Every Single Album - 'SNL50,' 'Short n' Sweet' Deluxe, and New Selena Gomez and Addison Rae

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

Nora and Nathan talk about all of the musical performances that happened as part of the 'SNL50' celebrations over the weekend (1:00) and speculate as to why Taylor and Travis might have been absent from the event (30:19). Then, they talk about the new songs that Sabrina Carpenter released as part of the 'Short n' Sweet' deluxe album (31:57) before talking about a couple new releases from Selena Gomez and Addison Rae (51:19). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons letting you know that we are covering the White Lotus on the Prestige TV podcast and the Ringer TV YouTube channel every Sunday night this season with Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson. Also, on Wednesdays, Rob Mahoney and I will be sort of diving deep into theories and listener questions. So you can watch that on the Ringer YouTube channel and also on the Spotify app. Subscribe to the Prestige podcast feed. Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel. And don't forget, you can also watch these podcasts on Spotify. Spotify. White Lotus. Let's go. Oh, and welcome to every single album.

I'm Nora Princeziotti. This week, we are covering the SNL-50 reunion special, a Sabrina Carpenter deluxe album, a heim teaser, and some new music. As always, I am joined by my friend Nathan Hubbard. Nathan, are you ready to talk 50 years of SNL and 15 minutes of Sabrina Carpenter?

Let's do it. Well, she's had more than 15 minutes because there was a moment in which you thought maybe you know, espresso huge hit was at 15 minutes of fame. But I have to say, Sabrina was a big winner from this SNL weekend. She, that position of opening the show with Paul effing Simon was a really big moment that I thought she crushed and the Domingo sketch was great. And she sang at the freaking after party. She did like a virgin. She did. I mean, Lauren Michaels seems to be super supportive of. Sabrina Carpenter, which is generally a good thing for an artist's career.

Yeah, let's talk about it. I mean, she was really out and about. She opened the show, as you said. She also kind of, one thing that stood out to me was that she kind of closed it in a sense because of anyone remotely of the current generation who's not like an active SNL cast member. She was the only person up front and center in the final, you know, when the cast gets back on stage for that final curtain call, the goodbye moment, which I have to imagine is because of her height, right? If you put Sabrina Carpenter in the back, no one knows Sabrina Carpenter's there,

which turns into this, like, amazing thing for her because she's standing there. It's like her, Paul McCartney, all of the S&O Greens. A guy actually named Short, Martin Short, in the middle, probably for the same reason. Well, you know what people have started calling his and Merrill Strip's couple name, right? Tell me. Short and Streep. Fantastic. Sabrina Carpenter.

She's all over pop culture. Yeah, she did a great job. I really, really cackled. There was a, I forget what social media platform I saw this on, but there was a post of the opening clip of her and Paul Simon. And it was just like, Paul Simon is so dedicated to being shorter than whoever he's standing next to him. Right. They keep trying to put somebody. Yeah, they just keep trying to find someone shorter than Paul Simon and they can't do it. But that was awesome. I thought in particular, she sounded beautiful. And we'll talk, after we talk SNL, we'll talk a little bit about the deluxe edition of Short and Sweet that we were so generously gifted by Miss Carpenter for Valentine's Day. But in particular, in these last couple of like sort of Sabrina moments, something that's really stood out to me is just that for all of the pomp and circumstance,

and the slapstick elements and the comedy and presentation that she does. One of her tools is just that that woman has a very beautiful voice. I found myself thinking about that a couple times. Yeah, going for the wicked moment in the Domingo sketch in which she is supposed to not sound good, she almost messed that up by sounding okay. Something has changed within her. She's ready to commit. Right, there's a...

Yeah, she had a harder time with that than Ariana did. Where out the shots are flowing, yeah. Guys on the dance floor grooving yeah. Ariana really good at the bad singing. Sabrina, you could tell that she kind of... It was hard for her to shake the muscle memory. Yeah, no doubt. I have to say, like, I'm starting to get...

She really has cornered the market on incorporating a lot of the classic Hollywood classic music kind of stuff, hasn't she? Like the Grammy performance we found out was a throwback. She's a lot of her outfit stuff, a lot of the photo shoot stuff she's doing is this new spin on old classic Hollywood. And she's got it.

I don't know how to describe it. Like even Madonna hat tipping the, was it the Vogue cover shoot, I guess? Yeah. She really is tapping into that old, old to new time portal stuff that is working. It just, I don't know, nobody else really has that. And there are these little bits of clues that are dropped everywhere through the music and the visual art that she's making.

I mean, the Dolly video for please, please, please, notwithstanding. You know what I think it is? You know what I think part of it is. Tell me. I think it's the hair. Yeah, it is the hair. But people freaked out when they saw that. picture of her with with with black hair too like she's she's a bit of a chameleon when she moves out of

this like maryland monroe platinum stage yeah she the hair probably has something to do with yeah she's still that's still a card that she's got in her hand i want to talk about the the deluxe short and sweet in a little bit but let's stay on s&l Sabrina had a big weekend mylie cyrus who you say always picks her moments myly cyrus picked a moment at s&L this weekend what did you think of her that she was great. I mean, she playing with Brittany Howard was pretty powerful and she even made a bit of a self-deprecating joke that she got self-conscious playing with Brittany, who I thought showed very well in this thing. But yeah, Miley just like she shows up. When Miley shows up, it matters. It just does. And I thought she was great. Did you have a view? I thought she was great. I do, I do feel like,

now that we've talked about this so much, I'm so tapped in every time. I see her to like, oh, Miley Cyrus, she's always showing up with intention. This must mean something. And you do pick out, you know, maybe this is sort of a confirmation bias thing. But this is the first time people have seen Aubrey Plaza since her husband passed. And she introduced them. She does flowers at the concert a couple days before the special. She's sort of making a habit of doing those little like call in response things where she's like,

you know, and I'm at S&L. And I think that's so fun. It's so memorable. I always remember her doing that at the Grammys two years ago. So I'm really, I've come over to your side, certainly, of thinking that every time we see Miley Cyrus, there's just going to be something that's sort of meaningful or at least well chosen in the performance. We've not seen her continue to tease anything specifically about her, at least allegedly, upcoming project, but it does feel like she's in the mix, I would say. Yeah. There's stuff coming.

