Every Single Album - 'The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore' | Every Single Album: Taylor Swift

Episode Date: September 30, 2026

'The Life of a Showgirl' isn't over yet. Nora and Nathan break down the four bonus tracks we got in 'The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore' and talk about why Taylor might have chosen to release the songs now (1:00), the highs and lows of these bonus tracks (13:42), and what could come next for Taylor now that this era is officially over (45:03). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan HubbardProducer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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See the trailer online. Only viewers on top. over second. Oh, and welcome to every single album. I'm Nora Princeati, and as always, I am joined by my friend Nathan Hubbard. Late on a Sunday night. Nathan, this is every single album after dark. You have been on the football beat.

I have been on the job beat. It's been a long Sunday. We have, I mean, I think purposefully. given ourselves a few days here, haven't we? Because there has been a lot of conversation and feelings expressed about this. And usually you and I have sort of made a habit of listening and coming out early because we like what we like, as she says in Cleveland. Who doesn't?

And this is the first time where we have had the benefit or disadvantage. of a flood of feelings about a Taylor Swift release in advance of us giving our own reaction, isn't it? Do you think that we're, is it really? I don't think we're, so we're talking about, of course, Life of a Showgirl, the Encore, the four songs that Taylor Swift released late Thursday night into Friday morning. And we are in part doing this, recording this on a Sunday evening, because as we have this conversation, we are like midway through the VMAs. And I will tell you that I am still on like

slight is something more going to happen alert. And we'll try to incorporate that if it does. But Taylor Swift has accepted her artist director honor award presented by Dakota Johnson on the VMA stage. Presented by Taylor Swift. Yes. externally influenced as the VMA's producer said about the creation of this award for this year. And she has debuted the Patient Zero music video, which we both have seen. We wanted to wait to be able to take all that in to have this conversation. But as always, of course, we live in fear that more will come and she will do something. and we will have to like figure our schedule out.

But that's where we are. Is it that we live in fear or is it that we live in certainty? I live in fear. More is going to come. I live in fear. I'm afraid of Taylor Swift. But just to, based on what you just said, I don't, I feel like this is normally about the timeline.

Maybe it's a little bit more. I feel like usually we record on a Saturday after a new album. And here we're recording on a Sunday. Tortured poets, we recorded Saturday morning after that thing came out Thursday night. And I know that because I was six hours long and I felt like I was going to die. It was a hostage crisis. Like it was a hostage situation and we had to listen to all of it. And it's, I mean, the reason that I am so grateful to be in partnership with you is because you immediately recognize the value of the Bolter, which I don't think is that great. And the Black Dog.

No, no, I was on the Black Dog before the Black Dog. Come on, girl. The Black Dog, I've been like, I mean, I've been like the Samurai. Just fight. It's basically me tonight. Just get ready. Me tonight, fighting for some of these songs is what I was Black Dog early on. But like Sophia, Marcus, blah, blah, you kind of had a sense that it was better than I'd, like, as that album trailed off at the end, I had run out of steam. I literally cannot believe that you are trying to take my ride or die stance from not day one, minute one, on the Black Dog away from me. All right, we're going to go back, Kyle, you need to insert it.

I will turn this podcast around. You need to insert it. Like, let's do some clipping. I keep seeing tweets about a lot of people streaming the Black Dog. And I'm surprised by them in one sense because it is a bonus track and it didn't come out until the 2 a.m. Edition. But I'm Goo Goo for that song. So if those are to be believed, then I credit the public for their exceptional taste.

It is, undeniably, the best song on the album. Let's put it this way. I was always pro Black Dog. You, I'm giving you credit, were pro like song number 29, 28, 30 on the that album. Like you had the patience to sift through the rest of it and figure out like there was some stuff at the end that wasn't just the sort of ass end of Aaron Destner's hard drive, but actually songs that we should pay attention to and that should be considered. And what is so frustrating about that is that two albums later, we have an album that we were told was going to be 12

songs that it turns out is not a year later. 16 songs. As we sit here, you and I have had a lot of private text messages about this, and sometimes we publish those things. Yeah, me sending you pictures of Ben Affleck taking a drag on a cigarette. That's how I'd feel right now. I was very happy. There are times where I miss you desperately on social media, and this weekend was one of those,

because it was really fun in a lot of ways. It also, after the first three or four hours, got super not fun. And there have been a lot of opinions expressed online and publicly and everywhere about this music. And you and I will do that tonight, I'm sure, unfailingly. And there have been sort of breakdowns of the songs. And you know what, we can give our opinion.

But at this point, I'm so much less interested in individual analysis of the four songs. And I'm so much more interested in the question that you sent me right away. And we don't always do this. Sometimes we give each other space and we don't share stuff because we want, but we're usually viving,

whether we're in the same city as we are right now or whether we're on opposite coast as we are usually. And you sent me one question, and it was one word. And I think that's the thing that we will be, you know, sort of coming back to as our home base tonight. And that was, why? So Nora, we're going to come and we'll dissect these songs. And I think we maybe actually are going to have differing opinions on this.

And I have a different opinion than at least most of what I'm seeing online at the moment. But I think it is really interesting. It is really interesting to ask the question. Why? Why did she do this? Why now? Why? Well, so can I give some context on when I sent you that?

Yeah. So I went to see Phoebe Bridgers on Thursday night at the Barclays Center. And it was just a really wonderful, like, purposeful, intentional, thoughtful, memorable, special show by an artist who I think has the album of the year. Me too. Did she play three-way kiss, and it was awesome. Did she play Scott Street? Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Lights up? She basically closes with Scott Street. Lights up, hands up in the crowd. Yeah. Yeah. And it's really cool. And it was like super cool to go in there without much of an idea of what it was going

to look like, just because like, you know, there's not a lot of video of this out there. We'll talk about that another time. I actually would really like to do that, but that's not what this is about. However, that is to say that I walked out of that show like buzzing and feeling pretty inspired and just... Like chemically or just emotionally? Why not both? But so then I get into the car and I'm going home and in the middle of this drive, it becomes midnight. So I'm like, all right, let's go.

And... Am I led to say what the first text you sent me was? Well, so hold on. I click play on Patient Zero. And for 30, 60, 60 glorious seconds, I'm like, oh my God, I'm so into this. Do you like the fiddle solo to begin the song? I love the fiddle thing. I love the like, you know, sort of melancholy Celtic thing.

And then the drum track I think is really cool too. The combination of those things is great. And you're coming from a Phoebe show in which, like, Nickel Creek had been all over her shit. And so the sort of fiddle, old school with new school stuff is probably like in your wheelhouse in that moment. And it's also totally, but it's also like it's a little different for Taylor. It's a little unexpected to me from Max and Shelbeck too. Like I'm in. Does it sound like Charlie Puth, the song?

