Every Single Album - The So-Called Vinyl Wars and Other Pop Music News and Notes

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

Nora and Nathan cover a grab bag of pop music news, including Sabrina Carpenter's announcement that her next album, 'Short n' Sweet,' is coming in August (1:00), whether or not Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish are feuding over releasing vinyl variants (15:21), and what surprise songs Taylor has been playing at Eras shows recently (38:31). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellany. I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight. Which streamer is on the brink of collapse? And which executive is on the hot seat? Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will never eat lunch in this town again?

Follow the town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. And welcome to every single album. I'm Nora Preciati. And I am here, as always, with Nathan Hubbard. Nathan, happy June, still canonically part of Pop Girl Spring. How are you doing? It sounds like I'm doing better than you are, Nora. What's happening with that voice?

We're going to have a nice, fun, bright little, I'm the helium voice today. We're going to have a cute little episode here for you. And I'm going to get out of here right quick before I start sounding too much like a frog. I just lost my voice over the weekend. I don't really know what happened. I got like a weird cold, but I didn't even really get that sick. I just like completely ceased to be able to speak. And you and Kaya very kindly punted the recording of this podcast by a day so that I could be able to make sounds. We're working on it. Bobo, I'm glad that you can make sounds. I have no idea what we're doing today. I'm coming in super

cold and I'm excited about that. The every single album family, maybe I just mean me, but I'll extend this to everyone just to shield myself, has maybe been through it a little bit, you know, physically, mentally, emotionally. So I'm really excited to see what comes from just doing a little grab bag, a little news and notes. It is still Pop Girl Spring. It is still Pop Girl Spring. but there has been a lull in the release calendar. So we thought that we would take this time to kind of recap on some topics that we weren't able to hit quite as long as we wanted to

in earlier episodes. But also, first things first, talk about an upcoming release that I am very excited about from Sabrina Carpenter, whose album Short and Sweet will be out in August. Is that right, Nathan?

August 23rd. Third. Ooh-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo. So I have to tell you the thing that made me really excited about this. I'm excited about the whole thing. I love espresso. I love the whole deal. But when a few days ago, the billboards went up in Times Square.

This was before the announcement came out, but there were billboards of tweets about Sabrina Carpenter, particularly about her relatively low height, short height. Low height? What is it? Low height. Again, we've been better in my world, Nathan, and we're finding a way to make it work. That's like what Trump says about somebody. Oh, he's a very low height.

Please keep listening to this episode. I promise I'll be able to make words. One of these billboards is a tweet from a user called bald and dowd. And I have to ask you, Nathan, are you familiar with bald and doubt? No. Okay. Bald and Out, how to describe? Bald and Out is like a minor internet celebrity, like a semi-anonymous internet celebrity, particularly to like, bald and out is sort of like drill, but for women and gay men who are obsessed with pop culture.

Like, that's how I would describe bald and out. Bald and Out to me is an icon. And one of the tweets in the Billboard is, you know, is. a bald and out tweet that says Sabrina Carpenter has charmed me. I don't know anything about her, but I think waking up every day and being 4-11 is an active bravery. I saw the tweet. I didn't know that it was coming from a minor internet celebrity that you stand. Bald and down is important. I love this moment because there are, like, I don't know what the percentage breakdown would be, but there is a portion of our listeners right now who could not possibly be more confused.

And there's also a portion of our listeners right now who I know feel. so seen by this conversation. How do you spell it? And so like, bald spelled the usual way. Yes, yes. An-A-N-N. Oh. And then D-O-W-D.

That's the handle is like Ali, Sivie or something. But if you search bald and doubt, like you're going to get to the right place, I promise. I'm not even finding it. Is it an Instagram account? Is it a Twitter account? Is it a Twitter account? Okay, I give up for the purpose of this podcast. Somebody else will find it.

Fine. Okay. What I just need you to know is that, I mean, first of all, I'm not discounting the possibility that Sabrina Carpenter herself is familiar with the bald and doubt content universe, cinematic universe. Okay. And that possibility delights me. But almost equally delightful, I would say delighting. Yikes. Two for two. Is the idea that just like there's someone in Sabrina, world and you also being in Sabrina world, let me just promise you, like I promise you with every fiber of my being that whoever came up with the bald and dowd tweet for the billboard, like that person deserves a raise. That was a well-chosen tweet and a well-chosen minor internet personality. And it tells me that Sabrina gets it. Well, she does. That's the brilliance of Sabrina. And you should not put it past the idea that it was Sabrina herself who picked some of that stuff out. She's got a

very smart record label at Island. She's got a very smart manager, and she is very smart. And there is something that we love about our favorite artists who have their finger on the pulse of the fan base and their finger on the pulse of culture and how they fit into it. And what you can, there's a whole lot about Sabrina that she's doing right. She's just making very, very good choices right now. But she's doing that because the lifeblood of her fan base and really of pop culture kind of just runs through her. It's really easy for her to just be in the flow and figure out how to create a moment. Bald and Down's pin tweet right now is pronouncing Bob Eiger like Bonnie Fair. I just take my word for it that this is like it's the scale is admittedly.

smaller, but this has no, it's Becky energy. Just like understand that this has no its Becky energy. That's all I wanted to say. Very excited for Sabrina's album. Anything that you're like, you know, maybe we'll get a single. Maybe we'll get some more, you know, she's out and about. We'll get some appearances. We'll see her this summer. Espresso continues to at least be my song in the summer. So I'm sure we'll have a lot more chances to talk about Sabrina. but anything that we should be looking forward to or that you think that our wonderful listeners should know in anticipation of short and sweet?

