Every Single Album - The Ed Sheeran and Macklemore Situation, Taylor Swift at the Emmys, and Harry Styles Extends Together, Together

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

Nora and Nathan discuss Macklemore getting removed as an opener from Ed Sheeran's tour after the rapper said "free Palestine" during his set and the fallout that has happened since (1:00). Then they try to decode Taylor Swift's appearance in an 'SVU' Emmys sketch with Mariska Hargitay and what it may mean for new music from her (33:08) before talking about Harry Styles announcing that he's extending his Together, Together tour and also maybe announcing his retirement (46:23).Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan HubbardProducer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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anything 30, 30. Get almost, almost anything with Uber Eats. Order now. Order a minimum of $30 required, valid on grocery, convenience, retail, specialty foods, or flower delivery orders only, Terms and conditions apply. Hello and welcome to every single album. I'm Nora Pryantiati,

and I am joined, as always, by my pal Nathan Hubbard, who I have just four things to say to. Four. Are you ready? I have four things to say to you. I know what they are. Saccharide, Ares, from the vineyard north or south.

Saccharide, Ares, from the vineyard, north or south. Can I tell you, I know we're going to talk about this, but can I just tell you? I mean, obviously, this is all planned and this means something. It does mean something. She does not do these things lightly.

Just like the cloud conversation in the New York Times interview was about, I knew it, I knew you. But I want to tell you what's keeping me up. And it is... I want to tell everyone that Nathan currently has, like, his hand over his face, like, pushing it, like just the look of sort of exasperation is so significant. I can't wait for the switch to video. The thing is that everybody's trying to decode this.

Nobody has it. It's cryptic enough that people are going with all sorts of theories. My thing is I'm worried that these were clues about song titles. and that what she meant by north or south is pole, like north pole, south pole, and that the song pole is the sequel to wood. And that's been bothering me for three straight days, that there's a sequel to wood that's coming.

That is not a take that I've seen. Points for ingenuity to you. Nathan. I had not, like, I had not thought of that as a possibility. I was not prepared to go there. And, like, even when you said the word poll, it was my first thought, and I thought to myself, well, that can't be what he is about to say. You can't be about to draw a parallel between the word pole and wood by Taylor Slift. Yeah. It may be a little, I may be a little bit down the rabbit hole on that one, but I'm just telling you, I'm not declaring that that's what's happening. It's just like, this is the kind of fear that this woman puts in me with these shenanigans.

The fear of a wood sequel. Okay, well, we are going to talk about that in a bit. We're going to talk about all of the recent things happening in the Taylor Swift universe. We're going to spend today doing some news catch up because there's been a fair few things as we've spent the last several weeks digging into albums that we've wanted a chance to talk. about. So we're going to take that opportunity today. The first one is what I would say is the biggest music-related story right now, which is what is going on with Ed Shearons tour and McElmore, who opened for him for a couple shows earlier this month, including one at MetLife Stadium,

where during his introduction for his song, Heinz Hall, he said, a big part of the reason why I wanted to do this tour in the first place was so I could stand up in stadiums like this and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart, free Palestine. And then on Monday, McElmore posted that he had been kicked off the tour and that Ed Shearren had told him that Robert Kraft, who is the owner of the Patriots and the owner of Gillette Stadium, where the tour is going at the end of this month, had told Ed Shearin that, He wouldn't let the tour play there if Malcolm Moore was still on it and that he had rallied several other NFL and stadium owners to do the same. Since then, Ed Shearred has released a statement. Robert Kraft has released a statement. And then particularly recently, every single one of the other tour openers that was scheduled to be part of this in support of Ed Shearron have dropped out. So that is Phineas. That is the Danish pop band Lucas Graham, Aaron Rowe, and Bioga, I hope I'm saying that right, who is Shearin's backing band. And they've all dropped out. They've all, you know, released statements explaining their decisions and in support of McElmore. And, you know, there's supposed to be a concert in Philadelphia on Saturday. I think I'm not, you know, as of right now, it's going on.

but this is blown up into like a huge, huge story. Yeah. It has. Yes, correct. You have analyzed that properly. This has gone a lot deeper. Yeah. I was at a music industry event last night with lots of people in the industry across labels and

agents and promoters. And there was a lot of talk about that. this situation. And like what was, you know, to the extent that you can let us into that, what was that, were those conversations about these artists specifically and, and their motivations and various outcomes of these choices for them? Was it sort of like what the requirements are of artists right now in terms of, in terms of sort of putting their policy. politics out there because I think one

axis of this is like Ed Shearin has always been someone who has really tried to in a kind of overt way define himself as being apolitical and I think he is really coming up against the limits of that. I'm curious sort of like what the crux of those

conversations was. I think it's that no single person in that room has any idea exactly how they would guide an artist through this. It's just so full of complexity. and hair, right? And I say that it's just a very, very difficult, I mean, I think for McLemore,

he's very clear-eyed about it. Yeah. And he's very comfortable with the tradeoffs and the consequences. And, you know, as he put in the note, in this regard, this was my most successful tour ever. But it depends on what success looks like and what the definition of that is.

