-minus only because there is something different about a 32-year-old singing songs from being 22. And there is more of a character that's being played on this album. It works for me. But I think when I come back and re-listen to things, for me, it's going to be some of the ballads that focus on her voice, which just continue. to improve as an instrument. It's going to be the new stuff and it's going to be 10 minute all too well. Yeah. And I think part of why I say that, look, I think I'm listening to the new stuff a lot more than I'm listening to the old stuff. I bet a lot of people are doing that too. I'm glad that that supports her aims here. I think they're admirable and I hope it works. Part of the reason that I say if somebody wants to listen to the old version, I don't think that they should feel like they're betraying

her is because what's been really magical about this through two re-recorded albums is not just comparing and contrasting the songs musically, but getting to think about what was happening almost 10 years ago versus what's happening now kind of, you know, for me, it makes me think about, it makes me text my friends about fun stuff that happened in high school or crappy stuff that happened in high school and times that these songs meant a lot to us. And having a thread between the old stuff and the new stuff indicates how powerful she is as an artist and how much she's meant to people throughout their lives. And so I think read,

and fearless Taylor's versions, they are strongest because they are these second later versions that have continued on the lives of the original albums. I think they are strongest when they don't exist in a vacuum. And that's why I think, you know, appreciating both, appreciating the growth, appreciating the differences, appreciating the similarities,

and just thinking about old experiences, with the songs, new experiences with the songs. That is a treat that's going to be really, really, it is the rare artist who can provide that, right? Because the longevity it requires, the fact that she's undertaking this project is rare. I just don't think that people should deny themselves that experience because it's really special.

Well, I agree, and I want more of these kinds of experiences. So my question is, how soon are we going to get 1989, which I believe is in the bag and finished. And the albums that follow, or the album that follows that, which is reputation speak now is obviously still to come. I think the way that this week goes around the Adele launch and the Tiger King II launch and, you know, whatever. And Taylor Ladner's engagement announcement. Yeah. Whatever, you know, other little nuggets of content Saturday Night Live is tonight when I think we'll hear that the, 10 minute all too well, but the performance of this relative to her core objectives for this mission,

you know, whether she is trying to undercut the old catalog or whether this is just about creating a new market, it's going to tell her and us a lot about when she releases the next thing. Because if she decides that giving this thing its own space to breathe is important, 1989 might be a summer album or Speak Now may come out, right? I suspect that the cadence will be what we saw here, which is about every seven months. But if she's really trying to undercut the other guys, and her intention is to take whatever economics she can from the people who claim ownership over her old art

and put them into her pocket, then it is in her interest to release this soon. I think the thing that we discovered from the fearless data is that she's creating new markets rather than killing old ones. She set this album up differently to potentially, potentially change that. But I think fundamentally what you just identified is that having both is the experience. And it's how we're enjoying them. And sort of it's part of what gives life to the new one is the presence of the old.

So if we're not going to see reputation speak now, 1989 for a few months, are we going to see an on sale, Nora? Is there going to be a tour this summer? I really hope so. I would really like for there to be. It's kind of impossible to think otherwise. I mean, Louis Messina, who's her longtime tour promoter, said in Polestar not long ago,

that for the most part, his artists, including Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift, this is a direct quote, by the way. For the most part, comma, his artists, comma, including Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift, comma, will take 2022 off from massive North American stadium tours. My question is, is that syntax? Like, did he say that specifically about Taylor?

Or was he just talking about his artists for the most part and Polestar inserted Ed Shearin and Taylor Swift? And let me tell you why I'm a little suspicious of that quote. Ed Shearin already has a leg of European stadiums on the books. And so that seems to run counter to the point. But the truth is, she's definitely holding dates. I know that. She's holding dates.

She may let them go, but she's holding dates. The question is, what are the venues that she's in? We have talked here about the creativity of a tour. Loverfest was her attempt to sort of transform the way that touring works and elevate the voices of other artists. Is she going to do a city residence, the way that BTS is coming to L.A. to do the stadium for a couple nights. You could see her setting up camp in a city

and playing a stadium, an arena, a concert hall, a club. you know, sort of on across, you know, a week or some variation of that. It just seems inconceivable with her post about missing touring, with her life where it is right now, a tour can be 18 to 24 months that she's going to postpone this any further, her own personal life, her mother's health, and just generally, we got a backlog, lover, folklore, Evermore, rejuvenated red and fearless to tour along with the greatest hits. I can't imagine that we're not going to see an on sale between now and the first of the year. It is difficult for me to imagine as well.