Yeah, I think, and producer Kaya, I'm going to make you take this down if I'm wrong. But I think there's a new single coming out by the time this podcast is posted. And it is called, please, please, please. And there are a lot of people who think it's better than espresso. And there was a lot of very interesting debate over which of these should go first

and the timing of it all. And I think people are going to love it. Okay, well, I'm excited. I also... That wasn't a big sound of excitement. Are you really excited? No, I'm really excited. I can't even...

If I tried to calibrate my tone of voice to my excitement, I would break my vocal cords right now. But trust me, I'm incredibly excited. I think the song is awesome. And I think that there's a chance that this young woman is on an absolute rocket ship right now

and that she may just take over summer with it. And look, there's a whole lot of fun stuff coming ahead for Sabrina Carpenter. It's good to be her. By the way, bald and doubt is the name, but the handle is at this. I know, I know, but. CV.

I just, how could anybody find it? I just searched and I was like, oh, God. You don't find Bald and Dowd. Bald and Dowd finds you. Okay. Well, I just found it. Siri just got really angry with whatever I just said. Siri wants to chime in on the bald and doubt discourse.

Siri had something to say about that. Quiet, Siri. Yeah, it's a, look, everybody's had their shot this spring, and that's what has been fun to cover. All of these pop stars have put out their best shot, and I think, look, we should talk about it, what's sitting with you. The Billy album is really sitting closely with me,

and I find myself coming back to that a lot. But I do think that Sabrina, at the moment, uncontested, or barely contested, has the song of the summer. Yeah, I think that to me is pretty evident. I mean, espresso has really lasted. I'm going to see some friends for the 4th of July, and we have a little tradition where everybody gets a night and you sort of plan, maybe you plan like a cocktail hour or something,

and there's a theme and there's a playlist. and I don't think that I will do this because I do think that it will alienate people. But the thought occurred to me to just play all the different versions of espresso as my entire playlist. Go for it. I think it would hit. I think it would be great. It would be great for me. Why not?

Can I say one more thing about this release that I'm excited about or that I'm interested in? It's like she really has. has embraced the humor of it all. And I think the fact that this album is called short and sweet. Yeah. It's the perfect name. It's really, it's really perfect. It's really funny. And I do trust her to pull it off because it is like, look, Sabrina Carpenter has, we're talking about her having the song in the summer. There is on some level, like I can see someone saying, well, you know, don't make this all a bit, right? Like, you're a serious person or whatever. And I'm so glad that if that ever happened, she ignored that because I just think it's fun.

And is she really four foot 11? Yeah, she's tiny. That's just like, it's really, I mean, it really, there's something that captures the imagination about that. Great for her. I love it. I'm so excited. There, is that enough excitement for you? There you go.

A lot of talent, amazing package. And just all of the feel. She just has the feel of anybody who's great at what they do. There's that sort of innate, intrinsic sense, and she's got it. And I'm excited for you to hear the new song. I'm very excited. I was, the thing that kind of threw me for a loop, and I'm reasonably well versed in the Sabrina Carpenter Exended Universe,

but this is her sixth album? Yeah. And it speaks to this thing that's happening in music, which is that it is taking more time than ever to break an artist and to create hits. There was this moment in time where it felt like the internet was shrinking the time between discovery and stardom

from like three years to three months. And that has happened on occasion. And speaking of Billy Elish, you know, posting to Ocean Eyes to SoundCloud really was part of that, her sort of accelerated path, to start him. But in a lot of ways, like, you just have to get out there and do the work and figure out your artistry and build up a fan base that then gets fed something so powerful in the form of a hit that it can buzz and break through the noise. And that is what's happening

with Sabrina Carpenter. I mean, she is, she's, I mean, we forget because of the Olivia Rodriguez stuff, but she's every bit of a Disney child as Olivia was. It's just, it's taken a little longer for her to sharpen the iron and into a sword. Well, and I wonder, one of the things that I'll be curious about is that while she was sharpening the sword and making music and kind of figuring out who she is and wants to be, it seemed like some of the earlier chapters leaned a little bit more on the, the tailor-ish singer-songwritery, more diaristic songs. The fun of espresso is that it's really not that.