And it's a very complicated. It also incorporates all of the anti-billionaire stuff. And, you know, obviously, Robert Kraft has had some issues in the, it just, all of it gets bundled up into a very complex thing. And I think just in the room there was a lot of, how would you help an artist through this on all. sides of this. You know, what would you do if you were another opening act? Well, all of those opening acts left today. What would you do if you were at to try to communicate publicly? Well, we saw some communication today that I was a little surprised at. What do you do if you're the promoter who just got fingers pointed? It's just very, we're in a situation in the world in which,

in which complicated issues like this with nuance and differing opinions of outcome just are almost unresolvable in the court of online? I guess I would say two things that come to my mind. And I agree with you that there's, there are elements of real genuine complexity. Two pieces of this that don't seem terribly complicated to me are, one, just that like it does stick out to me that the people with the least amount of power and the least amount of agency and in a lot of ways the most to lose also seem to be the people who

have been able to act in a decisive and clear-eyed and principled what that means to them manner whereas the people at the top don't seem to be doing that. And I think that's notable. The other thing is that I do not, I think it is becoming incredibly difficult to be an artist who is going to frequently make the statement, I am not political, to try to claim that you can even really be an artist, whether on a big stage or small, and say, like, none of that has anything to do with me. And I think that is why, like, Ed Shearan made this big, long statement. And I am to some degree like, you know, he's getting, I think there's a lot of the heat from this that is getting funneled towards Ed Shearin. I think he's done some things to merit that.

I do think it's, you know, we're talking about the people who have control of these stadiums and people who own NFL teams and are incredibly powerful people. And I'm not saying that like Robert Kraft and some other stadium owners aren't being brought up in this conversation. but I do think that it's like we should be careful to shove it all on ed here because there's a nexus of people making this decision. But I just, I think part of why that is is because if you are an artist, you are supposed to be someone who is like expanding your audience's consciousness about the world. And I think that to, I don't think that you can credibly do that as a career and try to, rest on the statement, like, I am not political. I'm not a political person. All of that is outside of me. It's the Michael Jordan Republicans buy sneakers, too, stuff from back in the day. But it's not back in the day anymore. What's interesting in this case is you've got artists and

corporations. And what happens a lot of times in the music business is it becomes the corporation's job to get the finger pointed at them on behalf of the artist. It's a sensibly never supposed to be the artist's fault. And as you just rightly pointed out, all of this is getting dumped on Ed, and there really isn't, there's nobody can sort of step in and take that, be sort of a shield for that in this moment. And I think, I think because to your point of some of the public communication that has sort of, we've crossed the chasm of a place where somebody could step in and take, take this burden off of him. Yeah, I also don't, like, Like, I think I'm, to the extent that I'm advocating anything, it's more of a yes and.

Like, I don't. Right. I think that, I think that it's unfortunate that Ed seems to cling so tightly to this idea. Like, I don't know what he believes, but I do know that I do lose a certain amount of respect for someone who has that platform and who actually seems proud of the fact that he doesn't want to use it for anything meaningful that might. wade into something political. I don't think the idea that, like, children might listen to you makes sense to me

as a counter argument for behaving like that. I don't, I, I, I found his statement kind of shocking, honestly, that, like, someone who I assume has plenty of PR help

would think was going to work. What part? Like, even, I would say the number one thing that I just went, who let this get out the door was bullet point? I am not complicit. It makes it about him.

It doesn't really argue the point or even attempt to. It's just this, there's a lot of ugliness. I paid for the ticket to come see Ed Shearren. Presumably Ed Shearin is not, a circus animal being trotted out by overlords. Like, you've got some ownership and accountability. Right. Here's a guy who fills up stadiums and who has a lot of fans and has a big platform.