Does it sound like that too? I'm not worried about that. Not enough to bother me. Okay. And then I got to be honest, it took a bit of a turn from there. Okay. Talk to me. And it's actually like you were saying that you think that you feel differently

from most of what you're seeing about this stuff. In some ways, I do too, because I think that there are good parts of these songs. There are. I struggled with them. All of them? Because I, like, all of them in different ways. So initially the one that I liked the most was Babylon. Yes.

You never knew that it was Babylon. I probably still think it's... Nobody hates Babylon. Nobody, yeah. I think Babylon is something we all can agree on. If she'd put these in reverse order, I think the entire conversation is different. Okay, but can I, can I, I will say, I'm not. not going back to, like, I'm not feeling the impulse to keep listening to Babylon, but when I heard it

the first time, I thought it was good. The one that I want to listen to is patient zero, except I have to stop it two minutes in. I cannot abide that bridge. So let's get into it. I know he charmed your family and friends, and you thought it's because he loves you. The talk singing is an evident. Like, it has to end. I can't hear it. Like, I have to, but if I listen to, of the first two minutes of that song, I think it fucking rules. But it's, so like, I think people are talking about these songs. Like, they are flaming piles of excrement on the internet. They're not.

And I think that's wrong. And I think it's a little mean-spirited in some cases, to be frank. But what I do think is these are songs that, like, shouldn't quite have passed QC. Where it's like there's some element of it that needed to be different. And I was a little... I was sitting there in that car, feeling that sense and feeling a little bit like there's like an uncanny feeling to that happening. I'm not used to this happening. And I personally, and we ended up having a conversation about this, I feel that she still has her fastball, that she can still have her fastball. I'm just like, maybe that's just me coping, but like I am unable to believe that Taylor Swift, who by the way has made songs that are not her best songs before. and then turned it around and made great songs. I don't think that when she makes a clunker,

it's like it's all over. She's never going to have it again. It's like we're so cooked. Of course, it's not. And that is why the operative question of this podcast needs to be why. I mean, even the bridge that sends you, okay, the second part of that bridge, like not the first part, right?

The first part is, I'm with you. It's just a nightmare. So let's get into it. No thank you. But like, but when she gets into the ticket from somebody who lost his games will won the race, like I'm actually okay with that cadence and the way that she sings that. To get from somebody who lost his games but won the race. To get from someone who said all of this to his face.

But if you have to listen to Babylon instead of any song on 1989, what do you pick? Oh. Like if I, like I'm going to swap it? Yep. Bad blood? Well, really? No way for me.

I mean, this is what I'm saying. Is you got to think of, I know places. Never. Are you kidding me? Right. You love that song. What about shake it off? No, shake it up.

No, no. So campy that you're okay with it because I think there's some shake-it-off Cleveland parallels. Well, I think shake-it-off is what I think Cleveland would like to be shaken off. Yeah. And then like, okay, so what we've been seeing all week is this funny meme of the documentary where she gets the news that reputation is not getting any Grammys. And she just goes, this is fine, which today, if she said it then, they would have put that like cartoon character

with the coffee and the burning down room meme around that. But it's basically what it is. She says, I'm just going to make a better album, which you know, you and I can get into a debate over whether she actually does that on lover, but she definitely does that on folklore and evermore, at least from a Grammy perspective, although I think reputation... Not my words. Fine. In hindsight, reputation actually becomes, right, it's the lore of reputation, but I'm

asking you then, I'm not going to make you do that for reputation, because I think we could actually get there in reputation. But like, Babylon over what song on Lover? I probably would rather hear Babylon than The Man. I think I might rather hear it than, no, I know I would rather hear it than it's nice to have a friend. Oh, but it's nice to have a friend. Come on, man. Here's what I think is complicating this. Babylon's better.

I think one thought that I had several times, both while listening to this and also like some of it is actually like seeing her do the music video stuff. I think part, it seems pretty clear to me that we are and to some extent have been at an inflection point in Taylor's career. And to me, part of what has shaped that is her primary musical reference is herself. And I think particularly since the re-recordings and eras, she's been operating in, like, from a point of view of her references being her own discography. And so part of what is making me struggle with this question a little bit is because, like, it's almost hard for me to evaluate how quote unquote good of a song I think Babylon is, because Babylon is a Taylor Swift song. And Babylon is a song about, you know, someone who's from a small town and had big dreams and then accomplishes something and looks back wistfully and is like, I didn't quite know

how good I had it, basically. And is massively melodically cousin first, maybe second, but probably first related to champagne problems. right in your pocket, my picture in your wallet. Those electric fences, bars, a stallion flees the stable. Right. And to a lesser extent, renegade. You wouldn't be the first renegade. You never knew that it was Bible.

I mean, it is, she's not reheating her own nachos, but like there were a few chips and cheese from the last batch lying around. But like, think of it. But like, think about, think about Tis the damn season. I do. Like, that is, and you know I do too. That's the concept of that song. I happen to prefer that version all, like, it's in some ways a bad song to choose to make this point

because I prefer Tis the damn season to Babylon simply as a piece of music. But even if I didn't, I think part of what's complicating this for me, is what I like about it is that it sounds like a lot of stuff that I've already heard. And so it like puts this ceiling on what it can do for me. And that's what I texted you when you were upset. I said you're mad because she actually showed her ceiling on this, didn't she? I don't. Well, so this is where I disagreed with you is because I just don't feel willing to say that it's her ceiling.

I don't, I think it's something that's hindering this project. But like I will not go there. I will not say that I don't think that she can do it. Okay, okay. So can I just tell you my truth here? And then let's just go. Hell yeah. I think these songs are better than almost everybody on the internet.

I'm, I do not. I'm not into Patient Zero, but to me, it is consistent with everything she's done. This is my favorite. Throughout her fucking career, which is she picks the wrong single every time and she gets excited about something and she goes north-south. No, this is...

I've come around on Patient Zero. Fine. Great. Okay. I'm okay with Cleveland. I listen to it for exactly one mini bar's length and then I get out alive before the bridge and I'm thrilled.

I'm having a great time. I'm sorry you all are upset. I know what she was doing there. She was trying to do something different. I think that it's us against the world, the hater stuff. It's so ridiculous and we'll talk about it. Can we talk about this?

Because I actually like I have not had the chance in my life yet up to this point to talk to someone who like likes Cleveland and wants to defend Cleveland. and I'm genuinely interested. I don't like it, but I know what she's doing, which is she's made 300 songs right now.

I don't, is it 350? How, okay. So it's so much, I mean, we're on T.S. Not quite 13. We're on 12 and a half right now. Like, there's so much music. Like, it is okay.