It's a confection. And people have latched on to that so much. I personally find it so refreshing just because, well, it's not that I don't love that other stuff from other artists and also in Sabrina. discography. There's something about the campiness, the silliness, the unaffectedness that feels fresh because it's not what everybody else does. Right. She's found Elaine. Yeah. So, and I guess, I guess it seems like the framing of this is that she's really leaning into that. So I'm just really excited about it.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure we'll get to cover it. And please, please, please sounds different than espresso. It's a different kind of song. So I'm very, very interested to hear. It's not. Please, please, please. That's that me espresso. No. She unbelievably didn't decide to go that way. Also, iron doesn't sharpen into a sword. What am I talking about? It's not just you having a problem putting words together. Iron sharpen steel. I thought iron sharpens iron. Well, it also sharpens iron. Iron sharpens steel because steel is a softer metal than iron and therefore you can sharpen it on the iron. Iron sharpens iron, but I think you can sharpen steel with iron.

Well, presumably you could sharpen any metal that's softer than... Okay, we're going to move on. It's a biblical voice, yeah. We're going to move on. I think we should spend a little time on a subject that probably almost came up during like a couple different episodes, including the Billy Eilish episode that we just did. but that ended up feeling like it sort of deserved its own discussion because there have been a couple times that this has come up this spring, which is the state of what I'd call the Vinyl Wars, particularly vis-a-vis Billy and Taylor. I will be a little bit tongue-in-cheek when I pose to you a question that makes up the headline of a

article in the cut from last week, which is, are Billy Eilish and Taylor Swift in a feud? No, they're not. Okay, tell me why. Because I think that, I think what we are becoming accustomed to at this point in the TikTokization, as we, as iron sharpens TikTok, is that we're looking at tiny clips and missing the context. and I think that Billy, certainly with her vinyl comment, was coming from a place of thinking about the environment, and I think when you look more broadly at that set of comments,

it wasn't laser directed at Taylor. The timing of it was interesting, given what was happening with Taylor. But I think, you know, a lot of fans put the spotlight on her comment about playing three hours. And if you look at the context, the full context of those quotes, she was not criticizing Taylor. In fact, she had talked about how she looked at Beyonce and Taylor with great reverence for the touring that they do.

It just wasn't a three-hour concert, it wasn't for her. So I think that just like the night of Tortured Poets release, when there was the Ariana stands going after the Taylor people and vice versa, some of these fan bases are looking for blood and inventing ways to chase after it. So let's back up for a little bit and acknowledge the reasons why anyone, a publication or someone online, a stand, a fan, or whatever might see some potential for conflict here. So when Billy's album was first up to chart on the Billboard album's chart, it was pretty clearly going to be going head to head with tortured poets, which had been at that point,

number one for four weeks and was trying to get there for fifth. Still is. Still is. It's now and it's six week at number one. The day that hit me hard and soft comes out, Taylor releases digital variants of three songs, of the Black Dog,

of Who's Afraid of Little Old Me and of Cassandra, which help, you know, juice some numbers. It's a push to stay at number one. Yep. And I get why people see that and go, okay, there's sort of an inherent head-to-head there, which there is. I mean, Taylor wants her album to stay at number one. That is for sure. That is for sure.

That, to me, does not equate to the two are in a feud, but there are modes of competition in these things, right? Like, and I do think, to your point, the thing that gets lost in translation is that the Framing as always, Taylor Swift tries to block Billy Eilish from hitting number one by releasing new variants, which if you flip it to, Taylor Swift tries to keep her own album at number one by releasing digital variants. All of a sudden it feels very big whoop. Yeah. That's how I feel about it. That's mostly how I feel about it. I mean, Billy chose to go late.

She said up front in the early part of the year, even at the Grammys, that let's let everybody get their stuff out of the way. What comes with that is naturally a record label who has an incentive to keep the album visible and keep it streaming, a record label trying to extend interest in music that has been released before yours.

That is part of the game. Was she just, you know, specifically trying to box out Billy? No. And was this probably universal and republic more so than Taylor? Yes. Who cares? Why has it got to be a race? Well, but that's the part where that's the part that I balk out a little bit because if it's going to be a race, it's going to be a race. Like, for better or for worse. And I think honestly, like we've ventured into the for worse territory. the discourse around pop stars is so tied to stats and chart position and who's the biggest rather than just like, who do you love?

And I think sometimes that comes out of this place of like, you know, wanting to prove that this music matters and so much of these, you know, a lot of the artists that we talk about, they're women, they're sort of pop forward and they're from these spaces. Like this has so much to do with why we started doing this show that are not always taken super seriously, that there's an impulse to be like, well, you can't deny the numbers. And I think that comes from a place that's very valid. I do think that, like, I think that fandums have jumped the shark with how much focus there is on just like this album streamed X number.

Y number, was it number one for this one? I mean, if you just look at per track streams, this is where Taylor releasing 31 songs versus Billy's compact album makes a difference, right? Because if you just look on a per song stream, Bluey, Billy, Billy, Billy, Billy, Billy, blue Taylor's stuff out of the water. On a per track basis, Billy was streamed almost 2X what Taylor streamed. And that, I think, is part of what Billy was alluding to, which is the charts are silly. And they are massively manipulatable by, maybe I'm inventing words now, too.