And people care about him. And we live in a world that really, really cares about celebrities and celebrity culture and what these people think and believe. and attention is so critical to basically every type of messaging and famous people like Ed Sharon are able to marshal a lot of that attention online and with their fan bases and the sort of, you know, I just, the abdication of any responsibility with that. I think it's disappointing. I also just think that it is eye-opening to me from the perspective of trying to figure out who might be kind of out of touch to think that someone could look around right now and look at how younger artists are behaving. Look at Olivia Rodriguez. Look at Billy Eilish. Look at so many different artists right now and how they're centering the things that they believe in and what's important to them.

and just think that this would work, which obviously is not the most, you know, the efficacy of the statement is like really far down the list of things that matter in this conversation. But I'm just, I'm surprised it made it past PR like that. Yeah, I mean, at the core for me, I don't think that every entertainer has a responsibility to tell us who they voted for or their politics or their views on world affairs. I wouldn't say that I do either, by the way. Yeah, and I didn't mean to imply that. I'm just saying, like, to me, this is a, it's a free speech issue, but it's also if Ed's feeling at the end of the day was, I want this to be an apolitical place, or I don't want this, you know,

I feel like this is making some portion of my audience uncomfortable, and it just doesn't fit with the tour that I'm trying to present. And just say that. But I don't think that's how, like, I don't think that's how he. And people can vote with their tickets. But it doesn't seem like that's how he feels based on his actions. Because he was happy to let McElmore do the two shows. It was, you know, stakeholders had a problem with this.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, he made the point. that he doesn't want all the people who work on the tour to not have their jobs and the people who bought tickets to not be able to go. But it's, it's, you know, it is taking pressure from people with a lot of money and power who to some extent are trying to limit speech and throwing up your hands and saying, hey, okay, you know, it's too hot. Too hot for me. I just want to play my little loop and get out and not have it feel bad for anybody.

But I just, I think there are real limits to how far that can get you. And I think there's a difference between saying that somebody, I'm not saying that you're saying this, but like, I don't think people need to tell you who they vote for. I also don't, like, I don't think that, I don't think that a requirement for me for an artist is to make interesting art. I actually think that sometimes, like, we care too much about them being, quote, unquote, good people. I think because of how critical, like, standum and affinity is in people's relationships with artists, I think especially musical artists, the conversation turns to, like, who's a nice person and, like, the right kind of person really, really quickly in ways that I think can completely replace conversations about. whether or not the work is like interesting and challenging and meritorious. But he's in it. Like he is, he is finding himself in the thick of this issue and in the thick of this conversation. And that to me is a different thing than like, are you supposed to just offer it up?

Yeah. Free of charge. The macro level thing for me is that can you restrict speech in a space that you control or does freedom of speech take priority over those things? And you do have to sort of pick aside. And I think your dissatisfaction here is that some of the communication from the artist feels a little mealy-mouthed about that. No, I mean, look, I think my main dissatisfaction is that I think that the treatment of what McElmore said in the first place as something that could be described. as offensive. I just, I don't get it. And I think it is rather insidious on the part of

people who own football stadiums to use their resources and use their power to make that impossible. I think that there are, you know, there are multiple, both Aaron Rowe and Bioga, both of whom, Biela, first of all, are founding members of Irish artists for Palestine. And I think it's an issue that's close to Aaron Rowe as well. It's close to a lot of Irish people. Both of them mentioned that in their statements.

They also both said Ed's a friend, Ed's changed our lives. We're friends with Ed. And I think we can applaud that ability to hold two thoughts in your mind at the same time. Like, it's certainly something that we, we should all strive for. I'm with you on this one.

It seems like this is a pretty bungled thing. You know, I'm coincidentally, the night before I was at a dinner where we were talking about albums that I was with a few people who listened to the pod and they were asking about a few albums that we had either not talked about or artists where we had a sense that they were, maybe culture was moving past them or, you know, they just weren't as popular. And there was a discussion around Ed Sheeran, ironically, because it was like, okay, do you think that Ed can actually come back and be a big star again? And my answer to that before all of this was, I do because like Ed Shearin won't love yourself. And he wrote, you know, he's written a whole bunch of songs for other artists.

and Ed Shearin is playing a stadium tour right now. So there are a lot of people who do want to come out again. They're like, okay, but that last album was, nobody really paid attention to. And I said, yeah, that's right. And there's a lot of artists who at some point have said what they're going to say or the fan base doesn't get galvanized for the next album. Not everybody has a Taylor Swift fan base,

but a lot of people can sell out stadiums without as much excitement around their album. And so my sense at the time was, I think there's a long, pathway career for Ed ahead. It's way too early to assess it right now, but from your perspective, do you get a sense that because this is bubbled to the point that it is, that there's significant long-term career damage

to Ed Sharon? Do you think he's lost a significant number of paying customers, not just observers on the internet, but paying customers are going to abandon him over this incident? Do you think? Well, I was trying to

Look, I was actually trying to look, and maybe it's a little too early to figure it out, but I was looking at the ticket prices. I mean, you can, and I don't know what they were before is the problem. It doesn't seem hard to get into that show in Philly on Saturday. That seems pretty doable to me, both in terms of volume and cost. And the key is going to be are there tickets below face value? If there's a bunch of tickets that are being sold in secondary market below face value, one of two things happened.