There is. You know, there's, there's, there's more to talk about here, but I just like, I'm so weirded out by the fact that we've gotten even this far into talking about SNL 50. I need you to answer a question for me. Okay. where the fuck were Taylor and Travis? Yeah. Yeah, big question. Big question. I don't know.

I don't know the answer to that. I was genuinely surprised they were not part of the weekend. Maybe they're just tired. It is super weird. I mean, let's be, Hime was there. Like, there was a big Hymn birthday party that they didn't appear for. Sabrina all over the, I was like, flabbergasted. I mean, it leads into the Blake and Ryan conversation that we need to have,

because you've been tracking this fairly closely. And I don't need for us to go all pop culture on it. But that moment in and of itself was weird. But I wonder if their presence, I mean, you'd always invite Taylor and Travis before you invited Ryan and Blake. Like, is he that close? It certainly was a room full of, like, Lauren friends.

But I think Taylor and Travis are Lauren friends. I think so. There was a story that popped up that I thought so funny. Yes, the bad blood story, which if anybody missed it. I read this in New York Magazine. I forgot if they had the original anecdote here. But in, let's call it 2015, they were planning a sketch where the Girl Squad was like an

apocalyptic cult. And Taylor was asked to be part of it. And she calls Lauren personally and says, Lauren, I'm not going to be part of it. And also here's why I want you to kill the sketch. I don't think this is funny. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. according to the reporting about how this went down, Lauren goes, Taylor, I don't negotiate with terrorists

and ends the phone call. They end up running the sketch. Maybe because it's not as harmful as she worried about or something like that, she ends up feeling okay and sends him a bouquet of flowers the Monday after the show and the card says, Lauren, I hope there's no bad blood. So, you know, Taylor is a part of S&L history, certainly.

I can't imagine they weren't invited. You seem to be suggesting that the fact that Blake lively and Ryan Reynolds in particular... No, I'm asking you. I'm asking you. So do you... Well, so here's what I'm interpreting that you're asking me. Is if the fact that Blake and Ryan were going to have one of their first kind of real public moments... Yep.

in the midst of the it ends with us drama and litigation, if that had anything to do with the fact that Taylor and Travis weren't there, I have a hard time imagining that. I mean, there's been a lot of tabloid stuff about Taylor potentially not being pleased to have been brought up in the suit. I get that in the sense that I think if my name came up and anybody's lawsuit, and my text messages were suddenly being made public, I would be kind of ticked about it,

and I'm not Taylor Swift. That said, I do think that a lot of that has been coming from page six, which is very clearly in the Justin Baldoni camp. Like, if you look at page six headlines right now, every other one is like, Blake lively, body language, weird. And then the next one is like,

Justin Baldoni ripped shirtless picks on vacation in Hawaii. and it's like, okay, we know whose publicists are talking to you more. Like, this is pretty easy to discern. So I just really have a hard time feeling like, here's this giant cultural moment. It's an institution that Taylor has been very friendly with and has had some great moments with that being S&L.

Travis hosted, don't forget. Travis hosted. Travis has had some great moments in S&L history. I would think Travis needs this. Like, Peyton's there. Like, it's a perfect place. for him to be if he's about to retire to link him with the media and entertainment, in particular the comedic media and entertainment landscape, right?

Totally. So what I'm saying is I've got no idea why they weren't there. I think it's really strange. I was really surprised by it. So you're right to bring it up. It is really hard for me to believe that the reason that that was not the case was that things are actually so bad between them and Blake and Ryan, which that I don't believe. that they didn't want to be in the same room together

or that somehow being present when... I mean, what's going on is that pretty soon Blake is going to have to start promoting a simple favor too. And so she's trying to figure out how do we... How do we slide back into this so that it's not incredibly awkward the first X many times that she has to sit in a chair with an interviewer or get up on a stage

and talk about her next project when most of the headlines that have had to do with them for the last however many months have related to all of this drama. I just don't think that that is such a third rail for Taylor to get close to, that that would be the reason

she wouldn't show up to this. But there has to be something because the other thing that you brought up that I think is like really just made it stand out to me that she wasn't there, was the Heim element? to this. Heim was all over the place. They performed at the after

party. And Heim having been a big part of the Super Bowl contingent, I just was really surprised they weren't there. It was weird. It is weird. I don't understand. I mean, everybody sat. Maybe they were worried about the seating chart.

I mean, I would love to know the conversations around the seating chart because it was just sort of like a who's who in the background. Okay, but why can't the answer to the seating chart just be, you know, why can't Taylor, Taylor call Blake and say, hey, I didn't love that I came up.

I understand that that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes. It wasn't, you know, you, it was in his filing. I don't want to get dragged into this. And so I'm asking to be seated on the other side of the aisle, whatever. But, please don't take it personally. The crowd is what I'm saying.

Like, they could have been there and had plausible denial. even if they didn't want to sit next to them. Absolutely. Because there was just, you know, the Kevin Costner, like, what the fuck was Kevin Costner doing there? But Taylor and Travis weren't there?