She has explored tons of things. And I think from her perspective, she, in her own mind, and her own mind, as we will talk about from my perspective, is constrained by the required bubble that she lives in because she's so famous and wealthy and needs to be protected in a whole bunch of ways. And now in a life that is, you know,

the only place she can be a human is in a room with people that she trusts. And so they've, whatever. But I think that has an impact on all this. But I do think that, like, she was trying to do something different with Cleveland. And Cleveland is, whether you like it or not different. So was, you need to calm down. So was me. So was some things on reputation. So was, you know, the time signatures on Ivy. You touch brought forth an incandescent glow tarnished but so grand. And so what, you know, the, God, we totally, by the way, we blew it last time.

talking about, I blew it, talking about deluxe tracks that were amazing because the deluxe tracks on Evermore are actually two of my favorite Taylor Swift songs ever. So I know that I screw that up. But my point here is she's trying to do something different within the constraints. And I think people's criticism is the box that she's in isn't, you know, enough, good enough, whatever. Within the box that she was working in, which is the palette of showgirl, Cleveland to me is interesting, rhythmically, melodically, it's different and it stands out. And I appreciate that because other than ruin the friendship and occasionally parts of wish list and would, just because it's so funny to say would, but I can't even really think about what song that is. Right. Like there isn't that much on showgirl

that stands out. So at least on Cleveland, some sort of... stuff stood out. Now, lyrically, I understand the issues that you take, and it's like, girl, we've covered this and nobody's out there. Wait, wait, wait. I don't think you know what the issues that I take are. No, not you. I meant, I'm at the broader internet. Like, like, no, her taking issues with, like, I can't believe, I can't believe she thinks that the discourse is Travis could have gotten somebody younger. No, no, no, the discourse has always been, is this guy worthy of you? You are at the apex of the human... Also, no one has made fun of her dancing in like a decade.

Nobody. Stomby, would you even call that dancing? Like, who is feeding you this? And what's happening right now online is people are... By the way, and this is the project, right? There is this like social psychology thing of the mob right now where they're just piling on because it's cool and it gets clicks and everything.

I've been sitting all weekend looking. at this stuff like, you guys, like, this music is not bad. It's not bad. In fact, pink clouding, I genuinely like. And Babylon, I genuinely like. It's just that. If you give me any song on 1989, probably most of the songs on reputation and lover and folklore and Evermore and Midnights, and as you and I've talked about, eight, nine songs on tortured poets, I'm not trading them for one of these. So why a year after this original 12-song thing that she declared was a 12-song thing came out? Did she put these out? My job is not so much to defend these songs. I will revisit these, not in the way of some others, but I think they're better than the broader internet is giving

her credit for. But I understand the question. Why? Okay, you are not getting, like, we can talk about this, you are not getting off the hook from answering my questions about Cleveland. Okay, sorry, sorry. Go. Do you think it's funny? Do you think that there are punchlines intentionally or unintentionally? Intentionally. Yeah, I do. Okay. Like where? Just writing a song about Cleveland at all? Well, okay. So this is sort of where I'm coming from. is like I want, so to the extent that I have a main issue with this song, it's that it is really distracting to me that it sounds like a Christmas jingle. It does.

It could have been tucked right next to, yeah, Christmas tree farm. In my heart is a Christmas tree farm where the people would come to dance under spark or, and I'm sorry this is ungenerous, but advertising this. special on candy canes at Target in November. Like I thought, Christmas tree farm, I just, I find a little bit more elegant. Well, it is. Christmas Tree Farm is a great Taylor Swift song. A great Taylor Swift song.

A great Taylor Swift song. Top five Christmas song in my house, period. I think the idea of writing a song about, like, almost using the metaphor of Cleveland, a oft maligned American. city to describe their relationship and the way that people treat them and feel about them. I think that's actually a very funny concept that she then doesn't really do in the song. Like, stay with me. First of all, there's very little about Cleveland.

Things that I can confidently say that Taylor knows about Cleveland from this song are that there is a neighborhood called The Heights and Travis used to live there. And also, the porch is where he lived as a kid. He's been saying forever, must not have read that. And also, let's be honest, she knows that from the podcast.

Isn't it funny when she doesn't say the bad words? He says, I look like an angel. They say, I hate that. Like, he says I look like an angel. They say, I hate that. And she goes on. Like, there's the, she doesn't say the, you know, word that rhymes with the door.

Look, humor is subjective. That didn't necessarily land for me. I think the thing that, like, I actually could have kind of fucked with this if she had been willing to take the piss out of herself a little bit and do like, like, talk about the Cuyahoga River. Like, acknowledge that. Randy Newman did that. Because the Cahajahoga River goes smoking to my dreams.

Do it again. That's okay. That's what I thought this was going to be secretly. I thought she was going to follow up. I knew what I knew you, which was a Randy Newman with the song about the Burning River that Randy Newman wrote that was featured in Major League, the song about the Cleveland Indians.

Anyway, that's a super weird old point. Keep going. I think there was like an opportunity to kind of do something where it's like people kind of make fun of the basicness of their relationship. And Cleveland is a really good metaphor. for that. And then it just wasn't about that. It's about a bunch of things that like, people don't even really say about, like, it's about a bunch, you know, the haters. And then the other thing is like, this whole thing of you only need to find one person in the world who doesn't

think you're insufferable is sad. I know. That's a depressing as hell way to describe your relationship. It's not funny. And that was where it fell over a bit for me. It's why I just didn't take the whole thing seriously. And I just thought she got excited. about a song with this rhythm and with these like, oh, like the, I don't know, the chorus line. We used to say that we graded her on a curve, and that meant that we graded her more harshly because she's a genius and because she is the artist of certainly my lifetime. And now I feel like we're grading on a curve in the opposite way. No, this is not B stuff. We can't take anything. This is not B level. It does not get the grade. I'm just...

I think that people are being overly harsh about what it is. I think it's fine. It just breaks no new ground, lyrically, melodically, production-wise. Even the campaign itself, we're releasing videos on the VMAs from somebody who has the power to do something incredibly creative and different and unique and one-up Charlie or any of these album campaigns that we've seen, like she could do something unique. and it's not that she's not trying.

I just think it's just okay. And what I don't understand is, was there something about these four songs that she was personally inspired by that had her say, I got to put these out a year after life of a showgirl? Or was this just and purely intended to be a marketing effort in the home stretch to try to get Life of a Showgirl

into the Grammy conversation. Because I believe, as I sit here Sunday night, that if she had not put these out, she was going to win the Oscar for I knew what I knew you and be in Song of the Year for that campaign. And I believe that the conversation around this song, and lots of times these songs, there's conversation around songs

that is bot generated and fake and everything. This is real. I just spent the weekend with my daughters and their friends. this is real. This is not being received well. I don't care what's online. This is not being received well. No, I mean, it's her front.