You've got to look at where they are. If they're in the upper decks, sometimes what happens is brokers will grab those tickets hoping there's a ton of demand, and then if it's not there, they just try to liquidate the inventory to make as much money as possible. But if there are tickets down, like, good seats

that are going at or below face value, that's telling you something about demand. So this is interesting. And I wasn't looking with this exact perspective. My recollection is that it seemed like stuff on the floor was, it didn't seem like there was tons. It seemed that there were, there were a lot of tickets that were priced at like, the ones that were available at ticket price were like $130. and then there were a bunch of them going for like 90, like a lot in sort of the lower bowl, but not on the floor.

Also, one concert, but it did, it struck me as like, this is not a hard show to go to right now, if you want. And Ed Sheeran is pretty popular, so I guess my instinct was that that might have something to do with it. I did also recent, yeah, I mean, I'm looking at, I'm looking at a secondary site, right now just to add color to what you're saying. And there's tickets in the center section on the floor for $217. There's tickets in the front left section for $207. And then these upper deck tickets are all in the 88, 87. And in the aggregate, there's a decent amount of inventory,

although it is getting, it does, I mean, there's 546 list. in a stadium that's going to be, you know, 50,000 tickets. So it's not like everybody has decided that they're going to sell their tickets. Yeah. But the prices are not astronomical if you want to get in. I think, I think Ed is one of those people who maybe, like, I bet there is a bit of a bifurcation. And if you are, I don't know, I bet if you're 30 and up,

I think there's just more of a likelihood that whatever your opinion is about this guy, it's kind of baked in. And maybe there's, maybe for some of those people, this goes one way or the other, he takes a hit. But I do think, like, I think the outcome is that there will be a lot of younger people where this will be the biggest thing that they know about Ed Sheeran. like this will be the most sort of potent thing that is in their consciousness about him. And I think partly that's because he is one of those people who's a little bit like, you know, trapped in amber for me where it's just, it was of a really particular era. And I think he had a thing that worked and it hasn't really been able to morph and evolve at least for, me in a way that has made him remain artistically interesting.

And so that is that is sort of part of what's informing how I feel about this. In fairness, we've done a long podcast over the last five years in which Ed has taken a lot of strays. I come by that honestly. Ed has taken a lot of strays from Nora Princiotti. But I mean, this is a guy who has 15 songs that have streamed over a billion on Spotify?

To be perfectly honest, I don't really care for the work of Macklemore either. Ed Shearne has 15 songs. And I did not think that when I was in college and we were going, can we go thrift shopping? Like, I did not think that we would wind up here today having this conversation. That was not what I expected to happen. Just if we're talking about separating the art from the artist in both directions. Let's do it.

There's 15 songs that have streamed, okay, it's 14, but it's about to be 15 songs that have streamed over a billion on Spotify. I want you to tell me, good song, bad song, on all 15. Ready? Okay. River, featuring Ed Sheeran. Do I even know what that, like, I... Exactly.

I see fire. I see fire. Okay, like I'm O for two. Bam Bam, B featuring Ed Shearin. Oh, um, I actually don't hate that song. Okay. I think it's embarrassing, but I don't hate it. Speaking of purity tests, here's one for you.

Number 12, the A-Team. It's good. What? Okay, thank you. 11. Happier. Smile and hide the truth. I know I was happier.

I don't even remember this song. Oh, this is a good song. I just like, this is, I actually don't. I'm always trying to explain this to people. I don't have, like, visceral hatred of his music in the way that people think that I do. I just find it, I find it offensively. inoffensive. It washes over me. Beautiful people featuring Call It.

Oh, I remember that song. That's a bad song. Number nine, Galloway Girl, our Galloway Girl. Oh, it's kind of cringy, but it's cute. Number eight, and this really is the one where you and I might get in a huge fight. Castle on the Hill. Castle on the Hill is great. Yes, thank you. Okay, I don't care about what you say about the next seven, but we're going to go quick.

Shivers is number seven? I don't go shivers. Oh, I like that song. I actually do kind of like that song. Okay. Six, bad habits. My bad habits lead to late, nice, and in a long, conversations with a stranger, I barely know.

Maybe one of my favorite Ed Shearin songs. Five, I don't care. Because I don't care as long as you just hold me in. You can take me. Not good. Four, thinking out loud. Thinking out loud. Maybe we've...

Good. Three, photograph. Don't remember it. We put these things in a photograph. Oh, yes, I do remember that song. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fine. Two, perfect.