Supporting share. I guess. I mean... Number one share stand, Kevin Costner. There was a lot of like, hey, why the fuck are they there? And insert some other celebrity isn't. Look, my overarching takeaway,

McCartney closing the show with the back half of Abbey Road was, I mean, I got choked up. But this was not a show for young people. And this was a celebration in its own way of Lauren Michaels, as it should have been, and he deserves it. But it was his friends in the crowd. It was his people on stage. And I left the show going, that was great.

And that was for me, what's for my daughters from here? And how do they pivot? I mean, I will say that even I, and like, I've been a big Saturday Night Live fan. for a long time. I used to watch it with my parents. I watch most, if not all, episodes. I think I really tapped in when I was in high school. So like call it around 2010, the sort of late Tina and Amy and that sort of generation.

I even felt like there were a lot of, a lot of references that I didn't totally know or knew, but that didn't feel nostalgic to me. I still loved watching it. I thought it was really well done. 50 years is a long time, right? Yeah, Lawrence Welk and Robert Gilae, like whatever. But it does, it did highlight what an accelerant this has been to popular culture overall, but music in particular.

And the show on Friday night was awesome. I mean, it just all the way through the Mumford stuff, Post Malone with Nirvana, like there was a lot of really interesting. I mean, by the way, what did you think of that? I thought it was great. just thought post Malone once again has shown up to an event. Well, I, I, it's such a mind fuck for me now because anytime I see him anywhere, I'm like, Nora thinks he's out too often. So I can't judge it on the merits.

But if this one, I can't. Look, if you are offered to play Kurt Cobain for the evening, I think you say yes to that. I have no, no qualms about, uh, posty hopping on board this one. Yeah, I thought it was pretty good. I mean, they did. just do something with Dave Grohl's daughter. So they're sort of taking all these different forms right now. And maybe that's going to be the point of whatever is clearly coming. Nirvana is clearly going to play out. The question is, are they going to just do it with rotating singers every night?

Or are they auditioning right now? Who knows? But they're they're fighting the Dave Grohl bad headlines with, let's bring back Nirvana. And you know what? Great. Go do it. but no, I don't feel like

I felt like Post did a great job. Honestly, this was, we talked before the Grammys about how the Grammys were going to be a little bit subdued because of the LA fire situation. And that secretly, S&L 50 was going to be a more interesting celebration of music and the thing where a lot of the cool kids were going and going to show up.

And I think that's what it ended up being. Do you think, I'm not so sure about that. I actually think the Grammys end up, I was thinking about this because knowing that we were going to talk about this. I was thinking about the Grammys, S&L 50, and the Fire Aid concert, because those were the three sort of music showcases that we've commented were all coming up. I think the Grammys ends up being the most impactful and interesting. It's more current. It was just a lot more current.

It was more current. It was. But like Lauren Hill showing up in the videos of Adele singing in the background. Very cool. Yeah. It's super cool. I mean, Robin and D. David Byrne, to me, I was like, oh, what a cool moment. Like, how cool to even have witnessed that. Yeah, but this, again, this was Lauren, Michael. I mean, Paul Simon opened and Paul McCartney closed. So with those bookmarks on the main show, yeah, it was not for the kids. Like, that is true.

It was a reminder that it used to be, and it still, again, has been an accelerant of people's careers. And I think to that point, like having Sabrina so interested. intimately integrated, the woman who is setting herself up as a bit of a time portal between classic old and new was not a coincidence. I think Lauren sees that in her, and that's probably why he injected her there. But it did leave me thinking that SNL was more in the past than in the future. I could have used one other beyond Sabrina performance from someone who's very, very now. You know, if they'd, maybe they could have gotten Dochi.

And that's an example of something at the Grammys that I think just made it feel so current and exciting and such a good showcase for where music could be going. And that's the one thing that I thought was maybe missing. But again, they're honoring the past. So some of that is just that that's just natural. You know who I thought got maybe the biggest reaction of the night? Perhaps to this point. The Backstreet Boys. I knew you were going to say this.

You love the back street. Am I wrong, though? Did you look at that audience? When I say, help me out. Hallelujah. Look, first of all, yes, the Backstreet Boys, like, walked into the audience. So that's one thing. I just want to point out that on our group chat this week,

I called you out for your liking of a Jonas Brothers' Twitter Instagram post. I don't understand why you. I, like, actually still don't understand what happened there. I don't understand why you think that's strange. the Jonas Brothers posted on Instagram about doing new stuff in 2025 and I liked the post and Nathan screenshots it.

Nathan screenshots it and sends it to me and Kaya and you can see the liked by Nora Prunziati. And I'm like, oh, here's Nathan acknowledging that the Jonas brothers are doing new stuff. And then he's like, no, I'm just laughing that you liked this. Okay. So your reaction right there

is everybody in the crowd's reaction to the Backstreet Boys. same shit, just a slight generation behind. I'm not sure that the Joe, like, and I, again, I love the Jonas Brothers, Year 3,000, Eternal Bop. I'm not sure that in 10 to 15 years, the Jonas brothers are going to have the number of adult superstars on the verge of a meltdown in the audience that happened when they were singing along to I want it that way. mean, like, Kristen Wigg was going to have an an aneurysm. They had every, but even like, you know, Seinfeld.

Seinfeld is participating. He's, I don't know that Seinfeld would try for that many acts. I don't know that he would have, you know, as rough as the sing-along was, I don't know that he would have even tried to do the lyrics for a lot of acts. The Backstreet Boys have power. That was my, honestly, that was like my number two takes. from the entire weekend of Esenel festivities. I was just like the Backstreet Boys kind of got it.

And that's what I learned this weekend. Did, I mean, you had the reaction to Post Malone. Gaga's showing up in just as many places. In fact, frequently at the same places that Post Malone is showing up. I assume there's no Gaga posty collaboration, although it's like right there, guys. Come on. Yeah, it's right there. It is so right there.