Iron needs to sharpen tongue and mouth on this podcast. Maybe we should just melt the iron and try over. Yeah, maybe they are very easy to manipulate because of the violence. component, all of that counts. And because of the way that the charts are measured, when you release 31 songs and people stream all of them as fan bases are want to do, all of those count together into an aggregated number so that you are at a disadvantage if you put out a 10 song album, and it literally goes head to head with a fan base of the same size that is listening to a 20 song album. So I think you are right that the numbers, I mean, the point is the charts have become

meaningless. Not to go too far, but it's a little bit like the official world golf rankings in which all of these guys left for a rival league in Live and they don't get any world golf ranking points. And everybody knows that the guys over there are better than they are ranked in the world. It's just that they're not getting points. In the same way, everybody knows there was more heat and listening and intensity of interest on Billy's album in the first week than there was unt tortured poets, whatever. I shouldn't have said it's not a race. It can be a race.

It doesn't have to be a fight. Right. Well, and it's become so much of a race and oftentimes, unfortunately, a fight in terms of how these albums are talked about. Right. Which is unfortunate, I think, in and of itself, just because I got to believe that there's more to this stuff and more to. what we love about these albums

and this music and these artists, then Thur, Taylor Swift broke another Spotify record. Yeah. My daughter, sleeping with the Billy Elish record streaming because she thinks that she's being a good fan should actually not determine

how we talk about... Right. You know, it should be... I mean, it should matter that Billy has a fan who will sleep with the music playing in the background during finals week. But it probably shouldn't be the ultimate measure of how things are doing.

And I think... Right. I wish we could just pull it back just a little. Like, just a little bit. But I think the fan bases, like, I mean, I think in the aggregate we probably are. Like, it's the ongoing undermining of institutions and media and so forth is happening with these charts. I think people pay less and less attention to what's number one because you have so many

touch points with culture, particularly online, that peers through. Like, you know when there are songs that are being posted in TikToks, right? You know when songs are being put on Instagram stories. You know when there's live streaming of the tortured poet segment of the Ares Tour. You know what's breaking through and what matters, right? Like, the fact that Taylor has been playing, you're on your own kid more times than, like, tolerate it at this point, is not really the most interesting thing

that's breaking through culture, right? It's down bad seems to be, you know, the so high school stuff seems to be taking root. But Daddy, I love him. People are still into that song. Like the, you know, so you just, I think the numbers now matter less and less.

And it's the same reason why when you drive through Hollywood, you see billboards of shows. As I do. Right? You see a, you see a billboard of a, it's not because there's that many people driving on Sunset Boulevard. It's literally because the director or the actors drive on Sunset Boulevard or the artist

herself drives on Sunset Boulevard and sees a billboard with her on it. So she thinks, oh, my record label or, oh, Netflix, my production studio, whatever, is doing the work. It's all like inside baseball. It's not a legitimate eyeball driving thing in the same way the charts aren't really at this point in time, a legitimate eyeball or listening driving thing. It's more about, is this music taking root and breaking out in the way that, like, you do not have to tell me what number globally on Spotify espresso is right now. It was at one point up to number four.

I know that. And like you said, I'm on, you know, I'm tangentially on Team Sabrina. What I know is that fucking song is the song of the summer because it's everywhere. Because there's little kids singing it because there are mothers in town. singing it because there are guys. Because when I asked, when my boyfriend came home with chicken broth, when I couldn't speak, I picked up the box and said, that's that me, progresso. There you go.

That's reach, baby. There you go. So it's happening. And you know it, you know it when you see it, you know when you feel it. I think the number stuff, there are just intense parts of the fan base who seem to care about it. And as we have documented well on this podcast, there are some artists, including Taylor Swift, who still, for whatever reason, really, really care about those numbers.

And they learn the algorithm and they do whatever it takes to boost the algorithm. Is that competitive? Yes. Is that a beef or a feud? Hell no. Well, and it's not...

Again, I feel very confident. Taylor, at the bare minimum, if she wouldn't be actively happy for her, could not give less of a crap if Billy Eilish has a number one album or not. I'm sure she'd love that for her. I'm sure she thinks she's great. Billy's great.

Yep. Taylor is trying to promote Taylor Swift. She's not trying to demote Billy Elish. I agree with you that there's, that we should acknowledge that there is sort of a meaningless quality to some of these metrics. The one place in which I do still think that's different is I do think that it's a real weapon among fan communities.

And in that sense, doesn't mean that it's particularly meaningful. but it does matter because it's used in a certain way. And look, a lot of this, like, a thing that I have always, and I think both of us have always respected about Taylor is her sabbiness, is the fact that she often does wear her ambition on her sleeve. I do think it's fair to sort of look at the landscape and say that maybe the industry and her peers writ large have overlearned some of these lessons.

but I also think that there's a little bit of a danger in how much of this ends up framed as an artist v. artist thing. When it's really Stan v. Stan. Well, it's stand be stand, but it's also, I mean, the sort of mechanisms of the industry, the way that the billboard charts operate in the first place, those systems define a lot of the playing field here. right? Because when this comes back to being, and this is where I do think it gets even sort of more charged, a conversation about vials and sustainability and the environment, it, I think, is really fair. And I think it was fair of Billy. And honestly, like, you know, I would at some point love to hear what Taylor thinks about this or to see a little bit more recycled packaging and

recycled materials and what she's doing. But I think it's, even though I do not think that Billy was calling Taylor out, I do think it's really fair for her to bring up that this is a really, really wasteful trend to have 12 different colored vinyl variants of an album that fans are encouraged to sort of like prove their love for an artist by collecting. But so let me pause you there. Let me pause you there because I want to just get underneath that a little bit. A lot of the people who've created these, Taylor included, has said that the end product really matters to them and that they really try to make each one unique and worth the money.