You heard it, darling you look at You know what I think about that song Is I was in the Nails Alon two days ago And they were playing the Beyonce version of Perfect And I was sitting there being like It is crazy that Beyonce did this. It is crazy that this happened. Okay, so perfect, there we go, crazy.

You didn't go good way. Number one, shape of you. I'm in love with the shape of you. We're pushing pull like a magnet do. Although my heart is falling too. It is good. Okay. Those are the 14.

Really, I have no idea what River is, but the one that should be added to that is love yourself. Literally, what is River? Well, love yourself, the Justin Bieber song. And if you think that I'm still holding on to something you should. Go and love yourself. Oh, great.

Yeah. Great. Iconic. Like an all-timer. No, some things you cannot take away from people, and that is absolutely one of them. What about little things? The One Direction song, he co-wrote. It's weird.

You can't go to bed without a cup of tea. Maybe that's the reason that you talk in your sleep. It's not a, it's not a beautiful. It's too, it's just too, like, cutesy. Okay, I think we can be done talking about that. We're done talking about that. I just needed, just for the audience. I just wanted them to calibrate how you feel about insurance music.

And it will be interesting. I'm like, we're like hours into some of this communication. And so you don't really want to overreact. I am interested in this because you and I talk about pop stars and pop music and what it means to be fans of that. and what it means from a business perspective to build up and be that artist and the decisions that you make. And this is a potentially significant moment

if on a go forward basis, artists are going to be held to standards around their politics, around free speech, if fans are going to hold the owners of venues to account for the way that they feel about it. There's always just a big mushroom cloud around a moment like this, and it tends to dissipate. Let's see if this becomes something more than the news of the week that percolated into normies as opposed to music dorks like us. And if so, if it is anything more than just the news of the week, or if it becomes something that artists actually have to internalize and start responding to en masse.

Totally. You want to talk about Taylor Swift's Emmy video now? Can we please talk about Taylor Swift Emmy? Speaking of artists and commerce. Speaking of the thorny nexus of pop stardom and commercial interests. Taylor Swift had an interesting week and a particularly interesting Monday, I guess. Was that? What was that?

First of all, I love it so much. I love this so much. I love so much that this woman. and she loves what she loves, man. Sourdough, she's going all in on baking. Law and order SVU, she's going all in. She stands what she stands. And I think this is one of the sweetest things about Taylor Swift.

She just, she can't help but nerd the fuck out over things. And if you give her a forum to do it, she will bring her fucking cat to a two-minute Emmy video that she can't go to where she freaks the whole fan base out And like she just, she gives zero fucks about this. I love it so much. Totally. Okay.

So on Monday night, in a personal affront to me, the Emmys were cross-programmed with Monday night football, which is just so annoying. Please never do that again. Taylor Swift was in person at the Chiefs game, which they won. With Tom Cruise. With Tom Cruise. Where are you on that? Oh, I got a lot to say about that.

Speaking of bad PR, have you seen these interviews? with him where he doesn't actually answer questions. He just starts throwing word salad like flares up to distract the sidewinder missiles coming at him. Yeah, I have. I do think that Tom Cruise has left a normal plane of existence. Like, Tom Cruise has been too famous for too long and he's a weird guy and he doesn't, I don't think that he lives in the same reality that we do. And that tends to feel apparent to me when I see him like,

get asked a question by an interviewer and just answer it in like the most bizarre way possible. Okay, but I mean, there was another interview that's actually more interesting that was happening during that Monday night football game. Did you see her? Like, it was the unstoppable force and the immovable object, two of the most intense people on the planet,

serious eye contact talking about, I don't know what exactly. I think it was about the movie making stuff and who knows, but like, two of the most, like, descriptive,

demonstrative talkers who can command the presence of a room were fucking locked in on each other. It was like Godzilla versus Mothra or some shit.

It was like, this is like a end of days thing that just got brushed over in the box. I mean, what do you think, what do you, what do you think

led to Tom Cruise being in the suite next to Taylor on Monday? You tell me. Well, so, okay, let's back it up. He went to the heirs tour. He's a fan. He's a fan. He went to the

he made friendship bracelets. He was invited to the wedding. He was at the wedding. He has a movie coming out. Dean fucking Blanino was on that. Dean Blantino. He was one of the marquee names at the wedding. It's insane that they didn't ask Dean Blandino.

By the way, they're like, hey, Dean, what did you think of that offensive holding call? Instead of like, hey, Dean, how the fuck Did you get an invite to Taylor Swift's wedding? Let's just get this out of the way for the season. I know. Is he talked about it? I don't think he has.