Do you have a different reaction to Gaga showing up everywhere? Well, yes. No, yes, I do. Because I do think that in the case of Gaga, they're showing up in a lot of similar contexts, but I would not necessarily say exactly the same. For instance, being asked to do the tribute to victims of an act of terrorism that sort of opens the entire Super Bowl and is very grand and supposed to confer a lot of meaning is a little bit different from for the second year in the first year. the row doing one of the random like bud light sponsored pregame pregame shows youtube youtube tailgate whatever gaga also has something to promote right now i i don't i have no i mean first of all post malone can do what he wants i think post malone's fine i just wonder um how many of these checks he needs to cash and if i should be reading something into that i think that answering the call to do the Nirvana tribute and get on stage with those guys, especially because we know that Post Malone is like a Nirvana superfan.

That, to me, makes sense to say yes to. Post Malone has said yes to lesser opportunities. Gaga, I think, is actually very deftly putting herself in a position to be in the zeitgeist, be in the headlines, be part of all of these big moments. Again, I think the Super Bowl one Medley with Andy Sandberg was good. It was funny. Was really good.

Want to get you something from the heart. It's my dick in a box. And it's cool because she can kind of hold down the musical part of that. But she gets to show herself as being in on the joke as being funny. Sometimes I feel like she takes herself too seriously, but this felt like she could,

laugh at herself. And it was very endearing for me. She's got the box on her crotch. It totally works. So I actually think if you're ranking kind of the spots that you want to be in over the course of the weekend of S&L stuff, I think Sabrina's a real winner. I think opening the show with Paul Simon is pretty incredible. I think Gaga is a winner because I think being, I think being the pop star who's part of the Lonely Island medley, I think that's a pretty coveted spot. Yeah. It's an absolute win, that's for sure.

But the Post Malone Post Malone thing is cool too. Like, I think this is a great move for Posty. I got no, I got no shade to throw that way. Am I missing anything? I don't think so. I mean, we talked about the Domingo sketch. It was great.

Share just sort of saying, I'd have no questions. I have answers. was fantastic. Great work by you. Just in the aggregate, I just think it was... Yeah, she is. She is. In the aggregate, I just think it was a reminder of what an important vehicle for music, the show has been. Yes, it has launched so many of the comedians that have made us laugh. But it really has... The Questlove doc about all of the music on SNL is an absolute must watch. It is, you watch the first 10 minutes and it'll, your jaw drops and you're like,

wow, there have been some of the most amazing performances here. And look, Miley doing the, you know, Miley doing the Shnade O'Connor song, Shnade, getting up and singing and ripping up a picture of the Pope is one of the biggest moments in the long-storied history of this thing that affected culture in so many ways. And even today, if you look back on it, an incredible test of free speech and cancel culture and, you know, has interweavings of like mental health and the support that artists get from a label and just all of these things. Never mind that it's a Prince song for crying out loud. Yeah. Who also has a huge history with Saturday and a life? Yeah, there were a lot of really poignant undercurrents in a number of the presentations. I mean, the only thing, did the Lil Wayne

performance make you wish that he'd been at the Super Bowl? over Kendrick? I was going to book and my lady's cry I got stopped by a lady cop She got me thinking I could date a cop No, because I liked

the Kendrick Because I liked the Kendrick performance But it made me think That's what that was Wayne in a while And that's really cool Yeah, I mean that's what that was That was the halftime show

That he was gonna do, I assume And they sort of gave him Quietly that stage a week after he didn't get to do it in New Orleans. I wish we could have had both. It did not make me feel that way because I'm very happy with the Kendrick show, but it was, I did have the reaction of like, oh, man, it's cool that we got to see this.

So I'm happy we got both. Is Domingo an all-time sketch for you? Like, are we going to run out of Domingo love? Or do you think it's like a, it's got staying power at this point? Because of the Miley, or Ariana and Sabrina participation. It's interesting. I wonder how many times they will be able to recur

that before it before they run out of steam. I do think that you know, in the post Pete Davidson era, Domingo kind of

birthed an S&L heartthrob. So Domingo will live on as a moment that moved some culture and some SNL culture forward even if it's not a sketch

that they're going to do and bring back 10 more times. Well, shittier sketches have become movies. We're going to get a Domingo movie on Netflix, right? I'm not sure we're going to get a Domingo movie on Netflix. I mean, what? Like, because who is Domingo? Domingo is just like,

Domingo is a guy who sleeps with a lot of people's wives. Oh, that's a movie. Yeah, that's a lot of movies. I think, I don't know if I'm ready to say all time, but Domingo is of this generation. Yeah. It's up there. And, you know, I guess we'll have to see at the S&L 60.

I did like that they put in that the Taylor addition to that sketch. Yeah, which, who knows? I just want to restate, it's weird that Travis and Taylor were not there. I have some questions. I'm just going to leave it there. Do you think it is more... I mean, they can't possibly not have been invited. They can't possibly not have been invited.

So they turned it down. They, like, you know, we don't know this for a fact, but any logic would dictate. For some reason, Taylor and Travis said, thank you guys, but we're not able to make it that weekend. I mean, unless the leaking of that, Lauren Michael's story about... Sorry about the bad blood was a subtle indication

of why they weren't invited. But that's, but Taylor has been part of plenty of Saturday Night Live moments since then. As is Travis. Exactly. I'm just, I'm just framing the options.

I just think it's weird that they weren't there. I really, I would love to, I would love to add some juicy speculation to this. I'm going with their fucking tired. Like, I just, it's,

I can go double rainbow guy on this and just be like, what does it mean and conspiracy theory out? That's sort of where I come out. But it is weird. I mean, she's not had a hard time,

showing up at places. And neither is he. So, strange. They've not had a hard time showing up at places. They've, in particular, not had a hard time showing up at Saturday Night Live. So it is, it is strange.