What you are saying is there could be nothing on those pages. And in service of proving their fandom, a lot of fans would buy it anyway. And that's the sort of you want the leader to recognize that and to be graceful enough and bigger than the commercial component, even if the end product is great to recognize that a lot of what's happening here is not just buying it because it's a great product, but buying it just to prove stendom, as if it was a like on an Instagram post. And therefore, let's not get delusions of grandeur and sell a bunch of these when it's bad for the environment. Let's find another way for these fans to show their loyalty. Do I have that right?

It's a really good question. No, it's a really good question. And I should acknowledge that I'm not a vinyl person. So I don't know the experience of like, like feeling really rewarded by collecting them. I know the experience of, you know, collecting, like, I love a really good concert t-shirt and merch is really fun for me. So I get that there's a satisfaction in that. In this particular lane, it's not one that I dive into. So I would be curious to hear from listeners if they feel, if they're collecting the

vials and feel like they're really just getting a product that's worth it to them and that they're really happy to own. I do get the sense, just the vibe that I pick up, particularly when it's not buying one vinyl, but when it's all the different colors with all the different bonus tracks and having them as collectibles in that way, that inherent to that purchasing pattern

is an act of like fan activism. And I want to help this person, like, I'm going to do this because this is what it looks like to be a good fan. Yeah. That's also a behavior that has at times been incentivized with things like you're

going to jump the line for concert tickets. You're going to have a better chance at getting XYZ. So I think some of these behaviors have been ingrained. I also look like one avenue to pull back because I do think that this is a little out of control.

One avenue to pull back is to do less of the variance. Another like, I don't know the breakdown. I would be interested to see some reporting around this. I think someone should do it. Of like, what is the impact? What is the environmental impact of Billy making all of her variants out of recycled materials versus someone who's not doing that? How, you know, does that make the impact a tenth?

Does it make it half? Does it make it 70%? like there's a line somewhere where it becomes really, really meaningful and I'd love to understand exactly where this is. Again, though, this is where, like, we're still talking about decisions that the artists could make. And in that Billboard interview that Billy did, I think her mom brought up the fact that an organization like Billboard itself could play a role in chilling all of this out a little bit.

Like, what if, I think the thing that... Right. Like, what if only four colors can count? Yeah. What would be wrong with that? Yeah. And again... I think it would be really smart.

Yeah. I mean, in the first week that Billy's album was out, each cut on her album was streamed 19 million times versus seven million streams per track of tortured poets. That seems like a more interesting measure of engagement than of the super fans. exactly how much shit could we sell them and convince them to buy. Right. And shit is not a fair word because, again, I do believe that in the case of a lot of these artists,

they care about the product that they're putting out. And I distinctly remember as a kid, like, opening up CDs and reading every single liner note and looking for clues and, like, you'd always learn something about the album. And what is the artistic direction of all of it? Like, the color of the CD? Like, all that stuff is something. when you care about an artist that just helps you get closer to them.

The liner notes in the early Taylor album, the Easter eggs, like, that's amazing. Yeah. That's a real value ad as a fan. And there's different stuff in a lot of these releases. And so I appreciate the commitment

to delivering it. I just think it's really hard to separate the, I got a badge for my performance on video games, or I reach the next level in Brawl Stars, or I have another patch on my jacket or whatever that status achievement goal unlocked is,

the gamification of our society is there. It's hard to separate that from the quality of the product. And then to your point, when you really measure the environmental impact, it's like, right, is there, or whatever the, even just the economic impact on the fan, is there another way at some point to allow fans to express themselves in a way that's, that's less impactful, either, you know, in a detrimental way, either on their pocketbooks or on the planet. And also, frankly, if you're Billboard, if we're having part of this conversation revolve around the fact that I would not go so far as to say that the charts are meaningless,

right, but that there is a degree of separation between the actual sort of penetration and engagement with the music versus how they're performing because we have reached a point where the artists and the teams are really good at gaming the system. Right. Which I don't, you know, at least to a point I don't begrudge them for when the system exists like that and incentivizes them in that way, then shouldn't they want to make some sort of change that would at least move things in the direction of those charts accurately reflecting what people are really digging and really spending time with.

I mean, that's why to me the most interesting measure of fandom and artist success on the planet is the secondary market for tickets. And we just saw this past week. Jennifer Lopez canceled her shows to quote unquote spend more time with family. You know, don't kid yourself. It wasn't selling. And for whatever reason, there wasn't interest in going to see J. Lo in an arena at the level that would have justified playing an arena.