She has shot herself in the foot on that in a way that frustrates me because I think I knew what I knew you was great. And I think of anybody, she should have the egot. And I think she was there. And it's more interesting to say, why did she actually do this?

What is it about her that wanted her to do this? And is it going to hurt because the blowback here is not bullshit the way that it sometimes is the Taylor Swift stuff. The blowback here is real. I don't fully disagree. I don't fully agree with it. I think the songs are better than they're getting credit for. But there are a lot of real human beings who are like, I love her.

I still will listen to her stuff, but this is not her best effort. And I don't understand why. Yeah. I mean, it's the first project of hers that, you know, where it appears, where the rating on Metacritic appears red, right? Because it is more negative than positive. Some of that could be manipulated, right? I don't think so. People in your life.

I think that's actually harder to, because you're not taking stuff from the internet, right? It's, yes, it depends what outlets you choose, but I think it's a pretty representative sample. I mean, she mostly got either pretty bad reviews or no reviews. Yeah. And the problem is, it's the expectation setting. And that's some of the psychological stuff that's happening online. Yes, 100%. If you put this out a year later and it's four songs and you make the big deal out of it,

there's got to be something in there that you believe is an absolute 100 mile an hour fastball, knockout punch. And I think when people did not hear that, and it's great that you like Patient Zero, but nobody loves it. I like one mini-bars worth of Patient Zero. I need to be incredibly clear about this. And so when you set the expectation but you don't deliver, the arbitrage between what you did and what people thought

is the debt that you accumulate. And it is rare in the history of this woman that she has posted debt. And that, I think, is what's happening right now. No, she's become someone who can be guilty of over-promising and under-delivering. And I think that's come up somewhat recent. Like, I don't think that's the first time that I've said that.

It's not something that I would have said even a couple years ago. I think I've only really ever said it before in context that had to do with countdowns that ended in merch releases. Right. I felt that way too. But it's a bit of a foreign, it's a foreign concept to me with her. But it is how I feel about this, that I don't think that if, If she made these songs, so the question of why, the reason I texted that to you is because, like, I don't really feel like I have a good, I don't know. And that was, you know, I was sitting there in the car being like,

why. Like, why? I don't totally get why you would release this right now. I don't understand doubling down on showgirl, which like has some fun songs on it. But I think was largely not a super successful album for her in terms of doing the things that I think she wants an album to do. Uh, If the reason she did it is just, as she said at one point, I think in the clip, in the sort of infomercial, I don't mean that pejoratively, that they played about her being a music video director before the award, she says, I just love making stuff. I love making stuff. If these four songs happened because she just, like, wanted to go to the studio and wanted to get some stuff down and likes to create, cool. then the mistake is doing an Emmys, like, special and laying all the Easter eggs to whip everybody into a frenzy for them.

Just release them and say, I wanted to write some songs, and here's what I came up with. And, like, I definitely acknowledge that I think she has a really hard job right-sizing people's expectations for any project because literally anything she does is going to have a frenzy around it. but I also think that right now, it appears that she is standing with an egg beater in front of the frenzy whipping it into its highest form. And Nora, that is exactly what the young people in my life are saying. Like, she's trying too hard. Thank you. I am very up with the youth.

But like even the young, like she's trying too hard. It doesn't feel real. Like, by the way, the SVU sketch was so good. She was great. She was great in it. Everything about it was good. It's like she understands how to set it up. And she was, yeah, it was an A plus thing.

It's just that the expectations relative to the results. And so my ask of you is, like, I can think of lots of people who have delivered amazing art when they have become famous and wealthy and satisfied in their life. and beyond the creative bursts that come with youth. I can think of Madonna doing Ray of Light before she was 40. I can think of Paul Simon and Graceland, which happened after 40, and Tom Petty and Wildflowers.

But the list isn't crazy long, Nora. And I think there is something to be said about an artist who puts lots of stuff out, and at some point the oil well gets tapped. I vehemently reject that that's where we are with one of the top Mount Rushmore, and I don't know if that's three, two, five, six, but it's somewhere in there. Songwriters of our generation. I believe she still has so much left to produce.

There is something about this project that I feel like she's doubled down on because of the cognitive dissonance, again, between the quantitative success of some of these things. And by the way, she's the top streaming female artist in 2026 right now, and this song got lots of listens. It also fell off a cliff from day one to day two. Yeah. Well, can I just as an aside?

It's like, I think it's such a blessing and a curse that fans and stands and media members these days, like this happens in sports too, are like pretty smart and very attuned to data in particular. I think sometimes it warps the way that people experience music, which can't just be captured in streaming data. But I do think that people are a lot savier than they used to be about how these things perform and where to look for the metrics and how to digest that information.

But it was a new one for me, seeing people really zero in on the first to second day stream count drop-offs as like a thing that all the Stan accounts are talking about. And I guess it was maybe a thing around because I think aperture for Harry had a pretty big day one to day two. As with all of these things, part of how you get one of the biggest drop-offs in history is having one of the biggest first days in history. but it just

it just said something to me about how people consume music. I think that's right and again I think that these songs are going to perform better than the quote-unquote internet is giving them credit for and I think that

they're actually representative of the fact that she remains an amazing songwriter. Let me not like let's be clear. I knew what I knew you which is a really, really good and hugely popular song,

both from a culture perspective. Maybe you live in, you know, Brooklyn somewhere, and that's not your thing, but in the rest of the world, it is. I think people in Brooklyn are digging. I knew it. I knew you. Great. So then it's not a debate

over whether that's culturally relevant. That song came out just a few months ago. So, like, she's still got it. It's just, what is this campaign about and why did it happen? And then going forward, how will she process this? Because I come back to that video,

post reputation, where they don't get the Grammy. And she's sitting there and like, this is fine. I'm just going to make a better album. And the reason, by the way, on that phone call... And the next song she recorded was me. No, that's the next single that she put out. And I'm okay. She's always going to put out crappy singles from time to time.

But she also had Cruel Summer on that album, which is, from my perspective, the best song she's ever made. So what I heard on that call in that documentary was somebody reassuring her that reputation was a great album, which by the way, it was. But she needs the drive to keep pushing herself and somebody and something to pierce the bubble. And that's my only question is tonight when she showed up and she got this award that intentionally or unintentionally, the guy who, you know, one of the guys associated with the production told the world was an outside influence thing, which is they, You know, as you can tell from the thing she posted today, she made this video in March, 26,

and she realized, I want this to get this on TV, so I'm going to use the VMAs. And that's what she did. And that's her power, and it's her genius in a lot of ways in terms of, like, expanding stuff. But after the weekend that we had, even tonight when she got up there and said,

I make these things for the fans, it just, she is a really interesting visual director. She has made and continues to make things. Like, I would love to see a movie from her because she's so thoughtful about the way that she puts her, the images in her mind on to film or into sort of digital video. It was really hard for me to get around the noise. And that's why almost the power of the folklore drop

where she didn't need the buzz and she just put it out. This one, it was hard for my, I just, I mean, I'm glad that it was there. And now I understand why Dakota Johnson is in her apartment and like all these, and North South and all these things. I don't know. I still kind of think she let Dakota Johnson use her apartment to hook up with machine gun Kelly.