You know what else is a little strange? Tell me. The interplay between Dolly Parton and Sabrina Carpenter's voice on Please, Please, please, please. I heard that you're an actor, so act like a stand-up guy. Whatever devil's inside you.

Don't let him out tonight. Okay, let's talk about the short and sweet deluxe album, which was a Valentine's Day gift from our girl, Sabrina. Tell me what you think is strange about their two voices together. I absolutely adore the video. The interplay of their voices just does not work for me. I really like these extra bonus tracks. I do. I think 15 minutes is good. I think busy women is good. I think I couldn't make it any harder as interesting. I just, I really would have thought that their voices together would be interesting. and there's, you know, slim pickens to me on the regular version sounds like a Dolly Parton song. And maybe that's just it. It's that they're not complimentary enough. They're too similar to blend well.

It just didn't work for me. That's all. But the video works for me. I love the video. I'm so glad it's a great piece of content that's here to introduce these other songs that I think are really, are really interesting. Dolly's voice, especially at this point in her career, is so, it has such a sort of wispiness to it that I think it's just a hard blend in general. You know, there's four new songs in the deluxe edition, 15 minutes couldn't make it any harder,

busy woman and bad reviews. And then there's please, please, please featuring Dolly Parton, which gets the new music video. I think it's about the music video. I think it's about the moment. I think it's about putting them in the truck together more so than it is about like listen to these beautiful harmonies. So I think that's okay. I hear what you're saying.

it's not the most beautiful thing you've ever heard from two women who are very capable of doing beautiful things with their voices but I have a bigger question which is

I mean come on Dolly wouldn't say motherfucker I bet you don't embarrass me like the others are no she's Dolly pardon there's some minds

Dolly doesn't cross and she just doesn't swear I'd sort of forgotten about that The motherfucker makes that song so much to me that I was a little disappointed. But I do think the whole thing where, you know, instead of in the original Please Please Please video, which features Barry Keogun and he can't stop getting arrested and like doing crimes and embarrassing Sabrina Carpenter.

In this version, a man who has a very similar build to Barry is bound and, and, and blindfolded in the back of a pickup truck that Sabrina and Dolly are driving around while they sing. So I just thought that was very fun and very fabulous. Well, what's weird to me is that Barry and Jenna Ortega are in this weekend movie or video trailer or whatever the fuck it is. It's like he took Sabrina's video stars.

What is going on there? I mean, Taste is really sort of playing out in a very meta way. They're in the trailer for Hurry Up Tomorrow, which is the weekend's thriller thing. Is it a movie? It's a movie, yeah. Is it going to be better than the TV show

that I signed up for and didn't even get the last episode of? I don't know if I'd count on it. I suppose we'll see it. It had like, the weekends in it. Jenna Ortego's in it. Barry Keoghan is in it. I think Charlie Demilio is in it. The whole thing looks sort of strange.

I think you and I both will probably not be seeing it because I do think that it's like a very scary psychological thriller. Oh, I'm out. Yeah, I'm probably out too. So audience. I mean, I had a hard enough time. I had a hard enough time with the Sabrina video. Yeah, with the music video.

Yeah. With the gate posts, fence posts through the chest stuff. Like, it's enough already. but it is kind of strange to see him reassembling the team, getting the band back together, but in a different context, only a few months later. It's not like those two work together.

I don't think Barry, no offense to Barry. I don't think Barry has that kind of power. So I think this is just a little bit of a strange coincidence, but I do think that it is kind of funny that the plot line of taste is in a strange way, playing itself out. Do any of those four songs that weren't, sort of made for a fun publicity video stand out to you as things

that you'll come back to? I'm a big 15 minutes fan. I actually like all of them. I think this is a... I think it's a really successful deluxe. It's interesting how much country comes through

in particular in bad reviews, but also in couldn't make it any harder. Which interpolates the Greece song, hopelessly devoted to you. I thought that was very fun, but it still has a little bit of a country feel.

I think 15 minutes is my favorite. I do think busy woman is also really, really fun. I mean, the lyrics are pretty intense. I didn't want your little bitch ass anyway. Yeah, and like, I don't even, I'm not even going to say the line about

her openings. Sure. Yes. Yeah. Only Sabrina can sort of get away with this suggestiveness. It is amazing what she can pull off without it taking you out of the song.

Yeah, if you don't want me, I'll just deem you gay. It's a little bit like my gay awakening. Like she's getting away with stuff that some other people wouldn't. If you don't want me, I'll just deem you gay. And since the Lord forgot my gay, Gay awakening.

Which it's funny. It's however many years in the past, you know, I'll tell mine you're gay, went on to be a bit of a troublesome lyric for Taylor Slift. And this is effectively the same construction. I do think Sabrina probably has a little bit more credibility to pull something like that off. And the fact that it's happening now makes it seem a little bit more. of what that means and the implications that people might not love about saying something like that. But she seems a little bit more in on it, is I guess what I'm saying. The one that almost took me out of it for a second is I think 15 minutes is, it's my favorite of this collection, I think, although I like all of them.

I think it's a really fun song. I think the more you listen to it, the way that the 15 minutes, she does the double entendre, but it also is a reflection on the idea of like 15 minutes of fame. I will say the, I only need two to make you finish.

Yeah. The first time I heard it, I was like, okay, Sabrina, can we get through one song without talking about penises? Like, no, you cannot. We can't. We just can't. I love her so much. I don't want to inject any criticism into this because I think that deluxe album is incredibly successful. I like all four songs.