Flip that over and say, geez, if Taylor Swift, Beyonce, a lot of these other artists, have massive demand for their tickets that, you know, exceeds the supply in orders of magnitude. So that, to me, seems to be currently the safest and least rigable

because it's an open, naked display of supply and demand way to measure the popularity of an artist. It's very interesting. I'm sad that J-Lo canceled her tour. I think it's a little unfathomable to me whose idea it was that she was going to be filling arenas at this point in her career. Yeah.

But as a hyperstand of the J-Lo and Shakira halftime show, if it hadn't, if it had been pretty cheap, like, I would have gone. I'd had a good time. Well, to bring it full circle, in our conversation, Sabrina will be a very interesting barometer because she's definitely got a song

that's pierced through, and she's performed some very notable, you know, she's put on some very notable performances at SNL, at Coachella, hypothetically speaking, if there's a big tour that's coming for later in the year, which tends to happen, as we know, after an artist releases an album,

it will be very interesting to see what demand looks like. It will tell us as much about the fandom and the passion of the fan base as a ubiquitous song of the summer. Can I end us with one more quick little topic, just a personal unburdening? Great. So I'm going to the Aeros Tour this weekend. What?

I'm going to the Airst Tour this weekend in Edinburgh with a couple of my high school friends and one of their sisters. And I'm very excited. Are you just flying to Scotland for this show? Like, we're staying a couple days. But, yeah, basically. We'll do, like, a long weekend. We're going to, you know, hike up Arthur's seat. We'll go bop around. We'll have a nice time. I'm very excited. But, yes, we are primarily going to see the ERIS tour.

I can't even believe I'm going to say this out loud on this podcast because it just, I just like I feel like I can't even put it into the universe because it's too risky, but I'm just going to do it. Okay. Do you think there's any chance she plays the Black Dog, or is she only going to do that in London? How you don't miss me in the Black Dog when someone plays the starting line.

You know, you've Travis Kelsey manifested what you want on a podcast. So good for you. We've learned that that is something that actually works. So now there's more of a possibility than there was before. My sense is... It's the power of podcast. It's going to happen in London because she's in London in both June and August. But on the other hand, I would not have expected that you're on your own kid would have been played as many times as it's been played.

Like, I think that what she's doing is giving herself permission to play things that are well received and that she likes. So let's see if maybe she put something out there and it gets put on repeat. I mean, it feels meaningful that it hasn't happened yet. Because every day, every day when she's done a show, I check the surprise songs and I hold my breath and I go, is she going to do the black dog? Is she going to do the black dog? Which she has to know is a song that people really care about. So if she was going to give it that you're on your own kid treatment, it would already be happening. I think so.

but there's a number of songs from tortured poets that she hasn't tackled yet. My sense is she's still probably figuring out the best way to do them solo. But it does bring up an interesting question, which is, I was thinking over this weekend that my opinion overall on this album and the songs on it in particular has not changed from the first pod that we did. but the songs that I like, I like a lot more and the songs that I don't like,

I care a lot less about. Like, I've polarized on this record, which is maybe where you were in saying, you know, if we synthesized this down into something that was more compact, it would be amazing. But like, down bad crushes. Now I'm down bad crying at the gym.

Everything comes out. Black dog Absolutely fantastic I'm still super into thank you Amy Daddy I love him Bring it on Dreaming for daddy I love him

I'm having his Baby your face it Do it with a broken heart Lots of fun Florida No thank you Florida Oh

No, thank you. Wait, you're not in on Florida? I think you were in on Florida. No, I'm not in on Florida. Oh, I'm so in on Florida. But like, you know, she did Marcus, Chad, Sarah, Amy, Frank, Bob, whatever she did, that song. And I didn't even tune in because, and there are some moments in that song that I enjoy. But it just, I don't know.

I have hardened in my feeling about this album. and fallen more deeply in love with the songs that I do like and become even more apathetic, I should say, to the songs that didn't strike me. That is, I don't know how much of a change that is for me, but that is definitely how I feel. You know what I loved when she did it as a surprise song? Was, I look in people's windows.

Okay. What did she mash up with that? She did it as part of a mash-up a couple nights ago. and it was the stalker mashup. Yeah, the stalker mashup. Maybe she could, maybe she and Billy, maybe they can do the diner and I look in people's windows as like they can mash it up together.

I think she did it with Death by a Thousand Cuts. Oh, that's so good. That is so good. I just, I don't, no, no, she had with snow on the beach live. Sorry. Okay. That's why I didn't remember what song was like. She did it with Snow on the Beach.

Snow on the beach. featured in the latest season of Bridgeton, unclear because it's an orchestral version if that is snow on the beach featuring more Lana Del Rey or regular snow on the beach featuring just a little sprinkling of Lana Del Rey.