Illegal? No, I'm really interested in your views on illegal hands to the face for the next 17 weeks. But right now, Dean Blandino, let's just kick it to you and tell us, what the fuck? So funny. Tom Cruise does have a movie to promote. The movie Digger is coming out on October. second. And it is notable to me that I think being in the box with Taylor is being turned into if you are lucky enough to be able to get it. It's like a stop on a promotional tour for people.

It's like being on the Carson show, right? Well, except you don't, and maybe particularly for Tom Cruise, you don't have to answer any questions, at least not that an audience can hear. She was asking him questions. Sure, sure, but you don't have to answer any questions publicly. You don't even have to answer journalists questions. You get to sit up there. You get to be in front of like a big, very like normy audience that's often harder to reach because they're not necessarily super online. And everybody's going to see your face and be like, oh, there's Tom Cruise. Wonder what he's up to.

Guess he's in a movie. And so like she clearly right now, you know, she's gunning for an Oscar. she has these Hollywood aspirations that are not totally clear to me but definitely seem to exist and By the way, you know who else is gunning for an Oscar? Who?

Tom Cruise. Well, yes. That's the thing. So maybe this was like a, hey, voters, here's your best actor and best song nominees sitting together. Well, and also like I'm sure she's open to a certain amount of favor trading with people in the movie business right now.

And so if that's, hey, wouldn't it be nice if you brought Tom Cruise to the game? Like, he would really appreciate it. It would be great for him, great for the movie. I'm sure there are some people, or I would imagine there are some people who right now could get a yes from Taylor Swift on doing that. The other possibility, of course, is that they are simply friends. That just seems so bizarre to me. Well, she was having the time of her life in that booth. I mean, that was pure...

Listen, she's a pretty decent actress, as we saw from the video that was playing on the Emmys on another channel. But that was pure unadulterated joy when Travis caught that long pass and ran down. And the whole booth was melting down. I mean, there's just these great pictures of... They're a family, and it's something that we did not see three years ago,

ever happening or coming into fruition. But she, boy, does she look like a very happily married woman? It's great. Totally. And I was kind of like, where are your, like, Taylor, where are your friends? Like, where are the girls? Like, wouldn't it be more fun to do this with your crew rather than Tom Cruise? But then I thought to myself, like, maybe I just don't understand.

As we've pointed out, I think the people around her have changed. and maybe that means that, like, Tom Cruise is in the squad now. I don't know. I mean, Travis was hanging out in the Ralph Lauren commercials with Gigi, right? Yes. Yeah.

So it's not like they've... Well, and she was wearing... I believe she was wearing Gigi's cashmere brand. So, like, I'm... That one went over my head, but... It's just... a thing, isn't it? It's, now it is, let's see who's in the box for eight home games.

How much, scale of one to ten, how much are you clowning right now based on the Emmy video? Yeah, I'm clowning pretty hard. I mean, she does these things with your purpose. I'm trying so hard to resist, but I really kind of am too. No, I am off the clown cliff. I am totally headed for clown ocean below clown cliff. I'm going to be fully drenched in clownness because that was some real shit. And I think the thing that has frustrated me about the clues that she's given us over the course of the last decade is that it's too easy. Like somebody breaks the code before you can even really put your own brain against it. It's already been posted and you're like, oh, shit, that's it.

well this is really just as those like boards crime boards behind her like this is a very complicated unclear opaque set of clues and I like it

I guess I do too but it's so opaque that I haven't read anything where I like I do there's something compelling to me Wood sequel unfortunately poll as the Wood sequel is not working for me

that's not working for me. That's not what, like, I respect Taylor Swift's right to say it's huge, but, like, I don't think that that's what's going to happen. North-South being sort of like a debutation polar opposites thing. Right. That's compelling to me. There's something that feels right about that. I don't know what to make.

Also, there are conflicting viewpoints on whether she said, Ares with an eye or Aries A-R-E-S and those would have different meanings. And so like a lot of it I don't, from the vineyard, from the vault, like the last two I feel like I can get somewhere with, but the first two I'm just like,

I don't know. I don't know what this means. Okay. So a couple of things. These are always campaigns. This is not the last. We're going to see these words start to like pop up

on, you know, sprayed and spray paint on the streets of New York somewhere, or, you know, I don't know. I'll tell you this, this is how much I fucking clown. Or like behind my eyelids before I take my last breath. Yeah, I took those words. I pulled up the lyrics to every single song on debut. And I was like, I really looked hard. Like Mary's song, I spent a lot of time. I was like, there's something.