I think first of all, that quote didn't feel nail it to the wall, right? It was unclear in the first part if, okay, are we saying specifically Ed Shearin and specifically Taylor Swift, which might not make sense because, as you said, in the case of Shearin, there's evidence that directly contradicts it. Maybe not if it's just North America, but he has dates in Europe booked. Or is it, in general, my... huge, huge artists are not going to do typical, however many months, however many location,

massive stadium tours. There's a lot of wiggle room left over in that. She's going out. I think that the bar of probably what they're trying to figure out is if there is this impulse, which we started to see with Loverfest, to do something different, to try out a different model of,

playing live shows, I would imagine that combined with the fact that some of the music that she's going to want to perform, particularly the stuff from folklore and Evermore, is smaller. It's not so stadium filling. I imagine the challenge there is how do you bridge finding a venue that's appropriate for that and potentially not doing a full-scale tour that has so many locations, so many dates, while not turning this into a situation where, accessibility to the show is completely skewed in favor of people

who can pay an ungodly amount of money for tickets. Yeah, you don't want an Elizabethan theater with the rich people in the front. And I don't think she wants that at all either because by the way, Taylor Swift doing, right, but if she doesn't find a creative way around it,

it's not rich people in the front and poor people in the back. It's, if you don't have a ton of money, you cannot go see Taylor Swift live. And I feel pretty confident in saying she's going to find a way that not everybody, but that there is some accessibility to be able to see her because she has always, always, always put her customers, her fans, the people who are really committed to her

first of mind in her plans for doing stuff. She's done so much collaboration of late with so many different artists that you could see her reimagining Loverfest and bringing some of those artists in. It's just whether she can make the money work because so many of those, artists are now so big, in part because they've tucked into her slipstream, the national, for example, and Big Red Machine has a whole new host of fans. You know, can she make the money work so that they all play together instead of independently? But she doesn't need them to be on stage with her. It's going to be really first and foremost about what are the right showcases to present

this very different music, and it's probably going to end up being across a bunch of different venues, but we're going to find out. Yeah, the last point on that is it would be lovely to see her with the Desner's and all of the people that she wanted to sort of bring into the circle with Leverfest. I don't think that's the key variable because, look, I'm sure we'll see it on SNL tonight. We've seen tiny desk. We've seen tons of examples of Taylor can rework stuff where all she needs is herself and a guitar or a piano. I think it'll be a lot more than that. But even just that, she could absolutely blow it out and make it amazing. I think the question is how many nights, how many seats available per night, what's the venue?

And in how many cities, right? Because, you know, okay, you could do 10 nights in New York and 10 nights in L.A. Maybe that's a way to solve it. But also then is that a problem because only people in New York and L.A. or people would travel, but then you're putting a greater burden on anyone who doesn't live in one of those cities. I bet that's the stuff that just has to be worked out.

Coldplay is going to tour this year. They're playing huge stadiums. They're going to go for a billion dollars. They're going to make a billion dollars on this tour. That's the money that's out there for Taylor Swift. So we're going to find out. Nathan, I'm so happy that we get to pod together again. A 10-minute version.

Of every single album. Taylor Swift. There's been this thing I've noticed where sometimes people will tweet at me or tag me and stuff where they call it every album ever. And I love it. I just love it. It is the funniest thing to me. So we're going to try because next up, Nora. Adel! Tiger King, too. Tiger King too. Every single album. Adel a week from now. I mean, we're going to need to really hit the reset button quickly and get into Adele mode because we've got a pretty pretty big album coming on Friday. Not to mention her special on Sunday night. We got Taylor tonight. We got Adel's with Oprah Sunday night. We got Tiger King on the 17th. Adele on the, it just, it's Christmas in November. It's pretty spectacular. And it has been spectacular to share this time with you. This has been every single album, Taylor Swift. I'm Nora Preciati. He's Nathan Hubbard. She's Kaya McMullen on the controls. Thank you so much to Kaya for the production help on this episode and on every episode of every single album.

It's been just a pleasure to be back talking to you all. We will be here next week at about this same time episode dropping on a Saturday, I believe, discussing Adele's release of 30. And then we will be back in subsequent weeks dealing with Adele's entire discography. That's going to be a lot of fun. You can find every episode of every single album on the brand new every single album feed that's on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Shout out Taylor Swift. Shout out Britney Spears. Shout out Nathan Hubbard. Shout out Kai

MacMullen. Shout out all of you. Thank you so much.