I'm not ready to let that go. Well, she's right that the people who worked on that video did a tremendous job. Visually, it's great. I think it's very compelling. But it can't escape where she is. And it's, it's. No, I want to talk about this music video. We're not just talking about the discourse.

Go. I think, okay, the first thing, I'll just go bullet points. I need to say these things. Tell me. Her and Dakota Johnson standing next to each other, that is bang power. There's power in those two sets of bangs. Is that what killed the person they're standing in front of? Maybe.

Yeah, there was death by bang. I wasn't entirely sure who died in the end. I thought, again, like I continue to have trouble with the bridge. section of this song, both in audio and visual format. I thought the scene where he's gaslighting her in the car was really weird and bad. I think one. One bullshit. It's like you love humiliating me in front of everyone. I would. I did. No, I did not. I really. Stuttering. You stutter when you lie. And sort of just like, it was really unearned to me. And if it's going to be unearned, I don't want to see a woman just like being treated like shit. However, then when I,

all of a sudden Taylor was on top of the car, that was really funny. I really laughed when she was on top of the car. Did it, did it feel analogous to when she's on top of the phone booth? I felt it was more, I was thinking about the I bet you think about me music video. Okay. Which I think is my favorite music video of hers that she's directed. With a cake? It's not my favorite. It's not, yeah. Yeah. It's not my favorite music video of hers, but I think of the ones that she herself has directed, it's my favorite. Okay. You really had thought you were moved by this thing. I had thoughts about it, yes.

Does it make you feel differently about the music? No. Has there ever been a Taylor Swift music video that's made you feel differently about the music? Differently? That's like changed my mind on something. Not really. I like, you need to calm down. I actually, no, that's actually a really good example.

I think you need to calm down is, yeah. I think you need to calm down is actually an underrated song. I do too. And I think people hold the clunky music video against it, and that's unfair. Oh. All right. Whatever.

It changed the way. I actually liked the campiness, and it made me more excited about the song, and it made me feel like it. It gave me the permission to not take it too seriously. And that's how I feel about Cleveland. Cleveland exclamation point. Did I or did I not say that you cannot trust a Taylor Swift song with a single exclamation point? You did. So from now on, it's either two or, I,

I don't, you like Florida. Yeah, no, Florida has three exclamation points and it earns every single one. Florida, pow, pow, pow. For 50 years, Canadians have wondered what the names of IKEA furniture mean. Like Natopa, the guardrail for children's beds. Natopa means giving your favorite person room to grow.

It means their safety and your piece of... No. In Swedish, Natopa means night monkey. Mike. Ikea, 50 years of Swedishness at home. Look, he's wearing little pajamas. So cute. Do you put anything into this Travis Kelsey as a muse thing?

Or are you more on the, hey man, it's not the muse's job to elicit great music. It's what Taylor chooses to do. It is completely what Taylor. Like, the idea that the quality of Taylor Swift's, the out. is dependent on whatever guy she happens to be with at the time. Like, in a real way, I think that's ridiculous. It totally denies her of agency. Yeah, it's a little misogynistic.

Do I believe that some people just, like, have a way of inspiring people? Yeah, I think I probably do. I actually can see that, like, not coinciding with healthy relationships. I will acknowledge that it appears that more of Travis's vocabulary has seeped into the vocabulary of Taylor Swift, then Taylor Swift's vocabulary has seeped into the words that Travis uses, although I do think it is close if you really listen to that podcast. Like, Travis has become way more articulate,

and I, not because he's like, I just think, I think being around someone of that intellect and that sort of richness of vocabulary affects you in the same way that she has absorbed, you know, if you want to party with, which she puts out in patience here. I kind of like if you want to party with. Fine. So my friend Betsy and I, and I think you met my friend Betsy at my wedding. We were talking about how we want to start using party as a verb again.

Right. I was into that. Fine. But can we just... I don't think that this is her most sophisticated music. It's not. It's not. It's not.

The most annoying version of myself. Okay. This is what I texted you. What do you want from her then? Slightly better songs. I want the version of, of patient zero where somebody is able to identify that that bridge doesn't work. I want the version.

It's not Andrea. It's not Tree Paine. It's not Travis. You know whose job it was to pierce the veil and be like this could be better. It's a producer's job. I think she's, I think it seems like she is very hard to produce right now. Is she?

Because Jack did an amazing job on, I knew what I knew you. It worked. It told, yes, absolutely. That song works. I don't like, I really like that song. I don't, no shade to that song. It's not.

Yeah, I got it. It's sweet. It's fine. It's good. It's charming. I don't, I think it's a harder challenge to make a four-song addendum that fits in with an album that has some problems and have those four songs be effective enough to try to solve those problems. are course correct a little bit

than it is to do a song for Toy Story that's cute and fun and charming. I do think that this is a harder job. But like I don't, I don't think it's like Taylor Swift is Taylor Swift. So it's not right to just say, well, it's the producer's fault. I don't think that there's like great production going on on these. And some of the stuff where there's just like, I think there actually are pieces and chunks to like here,

but there is like one moment on each one of these songs that just takes me out of it. And I know you, you like pink clouding. And I actually want to hear more from you about what works for you on pink clouding. For me, that little, ha, ha, ha, ha, that happens. It knocked you out.

It is nails on a chalkboard to me. I didn't mind it at all. It's like a little too. There's kind of like a me-he-he-he thing on that song and on Cleveland. Well, Puppa Promises sounds a little bit like Pupup Poker Face

and all these, like you can lift some stuff and there, I think Pink Clouding is an excellent, pristine pop song. But all I'm going to say to you is if she actually followed the arc, if she was brutally honest with us

about how this all happened, and by March 26, she was making a video, which means that this song was mixed and done at the latest by February 1st, let's just say 2026, and so that means back into 2020, if that's only a few months after she put this thing out,

then I am inclined to believe that she definitely flew to Sweden not that long after this album came out. And all I am saying is that it is the producer's job. That's the person with whom she's being vulnerable, because she feels so comfortable she's getting on a plane and going to Sweden when there is snow and no sunlight to actually do this stuff. because it happens sometime between October and February. It is dark as hell in Sweden at that point.