Yeah. I think she is impressive and funny and I would take four more if she has them. I'm going to speak my truth and say, I am perhaps over-indexing a tad. on the dick jokes. Okay. Just, just something to watch. Watch the space, I suppose. Yeah.

It's, it's a, yeah, it's a trick that she's worked through at this point. So, she's capable of a lot more.

And I do think, I do think the first time I listened to that song, I was like, oh, God, I like this. This is super catchy,

but do we have to do another one where it's, where it's sort of building to a punchline about penises. the more I listen to it, there's more that's working on another level than that. And it's more clever than that. Yes, and that's all of Sabrina's music. And that's all of her music.

Is what she's doing so well is it's there on the surface if you just want to stay on the surface. But if you want to go deeper, pardon the pun, it works. Well, and couldn't make it any harder. I think works in the opposite way. And I don't think that song is quite as catchy. I'm not going to listen to it as much as 15 minutes. and even some of these other ones. But I do think that there's something funny about that,

which is that the title obviously makes you feel like it's going to be all double entendre, but for the most part, couldn't make it any harder, refers to causing problems in a relationship. And for the graveyard in my stomach, filled with pivotal, formative comments. So I thought that was cheeky in a good way.

using the expectations that she has built for the punchline to be a dick joke in a clever way, whereas just that one line in 15 minutes, I was like, okay, I think you can do better than this. I think there's a more clever option than this. But in general, I love that song. I think this was great. I thought the video was great. Hear what you're saying about the dolly voice blending. But I just thought that was.

was a cool moment. Well, an equally cool Sabrina moment was at the after party, the SNL 50 after party. She was up there playing with the cover band, which there's just sort of legendary stories about the cover band stuff that comes from these reunion shows and the after party set list in general. But she had three young women up there with her who happened to be the Heim Sisters. And that when I saw those videos, that's... that's what hammered home for me. The absence of Taylor and Travis was like,

wait, what? Like, Sabrina's sort of playing the role of Taylor Swift tonight. What's going on? Because here's Hime. And what if Ashley was there? What if Tree was there. Tree was probably getting people in and out. But, but Danielle had her 36th birthday over the weekend and a lot of people showed up. That became like a really big press moment. So all of a sudden I was like, you know, move the camera to the background behind Sabrina and there's Hymne doing stuff. Yeah, doing stuff is a great way to phrase it. I have a whole category on our rundown that's just called What's Up with Hime?

Because something is up with Hime and we're going to figure out what it is. So here's the deal. There has been an alleged fourth Hime album in the works for some time now. And over the weekend, we just got a lot of Hime action. Obviously, this comes in the heels of the Super Bowl. They were the the sort of most famous contingent of Taylor friends who were in the box at the game. But this past weekend, as you said, Danielle celebrated her 36th birthday. The girls posted, the band posted a bunch of shots of her kissing random people at the party. And the caption was, and there's some punctual. that I'm going to have to describe an audio form.

So bear with me here. The caption was, I'm single, except the way that they wrote out I'm was in parentheses, H-A, and then I-apostrophe M. And then an ellipses, Hymn single, question mark. So it seemed to suggest that there was new music coming. And obviously, again, they are just very out and about. the Super Bowl. They were at the after party.

Danielle had her party. Esty just got engaged. She also launched that wearing the ring, but also a shirt that said, I'm taken. So they seem to be doing something with like single taken unclear. But the fact that there was the phrase

Heim single in a post by Haim leads me to believe that there's new music coming. I think when you start to see artists appear in places, you can start to make that assumption. Let's put it this way. Taylor and Travis would have been there if there was another Taylor record on the way any time soon.

So that actually made me think perhaps it's going to be a little while before we get Rep TV. But yeah, I mean, I'll give you one little bit of inside information, which is that Hime is now being managed by Sabrina's manager. So maybe not.

Cool. Yeah, super cool. And would not surprise me at all if there's new music from the band coming at some point. Well, and presumably if you switch manager is you're doing something, right? It probably comes in conjunction with like, okay, there's something that you want. There's something you want to do. There's something that you think that this person can help you with. So there's action affiliated with that.

And it's been five years since Women in Music Part 3, their last album. That's crazy to me. Is that wild? Gasoline feels like it's only two or three years older with Taylor. Maybe, but that was a real... I recall gasoline as a real, like, middle COVID song. Yeah. So I guess in that sense, the timeline resonates with me.

But it's been a while. I used to listen to that, the gasoline. I just remember, I remember going skiing at a time when, like, the whole logistics of wearing the mask, but also wearing all of your ski gear was just a big part of that. And I just have this very visceral memory of listening to gasoline

and fussing with my gear, but also with my COVID mask. So in that sense, I remember the timeline because of that. But it's been a while, either way. It's been a while. And look, it's not lost on me that Haim opened for Taylor

during the 1989 tour and they opened for Taylor during the ERAs tour. I'm interested. to see if they can get that album that puts them just over the top, right? They've been close enough to it. What is it that's kept them from breaking fully

through? Yeah, although in some ways, isn't that what's cool about Heim? Maybe it is. I mean, I would not, you know, I don't begrudge them wanting superstardom if that's what they do. But I do think that that some of the magic of Heim

is being the band that is going to show up at the S&L after party and all of those people are so excited to see, but also gets to operate ever so slightly below that level of megastardom, where it starts to be about the target activations and, you know, the big giant arena tours. So like Charlie XX before Brat is what you mean? Yes, although I would even say that Brat, I don't know, Brad in some ways, qualifies because Brat was still Brat was still something that was most beloved

in cities, in kind of arts interested crowds. Brat did not, Brat was a huge album for Charlie that had a certain amount of mainstream resonance that she hadn't had in a while because it became such a cultural phenomenon.