I've hyper-fixated on I look in people's windows a couple times just the normal song, but I thought it was really good live. So I'm still weighing on the bolter. That's another one. I think the bolter is my number two.

surprise song pick. You might get the bolter. You could have get the bolter. The bolter would be good because I think if you say it with a Scottish accent, it's really fun. The bolter. The bolta. Yeah. That's not working.

Okay. Oh, wait, can I tell you one more thing before we go? Yes. So I went for my football job. I went to the White House last Friday for the chief's ceremony for some reporting stuff. Wait, your job was to go see Travis Kelsey get... Stand behind Joe Biden and try not to embarrass himself.

Called up by Biden? Yes, that was for several hours last Friday. That was my vocational purpose. Were you in the Rose Garden? Like, where were you actually... It's on the South Lawn. So you're on the South Lawn of the White House. Yes.

Pretending that you're there for football purposes. when what you're really there to do is to watch Travis Kelsey like a hawk and see if you learn anything. And see if he... I don't see if I learn anything. I was going to learn anything,

but just like to see if he acted like a wacko. Well, he is a wacko. I think he was on his best behavior. And he, you know, where else he acted like a wacko slash on his best was at the, you know, Chief's fundraiser thing the other night where Paul

What was that with Jason Siddakes? Sudecis was there. And man, I think, I think at this point, I think Jason Sudecass absolutely had a role as Cupid. Because if you remember, Sudecass was at that naughty, Uno party that Questlove hosted. And he seems to me to be a very common thread. I mean, I know that, I get that Paul Rudd showed up at her

concert over the summer, but I got, because Sudakis also, you know, his ex was with Harry, so maybe there was some bonding between Taylor and Sudakis about all that stuff. I don't know. Have you seen, now we're just chatting. It's fine. We're going to, that's, that's, that's a good end of a pod. Have you seen the idea of you? No, the Anne Hathaway movie. The Ann Hathaway movie that's based off of it. Maggie Rogers leave the light on and has rejuvenated that song. True, true. That movie to me looks like... That looks like Bridgerton.

Like it just has the same set of vibes, which is to say, not for me. No, I think, I don't know. I don't think you would have a bad time with either. Do you engage with the Bridgerton soundtrack at all? No. Okay, well, in this season,

there's a very pivotal... There's a very pivotal and... Who has to have? You know, a little bit spicy, a little bit erotic moment that takes place in a carriage. And it is set to Pit Bulls give me everything. But it's like the String Quartet version. And I have to tell you that the experience of watching that episode and like watching it start and being like, wait, what's this song? And then realizing that it's pit bull was a chef's kiss moment.

I don't need you to see the idea of you. That's fine. it's actually a pretty good movie except that it's completely indiscernible how old anyone is supposed to be which is tough because like the age discrepancy is sort of a big plot point and whatever

but you just made me think of it these are you here's my last question to you for this podcast Travis Kelsey was at the White House I've asked you this question a little bit before which is that he obviously has some obligations he does charity stuff he's filming a TV show, he has to go take over the podium at the White House and say, my fellow Americans

and make a joke about getting tased. When are we going to see him back at the Erez tour? Do you think he'll be there this weekend? This is what I'm asking. Treve, let's go. Let's hit the pub. Feels like pretty soon. We're into June. He's got to be back in Kansas City, what, mid-July? Yes. So- Yeah, I mean, maybe he stayed on the- the East Coast.

Yeah, Travis and Taylor's fun summer vacation where she just takes them around and cultures the man is got to be underway pretty soon. Yeah, so... Enboro, Liverpool. She's doing the whole, like, UK swing. Yeah.

The bad dental work tour of the UK. And maybe... I mean, maybe that would be nice to have him around because, you know, there's some memories at play in some of these spaces, I'm sure. I just think if they're going to get contiguous weeks, it's got to start soon. Yeah, no, I think you're right. I think you're right. She's a busy gal.

Well, he's a busy guy, it's the truth. Yeah, not quite as busy. Yeah, yeah. And I know that we keep saying it's the last thing, and producer Kai is probably rolling her eyes. But there's one last thing that I actually do want to talk about. And that is this, like, flying around discussion. about her body and pregnancy, which pierced through the sort of normal,

everybody has some sort of conspiracy theory and everybody talks a bunch of shit at some sort of like contiguous level of murmur. It escalated over the course of the last week, and I know that because I got texts from people who never text me about this stuff asking me like, hey, is she? And there's a couple things.

One is it's a little bit gross. because everything that we know about her history, right? Correct. Number two, we also know that this is an athletic feat that she puts on every night and she's in like remarkable shape. But I just want to say, have you noticed it? And do you have a view on what's going on here? Not, is she pregnant?

Is she not? She's not pregnant. And it sure seemed like she made demonstrative gesture during, but Daddy, I love him a few nights ago. I'm having his baby, no I'm not, that maybe was in response to this chatter. Do you think that it pierced the level? I mean, and that's some meta-ass shit within,

but daddy, I love him, song about talking about the wine moms and, you know, the fans, everybody grabbing too much control of her life and talking too much shit about her, the fact that it actually pierces. Do you think that that chatter, for whatever reason,

has gotten to her? Has gotten to her in the sense that it has, reached her and that's actually reached her radar. Yeah. Yeah. And like, have you noticed that this one became a bit louder than the normal, you know, level of murmur of bullshit that usually happens around Taylor Swift? Yeah, a little bit.