Dark as hell, Sweden gratitude trip. This was a mission, right? And so my point there is, I'm not like blowing up Max and Shelbach. I'm just saying Travis, Andrew, like, their feedback is irrelevant. Like, it is the creative people with whom she's interacting. And I just think that somebody has to be there and go, from my perspective, these songs are good. and in fact they're interesting and they are a worthy part of the canon

but they are not something that is next level a new era going to create more buzz that people are going to glom on to they're just okay so let's not over like the worst thing you can do as a company as a brand

as an artist is over promise and under deliver and I just think that's what happened here and the power of her word which is that when she moves her little pinky finger in some direction, one degree off north, everybody notices and it creates, you know, it's the butterfly that creates the sandstorm that creates the hurricane. She's almost unaware of her own power. And in this case, that's what happened. And people are looking at it thinking that it was going to be another, thinking it was going to be one of those great songs on reputation, thinking it was going to be cruel summer,

thinking it was going to be August, thinking on and on, that it was going to be anti-hero. And they didn't get it. And that's the back. that we're experiencing. Not because these songs aren't good enough, just that they're not what people thought from the campaign. Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both, but I hear what you're saying, and I experience some of that as well.

I wish we released these in reverse order. I really do. I think we'd be having a different conversation. I don't, though, because, like, again, when I pressed play and I heard the first part of Patient Zero for, you know, 60 glorious seconds, I was like, fuck yeah, here we go. Right. And then we got into it.

Do you think she's lost her fastball? No, I don't. Neither do I. Neither do I. I will say that I don't, I think that she has, I think that she has maybe subconsciously or semi-consciously, learned an unhelpful lesson from a lot of the last few years, which is kind of that people will take whatever she gives them. Okay, talk more about that.

And, like, you know how people talk about when some business gets bought by private equity and whatever? And people use the word in shittification of, like, a product just getting a little bit worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. And because people are used to consuming it and the customer, base is already there. They just, like, for a long time, accepted and keep having it and keep having it and keep going to the coffee shop or whatever.

But then, like, there's a breaking point. It's a concierge key on American Airlines. I understand of what you speak. Get them. Have something to get off your chest, maybe. They do not have their fastball. Max Martin could do nothing for them. Ladies and gentlemen.

Like, I just, I don't know. I haven't been in the wrong. room. A thought that I've had about a lot of songs on showgirl main and that I definitely had about these is, I bet she did this really fast. I bet she had a few days in Sweden and she's Taylor Swift and they're Max Martin and Shelbeck. And like, those people could probably get in a room for a few hours, crank out a few songs. And they can be pretty confident that people are going to receive them in a way that turns on the money spigot and to some, degree can be marked as a professional success and worth doing.

And like, I don't- Because the algorithms are going to drive the streaming numbers and she's going to see those, but not really because she's in a bubble, understand the cultural impact or lack thereof. Yeah. But I think like the way that I just described it is the really sort of cut and dry, cynical version of it. I guess I wonder if it's like a little bit more subconscious than that. And if there could be someone, I think this is a producer's role.

I think she works generally with great producers, but I think some of the people that she's worked with recently, it does seem like especially as time goes on, I wonder if they're still able to tell her no. I wonder if there's almost this high of you work with Taylor Swift, and then you get to, like, the stuff that you do together, For almost anyone, even like, even Max, it's going to be some of the biggest stuff you've ever done. And you get that feedback. And then maybe the next time you just go, yeah, like, whatever this is is great.

And then you let it out before maybe it's fine-tuned a little bit. And what I want for her is I want, I don't know who the producer is who's going to say, hey, I think we need to do a second draft of this. I think we're on to something, but I don't think we're there yet. Because again, I think there are parts that work. And then there are parts that I, I am, I, I just, it doesn't totally work. I'd frame it slightly differently, and I know I made the sort of Trump analogy, which there's part of that, which is just you get caught up in this orbit. But her incredible work ethic and her unbelievable drive,

which is the thing that has made her great, also now has her leaning in and always on. And I think that this is a project that from a quantitative standpoint, she was told and saw in numbers on a piece of paper or on a screen or in an email or in a text, was hugely successful. And because she is somewhat removed by design and for her own safety from every other normal human being on the planet, she didn't really receive a lot of the reasonable feedback about this album. And the best case for that is Cleveland.

Nobody's talking about her being too old for Travis. So I don't know where she got that feedback. People like them. People love them. This is a weird thing about this. I've been surprised by how negative. And to some of it's kind of how ugly some of their reaction to this has. been, I don't think that these are very good songs, but I don't think that they're quite as bad as I think

they're sort of being made out to be. And I also think that there does seem to be this energy of whether it's people turning on her or people who are sort of waiting for a moment. But like, two years ago, she was not an easy dunk. Two years ago, if you were like, Taylor Swift is doing something bad, like she made a bad song, I think the dominant response to that, is like, you lose her, you just don't like to see her happy. But like football fans were dunking on her when she first started showing up, right? I mean, there was a segment of America that was dunked on her, but musically, it was not a very easy thing to do unless you were an asshole. Okay, yes.

There were some dads, brads and chads. That's what I'm saying. Who made their opinions known about her being shown on the TV. That was not, I think she had the last word in that. very quickly. I think almost all rational people saw the misogyny in that were on her side. Clearly, I mean, if she even needed a rejoinder in the first place, because where that came from was the NFL being so desperate to have her in their orbit

that they were, you know, they were fawning all over her. Yeah, NBC. She was at a real, there's something about this that I am a little worried as like becoming kind of self-fulfilling. because I don't, I don't, like, I just don't think that the image of how people, the image she paints of what

her public persona is in the song Cleveland is like not what it has been. And Nora, that's why I think this instinct that has made her great and made her successful is taking over what needs to happen right now. It's like failing her a little bit.

underlying theme of most of the feedback. It's that this stuff is fine, or if you hate it, it's bad, but most of the people are just dunking because it's not great. She can do better than this. That's it. It's just that I hope people don't keep putting numbers in front of her and first day records and all these things to mask the fact that culturally this one just didn't land. Okay, no big deal. Three months ago you put out something that did. Is that a direction you want to go in? Do you want to try something totally different? She's going to figure it out. When you give her the truth and the facts,

I just don't believe that she has the full picture right now. And I understand why people would protect her because there's a lot of bullshit and it's hard and when you're that famous and everything, like all of it. Like, it's not an easy thing. So do you think that she was trying to, you think that she was trying to,

you think that she added these four songs to Showgirl because she just kind of wanted to reignite that album heading into awards season. You don't think it was a course correction. Yeah, I think it was, I think that she felt connected to the songs and that coming into this season, yeah, with votes about to happen and lots of contenders, that she thought this would help the conversation. Yeah, that's interesting.