but in general, that album thrived most in a kind of tastemaker community, which is where I think Heim thrives. And I think that's cool. And sometimes you level up and you give that up and there's a push pull there. Yeah. So I don't know. I actually don't know if that's what I want from Haim. I would be nervous to give up like, I would be nervous to give up middlebrow Haim just because

I think that's such a cool niche that they have. Yeah. I'd say macro level and the music. business, there's space for Rock to make a comeback. And I think in a couple of ways we're going to see Rock make a bit of a comeback in 25. We've had two years of such heavy duty pop. And even before that, Harry Stiles wins album of the year, like, it's been so pop pop pop-pop-pop-y. Not that that's bad. It's great. We love it. But I do think there's a lane for a slight shift back towards rock. And I think Heim fulfills that. And so I'm interested to see if they're going to put something

out this year how that gets received. I think there's some other artists that are going to bring the rock and there's always that lingering potential of that third Beyonce rock album too. Yeah, that's really interesting because, you know, Miley's dropped the Fleetwood Mac comps. A Haim album would be one of my most anticipated of this year automatically if that were to. What about Selena Gomez album, Nora? Okay, let's do it. Let's get to New Release Corner. Well, interesting. We're going to get one.

I said I love you first from Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco. That's coming March 21st. And we got the first song from this album over the weekend. Scared of loving you. Because I'm not scared of loving you. I'm scared of losing you. Selena Gomez, Benny Blanco. I was interested to hear what this song sounded.

like because it comes from two people who are very capable of creating bops. It is a minute and 50 seconds long. It is not a bop. I will be the first to say that I did not particularly care for the song. Nathan, what did you think? So you made it, listen, you hate this song so much you can't remember the name. I mean, I couldn't believe how, how. A little insight into the process.

It took me three tries to say the name of this song, but it's so confusing. Scared of loving you. I said I love you first. Can I, here's my fundamental issue here. Can I wish these two people all the happiness in the world in their relationship? In private. And also say that I don't want to hear about it. You don't like the queso hot tub?

The queso hot tub disgusted me. The queso hot tub is gross. Eating chips. Eating chips. It's disgusting to think about. It is disgusting to look at. And it also reeks of sponsored content. Like, I don't know when we're going to find out that some Koso affiliated brand was sponsoring their Valentine's Day. But, like, it's coming. I can tell that it's coming. And I'm not in support of it. Would you drink Benny Blanco's bathwater? Oh, God. Benny Blanco, I remember I was looking something up about Benny Blanco over a year ago, like before they started dating.

and learned that he sold a lock of his hair on his website. Maybe I've brought this up before. But you could buy on like beniblanco.com, you could just buy like a little, little bit of his hair. Weird guy. Well, if you wouldn't drink the bathwater, I don't think you should eat the queso hot tub.

I'm absolutely not getting involved in any of this. Here's what I'll say. I didn't hate the song the way that you did, Nora. Oh my God. But it's because it is unequivocally. Make the case. No, it's Our House by Crosby Stills and Nash. Staring at the fire for I was allowed.

If I broke your heart, would you take me back? That's what the song is. It's a short version of that song. And that doesn't mean I love this song by Selena and Benny that I have also forgotten the name of in the time that I made fun of you forgetting what it's called. It's scared of loving. you? I'm scared of talking about this song because I know how much you don't like it, but I will say

it is highly, highly derivative. It's cute. And I think that their play is that most people, I don't know if this is true, but that most or enough people are going to be into their cute little love relationship and that they're going to get into their cute little love album. I don't know, when's the last time we had two people who were dating overtly like this, who weren't already in a band together make an album. I would have to think about that. It's probably exile with Joe and Taylor. I don't know.

It's not an album, but like... Not an album, but got involved making music together. You are my crown. Now I'm in exile seeing you think I've seen this film before. Yeah, sure. My point is just, I didn't hate it. It wasn't like exciting to me, but, uh, but I, I was okay with it.

Wow. I think this is, first of all, I think this is a bad look for Phineas. I think this is an embarrassing look for Phineas that he produced this song. I think the lyric, the lyric,

if you broke my heart, would you sign my cast? If I broke your heart, would you take me back? If I broke my arm, would you sign my cast? I might be getting that slightly wrong. I'm sorry.

I wasn't going to go listen to this again to make sure that I got it right. But it's something like that makes me so, like, it's just so cringy. It is just the two of them really have a cringe factor. Again, I wish them all the best. Let's recall, let's recall that Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco separately, but also together, not as a couple, are capable of producing. some really good bops. I am a big fan of same old love from 2015,

performed by Selena Gomez, produced by Benny Blanco, written by Benny Blanco, and Charlotte Atchison, a K. Charlie X, X, X, X, by the way, just a little blast from the past there. These are people who can come together

and make some really fun pop songs. So you're saying the analog here is actually Gaga and the fiancé say Michael and this new music. Michael is doing great. Michael, Michael is bringing us. Michael is bringing us fun, old school Gaga, great pop songs. I have no notes for Michael. Oh boy. I got some notes for Benny. I have some notes for Selena. I have some notes for Benny and Selena together. Mostly, which is if you guys want to like do your little love nest and make those songs, I'm really genuinely like happy for you and I wish you all the best in your relationship. I'm personally not at all interested in it. What do you think is grosser? Caso tub or nacho shower? Koso tub. Nothing is grosser than Koso tub. I'm sorry.

Fahita cold plunge. How does that even work? Like you cold plunge into what part of the fajita. are you plunging? It's hard. It's hard to keep the fajitas warm in the cold plunge. That's the challenge with fajita cold plunge. That's why most people do queso hot tub. Nathan, you have really lost me on this. I think it's queso hot tub.