You thought she snuck a saccharide into Mary's song? Well, just like, I mean, I brought Claude into this. I really did a full analysis of synonyms and definitional things. I clown really hard. It was on a flight. And so I had like an hour to kill. And I was like, I'm just going to do this just to make sure that I'm not missing something. This is kind of rare for you to go this far with the clowning.

It is. But it's because the puzzle wasn't solved out of the gate, but it was so obviously a puzzle. So this is great. We got stuff that's going to evolve from here. We've got homework. As usual, she's got a master plan. And it's time for some content. We're over a year since the last bit of content.

And it's time. I think there's a little buzz here and there that she's working on new stuff. And it's so hard to parts at this point. Yeah. As she said, she has not yet. her last haul. Right. Right. And would you be excited if in a month, whatever the clues that she put out all amount to she's dropping a country album? I'd be over the fucking moon. Yeah, me too. Me too. I'd have some trepidation, but what else is new? Yeah, I, I, go ahead. That's the story of our podcast.

And I really like, I knew it, I knew you. And I am thrilled. if there's an area. I mean, I don't want her to try to replicate a bunch of Randy Newman songs on an entire album. But the vibe, the production and songwriting vibe on that song, give me an album full of it. I'm thrilled. I loved seeing Olivia Benson, the cat with Olivia Benson, the television character. Both of whom are near and dear to my heart.

I loved iced tea trying to keep a straight face to that whole thing and keep... Ice tea wanted to giggle. So bad. What an actor. I also thought her hair looked great. I loved that like the sort of extra long Bob situation. It wasn't really a Bob. It was too long.

But I was into it. Okay. Last thing. Did Harry Styles freak you out with that email last week? No. He didn't. I think, did he freak you out? I mean, a little.

I experienced this story in real time. when I opened an email from Harry's Thiles and Company where he announced a 25-show extension of Together-together playing stadiums in 27 in North America and Europe. And the email that he sent saying that they were going to add the dates and that included this sentence, which was rather cryptic, he said, tomorrow's announcement will be the final cities of Together Together. After that, I don't know what comes next for me, but I know that I'm excited to find out. Well, let me give you my thoughts on that. I actually really appreciated the way that they rolled these dates out. I thought they were super sensitive to a little the fan feedback the first time on both pricing and fees and transparency. and I think there probably was like people have traveled to different cities and they bought

tickets and they've come to New York. And so to announce another set of events, I think people would just want to know like what's happening. And I think that that was honestly the way that they rolled it out with the artist pricing and then the fees on top of it. It was transparent. It was clear and direct. And I think he was.

doing a fair bit to have some pretty affordable ticket options. I mean, one, just in terms of playing in stadiums, like, which it seems like that wasn't necessarily something that thrilled him, I'm just guessing, but it is a way to increase

supply really rapidly. And so that helps. They're doing all these things where there are a lot of, they have a program where there are these around $20, $20,000, 20 euro tickets. Right. Like Olivia's silver tickets or whatever. And then they're also, they've continued to work with an organization where basically you can trade a certain amount of volunteer work for tickets, which is also very cool.

So I think it's impressive. I read that note as him trying to be like, no, this is really it from a touring perspective. So if you want to see me. And it's not going to be like Love on tour, which went on for as far as I can tell six years. Not forever. It's not like he's going away forever. that he was trying to make the point that like these are the shows because, you know, it was delicate balance to be like, hey, come see me in New York and everybody travels.

And then you flew from Arizona and there's shows in Arizona, right? And so I just thought they handled it really well and that everybody just overreacted to him trying to be clear that about all of it. And I don't know. I think I don't know what comes next for me is a little pointed. But that was a way of saying, we're not going to do more show. I don't know. I think he knows what's next.

But yeah, well, he doesn't. He said it. I get it. I just, like, you can't please all the people all the time. And the prism through which I looked at that statement was them rolling out more shows after a time in which a lot of people had traveled to see him. And trying to provide as much clarity around what it's actually going to cost, what the artist pricing was, how many dates they're going to be.

and so that the fan base can make a definitive decision on how much of their hard-earned money they want to spend from here. I thought that was absolutely the appropriate way to focus in this moment in time. And if as a result of that, you can stop every fan conspiracy theory from spinning off of what you've written,

you probably haven't been as direct and thorough as you wanted to. So there's always going to be these little things that happened. But I thought in large part, that was an act of love towards the core fan to just help them make the best decisions possible about how, where, when, to see him, and for how much. Okay, so you don't think that he is thinking about retirement? I do not. I don't really either.