I think if this doesn't come out, I think that she is a shoeing for the Oscar and she's probably in the prediction market's a favorite for song of the year. And I think that it just is an own goal in that I think this discourse is going to affect the voters. And it shouldn't because I think that she deserves the Oscar at a minimum. I think she, I think she's got a shot at the Oscar because the song has the juice. But this, but, but this discourse is real. Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, I do think that. there is,

it's, there is a little bit of this like, don't, don't, it's not like, don't piss down my leg and tell me it's raining. It's something else, but it's like,

the, there is a hype machine that when, I get how the experience of being constantly told that this is the greatest thing ever and every, yeah, everything is a new high and a new best. And then you can hear it with your own ear. and be a responsible and reasonable and reasonable, you know, consumer and also be, like,

here's another part of it. All these songs failed the, they failed the auto play test. You know how you listen to it? Like you finish an album and then your Spotify is going to play you some other song. I'm trying to think of the first one that I got. It might have been like, I think it was call it what you want. like I'm brand new one. Yeah.

These songs can actually, like, that was part of my experience with Babylon, where I was listening to you and I was like, oh, I really, I like this. This is kind of like an old Taylor thing. And I still think that song is like perfectly fine. Yeah. But then something else comes on. I know. I got this love.

And you just go, oh. I got this love and that's why I was like. Oh, it used to be like this. This love is good. This love. But, but, but, but I really would argue that pink clouding and Babylon are worthy of a lot of the rest of the catalog. It's just that they aren't separated.

And the vibe and the communication and the focus on it made me think they were going to be separated. And I'm actually super comfortable with a single. Pink Gladi, I think is my least favorite of the full. Really? I think I'd rather listen to Cleveland. Oh.

Wow, we have different reactions on this. But that's why tonight I didn't really want to argue about the songs themselves. I want to talk about the songs. I will fight a lot of people over the fact that these songs are good and that they are worthy.

But I will not argue... I don't think it's a good thing when the person who wants to go to battle for the songs is like, I don't really want to talk about the songs. I just don't... I don't want to pretend that these are something different

that changes the way I think about life of a showgirl that are an advancement, that are sort of a next step in one of the greatest songwriters of her generation or any generations catalog. It's fine. It's okay. I don't think she's lost it. I don't think the fact that she's 37 is an indication that she can't make something great. I think there are plenty of examples of it. I just think it is about collaboration. And tonight at the VMA, she stood there looking like a

absolute giant towering over Madonna, who, I mean, can we have a hide-off between Madonna and Sabrina? I know they were on stage, but like who really in bare feet is. shorter than those two. But Taylor looked like a giant compared to Madonna, but there is a lesson to take from Ray of Lowe. She also looked really good. I really liked her dress and I love her hair. Absolutely. I love the short hair. There's, I mean, she's got, again, fastball in all accounts still exists. This is me doing the like, my mom being like, well, say, if you're, if you're going to say something critical, you should say one thing nice. But I do mean it. Yeah. Again, it's all there. But that interaction with Madonna to me is instructive. Because Madonna,

at that point, she maybe had a sense and a vision, but she opened herself to new collaborators and she gave herself an entirely new chapter of her career. And I think that Taylor, if she gets... Madonna's not in the prison of likeability that Taylor Swift is. But if Taylor just gets the right message here, not the dunking and the pile on shit,

because these are not shit songs. They are not, fuck you, I'm standing here with the sword and I will defend it. But if it pierces constructive feedback here, she knows what to do with that. It's still in her. And so that's the only thing is, is she going to receive all this in the right way?

Or is it going to turn her into writing more songs lyrically like Cleveland, which is like, girl, it's over. Like war is over. She's running around like the, you know, like the Japanese soldier in the South Pacific Island who thinks World War II is still going. No, it's over.

on to new things, it's done. Nobody thinks this. We like you. We love you and Travis. You guys are the prince and princess of America. Like, go with that. Yeah. I don't know that I think Madonna is a good comp for her because I think Madonna is just like... Well, Madonna now is different. Like, it's not, I'm just saying late 30s. I know, but Madonna is so much messier than Taylor. Like, you know, for better and for worse. Like, she's... There's, I think, there's, I almost feel a little bad for Taylor because like there's a freedom to being Madonna that I'm not sure exists for, but it's like if she could only just sort of be like that and and throw caution to the wind in that way. There are a very, and do an opening number about fucking in the bathroom. Okay. So, so, so now I don't, I don't need her to be where Madonna is right now. We have decades until we get there. Okay. What I don't want her to fall down the path of is the Katie Perry thing of running full speed from the outside. thinking she's about to run through a door

and splatting into a window because she can't tell the difference for how to actually authentically pierce through. And even the speech tonight with the like, this is for the fans because you love it, after a weekend in which objectively there's been some dunking from real fans. And if not dunking, just apathy.

Do you ever see videos from the swiftologist? Yeah. They've been in my feet. So funny. He's great. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so funny. And now I feel foolish in my headdress. Like, I've been thinking about that all weekend. And, like, the influencers doing the listening reactions who were doing the fake things.

Like, some of that is all contrived and bullshit. And, like, again, it's all part of the ecosystem around this woman to drive clicks and everything else. But just objectively, go talk to people. Put your fucking phone down. and go talk to human beings, they will tell you, this is not it. Yeah.

I think it's better than almost everybody in my life. And I, again, I really like Babylon a lot. And I know that it sounds a lot like champagne problems. I really like pink clouding a lot. Cleveland is fun.

I enjoy the difference. It's okay for me. Like, it did not, I was bopping to it. But I'm not, it was not, the first time I heard Cruel Summer, I had to go outside and walk. When I heard folklore, I went on an eight-mile run. And I came back and I said to everybody around me, she just made an album with the fucking national and Boni Vair and I think it's the best thing I've heard in a decade.

And I meant it. And then when she put out Evermore as an afterthought, because she'd put out all this content, I actually liked Evermore better. And like, this is, this is an un-accomable. equivocal, like, genius in songwriting. And it doesn't mean that this stuff has to be her best effort without her still having her best in her. I think we all, perhaps Taylor included, should think or would benefit from thinking about

if that is true, then what is the version of a release that doesn't convey the expectations of the best ever. Yeah, okay, fair. But not our job to tell her. I want her with Fred again. I want her with Cameron Winter. I want her to just push the boundaries and see what falls out.

I want her texting this decade's Aaron Destner and saying, send me some stuff. And it will happen from there because she's the best. other than that, none of us have any fucking idea nor position or permission to tell her what to do. She's the best. She just needs to know unequivocally that despite the records and the numbers and these awards, whether they're real or not, that are being, and that's not how you build a legacy for the next two decades.