Nothing is worse than queso hot tub. Nothing will ever be worse than queso hot tub. Oh, the line of chips through the bathroom. Like, that's how you get ants. That's not how you create a love nest. That's how you create an ant nest. Yeah, the draining of the queso hot tub. I mean, that can't be good for.

for your plug. Very difficult. Very, very difficult. Here's my question. So I don't want to, if they're in love and this is a way for them to express their love, then I'm happy for them. Again, I'm not particularly interested in it, but that's fine. They don't need me. They can just be in love. My question is how many people are they taking down with them? Because Phineas has already been dragged into this mess. And there was a social media tease that that suggested that Gracie Abrams might be involved in some capacity to. And now maybe this is a red herring. You can see, if you look at the Spotify page for the album, this song, which is called

Scared of Loving You, I think that's the name. This song is the last song on the album. So perhaps it's like a, I loathe to make this comparison, but it's like a New Year's Day kind of situation where not everything on the album sounds like this. And so maybe it'll be okay. But if it's not... I just think these are two people who don't make shitty music. Maybe they're a little too starry-eyed for each other

and so they're gonna... It's gonna paper over their shitty music. But I think it's gonna be better than you think. You said you think this is two people who don't make shitty music and therefore they won't. Yeah, that's what I think. That remains in some ways my hope. However...

Whatever. A little worried. That's what I'll end on. Last new release. This was actually last week, but we didn't get a chance to talk about it. The third single from Forever is A Feeling, which is Lucy Dake's upcoming album and music video for Best Guess came out.

Did you get a chance to check this out, Nathan? Yeah. What's your take? This is my favorite. so far of the three songs that we've heard. I really, I think this is, this is sweet. This is a love song I can get behind. Yeah.

I think it makes me excited for the Lucy situation. She's got a chance here. Again, she's quietly the sort of counterpunch to the cultural swing and could absolutely rally the troops behind her. There's, the boy genius force is strong in this one. This also I thought was the best music. I still find something a little bit atonal about these big glossy Lucy Dacus music videos. Like there's something to me that feels like this is not the right fit or it's it's trying to put her in a mode that we would expect from Sabrina Carpenter.

And this is a very different artist. But I thought the music video for Best Guess was very, very cool and very fun and, you know, had all the all the, all the cameos. You saw Naomi McPherson from Moona. You saw Kara Delavine. You saw, I'm dancing around it, but know that I am putting the air quotes around this phrase, as many other publications did in talking about this video. But the group in the video are being referred to as the Hot Mask Club. And I thought that was very effective and very fun. So go Lucy. made me even more excited for this album. Did the Addison Ray song, High Fashion, make you excited for her album?

Huh, good question. Sort of. I don't know. It left me in the same place. I have yet to hear another Addison Ray song that does what Diet Pepsi does for me. Maybe it's not for us. Maybe there's some kind of like post-melotic tension that's happening here brought on by watching a fuck ton of TikToks and like playing too much brawl stars that just isn't

quite for us and that she's trying to evolve it. Speaking of melodically different, I know you're not an Elvira person, but at least Alvira is trying something that isn't, doesn't feel like repetitive. I'm just not sure that it's, I don't know, what's the word? Good. It is a little, I'm glad you said what you said before about maybe this just isn't totally for us. My reaction was, it's kind of cool. It's just a little too, like, trancy. I feel like I can't totally get into it.

But maybe if I were five years younger and watched eight times as much TikTok, maybe I would feel differently. Yeah. I'm still bought in on her. I just, I like that girl. I like what she gets up to.

She's throwing bignet sugar all over the place in the music video. Yeah, it's a weird, I mean, lyrically on that song, like, wow, there's, there's a lot happening. She's going for it.

She is really going for it. I do think part of the point of Addison Ray is that you're never quite sure what it is that she's going for but you always know that she is going for it. And that works on me even if the songs don't quite. Do you take her seriously as an artist?

I take her seriously as a person in culture. You know I'm not an easy fuck, but when it comes to shoes, I'll be a slut. That's her. lyric. Yeah. That doesn't make me take her less seriously. I mean, I've, I take Kim Petris seriously enough. Yeah, yeah. No, I didn't, I didn't put that up as a, as a reason to take her less seriously. I think you sort of maybe nailed it, which is that this next generation of artists, they're not defined by, you know, it used to be, we'd say, Beyonce, not defined by genre.

Addison Ray, for me, not defined by medium, just to say she's a creator across a whole bunch of bunch of different media. Like Charlie DeMilio is a dancer. She is a TikToker. Maybe she's going to move into some other, you know, slices of media. Can she extend into music? Dixie has, it feels like that's what Olivia Rodriguez is.

That's what a number of this sort of next generation is going to be. And maybe some of them are going to dabble in music but be content creators. I don't know. But that's why she's interesting to watch. But Olivia Rodriguez, I take very seriously as an artist in the sense that I will, you know, I do not just imagine the next Olivia Rodriguez album. I can very easily think about what will two albums after that be like and how is she going to progress as an artist based on the fact that I have an assumption that feels safe that

this is a vocation for her long term. Addison, and I think this is mostly to your point, falls in a different category than that. If this, like, will this album ever come out? I think probably because we're starting to just hear a fair bit. But if it never came, it wouldn't shock me. If she puts out this one record and it's the only one that she ever does in her entire life. Like, there's just so little that would surprise me.

But I'm still paying attention. And I suppose that's more than half the battle, probably. Yeah, I think that's it. I'm not sure I'm enraptured. by the music, but I am paying attention because I think she represents something that could matter here. All right. Let's end it there.

Always good to end it on Adi Rui. This has been every single album. As always, I'm Nora Prynciotti. He's Nathan Hubbard. Thank you so much to the fabulous Kai McMullen for producing this episode. And to you for listening. We'll talk to you soon.