I think it would be really boring for Harry Stiles to retire. I do not. I think, as he said, I think this community that is around him fills him up. And I don't think it's going anywhere. I mean, like, it would surprise me. You don't think he's threatening to do movies? again? I mean, I'm sure he will do movies. He's, he's an actor. He's going to take some time and go, you know, drift through the Italian countryside or do whatever it is that he does that gets him to a place where he's ready to come back and make music.

But I don't think that's, I don't, I didn't get the sense that that's what was happening. I really thought this was them trying to be really, really, really clear about how all of this touring stuff was going to work so that people could make good decisions. And I think it was super effective. in that way. Like, I haven't seen that from a lot of other artists. No, it was well done. He did say at one of the shows at the Garden earlier this week, he was talking about it. And he was basically, like, he was saying, I just feel different at this point in my life. Yeah. Like, thinking about sort of always going and always trying to get bigger doesn't mean the same

thing to him that it used to. But then he did say, I'm not saying anything dramatic. I'm not trying to be dramatic. Don't worry. Yeah. He's aware enough to do that. But again, we talked about this. He's trying to fill 30 dates and have each one feel unique or different in some capacity. And to keep the narrative going is not super easy. And so all of these, it does feel like- So you think he's seating retirement rumors to- No, I don't think he's seeing them at all. Keep the buzz up?

But I think he understood that that was a night to use to clarify it. And I do think in retrospect, like, maybe we'll do this. Like when we go back through the 30 MSG shows, each one will be able to declare the something night, right? There was the night that he walked by the pop-up show on the way to the, the pop-up merch store on the way to the show, right? There was the shorts night. There was the Jalen Brunson night. Yes.

Right? All of those things. And then there'll be nights where he put a song in the set list that we didn't expect. I'm still waiting for the 1D song. wondering if he's going to do that, right? There'll be all the... I think each one will have its own. This is another piece of evidence that this is like in your feeds in a way that it's not for

mine because I could have named you like a couple. You know, I know I saw when he had Jalen Brunson. I saw the shorts thing. I see a lot of photos of him walking. But I don't think that I will... I could go back and and do the research. But when this tour ends, I will not be able to be like, there was this night and there was this night and there was this night and there was this night.

I don't think I'll be able to do that. Maybe not off the top of your head, but I think we'll be able to go back through social and see the things that he did to try to make each one in its own capacity a little bit unique. Interesting. Interesting.

What do you think about, speaking of making some of these shows, their own thing? I do think that his openers for the new shows that he announced are pretty cool. Like, I would love to,

to go to London and see tears for fears open for Harry Styles. Who wouldn't? Lany Wilson playing shows. I mean, like, it's just, it was a cool selection. Laini Wilson, Kylie Minogue. Caroline Polack, very fun. He's got LCD sound system in Rome, which I'm sure will be really, really fun for him personally,

particularly with this music. No doubt. It's a cool group. It's a really cool group. I was like, what I it kind of made me laugh for some reason

the first time that I was looking at it just like what's going on here just because it's so like it's totally all over over the place but I think it's fun

so that's what's going on with Harry yeah feist Feist Feist in Madrid

Feist and Harry Styles in Madrid I'm into it Some of these people, I'm like, I'm, I, Tears for Fears as an opener feels like a real flex to me. I think that's kind of cool. LCD Sansa as an opener is a real. It's great.

All right, I think that's basically what I got. This was a good catch-up. Anything else in your mind? No. I mean, yes. You know what things that are on my mind is, there's a lot of conversation right now about the next wave of pop stars, about Adela.

about Slater, about a few others, and the staying power of them, about whether there's another wave that's coming. And so, you know, at some point this fall, maybe we'll have a little chat about who's around the corner. Mostly though, right now, I am just like, I really feel like Olivia Rodriguez came out of the summer is the one.

And she put out the album, she did the Daisy Chain Festival that went as well as at podcast, possibly could. She's in all these Amex commercials. She's got a tour that's crushing. And I just, there was a lot of not direct competition at all, but there was certainly competition for attention and listening this summer amongst a lot of our big pop stars. And as I sit here in, as we round, into fall, it feels like so far this year, Olivia Rodriguez has ascended. I feel that way too.

I am looking forward to, you know, just for a little bit of peeling back the curtain for people. Not always, but I would say the majority of the time when there's someone who, you know, you guys are occasionally saying, when are you going to talk about this person or when are you going to talk about that person? I love this artist.

Will you ever cover them? Usually we want to. It's just a. matter of finding time in general and also time that makes sense. But I do think that that's a great flag by you because there are some really interesting artists. I mean, in particular, you mentioned Adela and Slater, who I both think are really, really cool. And I'm excited to have those conversations. And I promise we're trying to figure out when and how and what will make sense. So I'm glad you brought that up. This has been every single album. As always, I'm Nora Preciati.

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