By the way, your legacy's already set. But if you want to continue to be a relevant contemporary artist, which she does, and she is wholly and fully capable of, the fact that she's married and happy and rich doesn't actually matter. It's not a, it's not a barrier to her continuing to do that. It's just her getting direct feedback from people about how this was received

and then pushing herself as is her superpower to grow and be intellectually curious and creatively curious and try some things. And then she will figure it out. The rest of us can fuck off. It is interesting to me to think about the alternate timeline of she puts out, I knew it, I knew you this summer.

And that song is very good. I think there's a lot to love. I think it's easy to love. And I think generally speaking, that's how it's been received. This doesn't happen. And then we head towards the 20th anniversary of debut. And whether or not there's a release around that, there's this moment to revisit and celebrate the beginning of her catalog

and a really, really beloved era in her career. And just sort of where the sentiment would have been coming out of that timeline, I fear a little bit that this has changed, like this has put us on a path that I wish that we we were not on. Yeah. Because I think it would have really been a fall to like celebrate Taylor Swift and to celebrate some parts of her career and some music that like I think is really,

really special. And I do think that this has, has, we've like veered off in a strange direction from that. I think it's the biggest crisis in Taylor Swift brand sense. The Kanye thing that turned out to be concocted, you know, nefarious bullshit. against her, which some of this is. But she, this is more, like, she is more at the wheel of this one than that one. And look, maybe the answer is, you know what, she got super famous, she got super happy and comfortable, and that happened to all the greats.

And at some point, when you're on your 12th album and 350th song, like, you've said all the things that there are to say. And it's fine. And maybe you come back and you have one little moment and that's it. but at some point the tap just runs dry and oil just is out of the ground and you got to move on to new real estate. Maybe that's where we are.

Fine. But I knew what I knew. It was three months ago. Yeah. Suddenly it feels like a long time ago. Sure. But like even if she wrote these songs in Sweden, they're a year old.

So there's a lot of stuff. And before that, life of a showgirl was a year old. So we have lots of songs that have been built up that are not here. And I'm just excited to see if, well, I'm not, I would say I'm actually desperate to see if, if there's an opportunity to pull that out of here. Because I think to your point, we go one or two ways from here. And it's either, you know, the slow decline of the fastball pitcher or something new and different. I know where I sit and what I believe, but I do think the choices that she makes from here and the way she receives these past couple of days and what's sure to be these next

couple of weeks and this award season and how she takes the good and the bad is going to dictate the choices she makes going forward. I don't know what I think is going to happen. I think I'm more in a space of like just kind of calling it like I see it, I suppose. Cleveland rocks She really should have made She should have She should have put a lyric on there That was like

Like my heart's burning like the river It's kind of what I expected It's not for me to tell her what to do This has been really therapeutic for me Are you feeling better or worse about I'm feeling fine I've really been feeling like I'm really I really

I was really on a roller coaster at first, the beginning of Patient Zero took me to a place. What happened subsequently to that was not something I enjoyed emotionally, spiritually, arly. The taste of me is acquired,

but it's his favorite dish. The taste of me is acquired, but it's his favorite dish. He says, oh my God, I can't, it's going to be years before I'm emotionally prepared to talk about that lyric. Yoikes. It's all I have to say about that.

I'd almost forgotten about that. Yeah, that's why I had to bring it up before it was over. I'm like trauma, like, yeah. No, it's like a trauma response for my brain. I can't even think about it. So let's get into it. But I do feel, oh, my God. Literally, there are so many triggers for me on these four songs.

But yes, I do think I feel, I don't know, I just think I've probably, Like, it's not about her. It's not about the music. It's just, I do think that conversing with you helps me process my own feelings. So for that, I'm grateful. Okay. Well, me too.

Same, same, same. It's everybody, it's okay. It's okay. That's my message. Like, everybody chill. This is not the end. We'll see. I'm looking at the internet right now.

And? I can tell that the VM. are over because I think Big Brother is on my television screen. Okay. It doesn't seem like anything insane happened. No. Okay. All right.

So then I think we're safe here. I think we can call it a night. Any final thoughts? No, we're going to be just fine. I would like 2027 to be the new chapter. I mean, one thing that you need to know is that Matthew Stafford is in this video. Matthew Stafford is in the music video? Yes.

Is in the Patient Zero video? Yes. Oh, I didn't notice him. He seems to be in the background in a tuxedo. Is he in the wedding? Yeah, he's in a... Okay, so then Aries, that made that for the Ram. Correct, correct.

Sugar was Colin Farrell. Aries was Rams, Matthew Stafford. Sorry. From the vineyard was... Hold on. Hold on. Am I stupid? Why is sugar Colin Farrell?

because that's his character on the show that he's on. Oh, okay. Matthew Stafford, Rams, that's Ares. Clearly I don't watch whatever that is. De LaVine is, from the vineyard, is Cara De LaVine. Kara Delavine was in that? Yes. Cool.

And north or south is Dakota. So those were the four people who were in the video. So it had nothing to do with the third letter. It had nothing to do with anything. except the famous people in this video. I didn't understand the drinks were poisoned. Okay, some of this music video doesn't make sense. Yeah.

I didn't understand why she kept knocking the drinks out, but they're poisoned. Okay. Do you think it's a coincidence that it is a tie game in Denver with nine minutes left in the fourth quarter? I guess the Rams are probably about to it could feel cool. But I wouldn't say that Matthew Stafford on the eve of his video coming out

party is doing great. I mean, his QB rating is like 76 and a half right now. And just contextualize that for the listeners. What does that actually mean? It's good. It's good. 76 and a half is fine. Yeah, it's fine. All right. He's 23 for 42 with a touchdown and whatever. Wait, QBR or his rating. RTG. That's not that bad. It's not great. Like, as we've discussed, you can cherry pick statistics. Or statistics don't mean... It's not like they're crushing the Broncos.

I mean, they're up now 1916. So maybe they go on and win. But this super team is not necessarily like taking over the world. Anyway, good job getting in the video. It's great. Did you know that the drinks were poisoned? Did that clock to you that she kept hitting the... I was like, why are they spilling all the liquid?

Yeah, that's why they're all dying. It didn't occur. This is probably just, this is a skill issue on my part. It didn't make sense to me, but I get it now. Nora, as always, I feel grateful to be able to talk this through with you. Okay. Well, I'm going to go give that video a little rewatch because clearly there were some Easter eggs in there that I didn't get on First View. This has been every single album. As always, I'm Nora Preciati. He's Nathan Hubbard. Thank you to Kaya McMullen for producing this episode. And to you for listening.

We'll talk to you next week.