Which is just so, I mean, first of all, it's like, I, you know, and I'll see, like, I've seen, I tend to completely ignore this stuff. But you'll see if you get a TikTok where whatever, you see some of the photos that they're using and stuff, they'll look perfectly normal to me. It also, to me, begs the question of, like, have any of these people ever eaten salt? Like, have you ever had sushi? You had a nice meal of some sushi. You had some soy sauce.

You woke up the next morning. You feel a little puffy. You move on with your life. Like, who, I just, like, having had, like, like, having had, like, like, I have a bunch of friends who are pregnant right now. You don't know until they are like in it. Like, and it's different for every person. I just like this idea that you can like sleuth out based on a subtle contour on someone's stomach.

If someone is with child is just like so round the bend to me. Not even from the perspective of the fact that it's like invasive and hurtful and an awful way to talk about someone that you don't know. it's just silly to me. Like, she's breathing heavily. She's working very hard. She might have expanded her chest for a moment. Like, what are we doing here? So, yeah, I do think that it got to a weird level of, you know, I forgot exactly where,

but like things start on the internet. They percolate into the page sixes and the demois and stuff and blah, blah, blah, blah. and I think that's when it becomes a little bit more likely to reach her, to reach people around her. And in that song, I mean, I wouldn't put it past her to be making a gesture based on kind of the meta-narrative of shut the F-up about my life that is in that song, if that's happening at the same time. I will say, unfortunately, this is not exactly a new experience for her.

Body shaming or... Body shaming. pregnancy rumors, the entire internet feeling like they have license to comment on her body, on what she looks like, speculate, whatever. I guess I would say to that wing, to the pregnancy wing, this is one of the most sophisticated media companies in the world, Taylor Swift, Inc. is. She's very clear that between now and literally December, she's going to be on a weekly basis out in body suits in front of quite literally millions of people.

I think she's going to get out in front of that story when it happens. You're going to know from her before you discern it in the reputation body suit that she's now worn 98 times. Yeah, it's, yeah. I'm like, it is, of course. Let it go. really horrible, it is also just so daft to me. Like, she certainly deserves if she's, you know, if at any point she becomes pregnant and wants

to share that information with people, she certainly deserves to be able to share that with people on her own terms. Also, to your point, if she doesn't want you to know, you're simply not going to know. So what's the point of all of this? And what's the point of, and I would like, don't, if you see it, don't pay attention to it. Let it go. Let it go. But there is this.

Go look at bald-in' dowd tweets. Yeah. There is this, I mean, within a month, there is yet another sort of let me be super invasive in this person's life after she very directly reprimanded the fan base for doing just this sort of thing. Well, and it also is, it's like, it's a woman, it's a woman in her 30s who and who was, It around, was it around tortured poets or midnights or something? One other recent-ish albums, I think it was Ann Powers, but I might be wrong about this. And maybe it was an article. Maybe it was just on NPR.

There was a conversation about the fact that motherhood, pregnancy, have been these little, like, themes that have started to pop up a little bit more often in some of the recent. albums. In some ways, that seems obvious. You know, she has more friends with children. She's getting older and blah, blah, blah, blah. But it does, it reveals this sort of, like, there is this sort of insidious tendency to, for all that Taylor Swift is, to look at a childless woman in her mid-30s and not be able to see anything other than is she, is she? going to be a mother, does she have a child or does she not? And will she ever? Like, the fact that it is so tempting for people to decide who Taylor Swift is vis-a-vis whether or not she's going to have a baby speaks, I think, so poorly of our culture and people should just stop. Anywho. Also, the celebrity

divorce rate is like 98, 99%. I don't have my facts 100% straight on that. So can we just let them get through like a year of dating in which they see each other like once or twice a month? Yeah. So let's just, it should be good that they're not married. It should be good that they haven't. You know what I want to talk about? I want to talk about that dinner they had in Lake Como where the two of them sat at a tiny table in front of the biggest villa I've ever seen and there was no one else around. Why does anyone care if Taylor Swift is pregnant? I want to talk about that and nothing else.

Yeah. Okay. I think maybe we've done a podcast. It's over. Your voice hung in there for us. Thank you. I'm really getting into bed. Iron sharpens voice. Good job, Iron. Sometimes I think people, like, people will message us stuff like, oh, like, I wish I could be there when you guys are just talking about stuff. And that was really the approach today. So apologies for what I sound like, the fact that there were a couple moments where stringing a sentence together was an elusive target. But I do think that for anyone who really wanted that experience, I think that you have gotten it. And it was a positive experience for me personally.

So, Nathan, I thank you for that. At some point here, we're going to talk about what songs have stuck to our ribs. It's not today, but from all of Pop Girl Spring, what you're actually going back in revisiting. We'll do that soon. Okay. Okay. We should do that. This has been every single album. I'm Nora Pinciotti. As always, he is Nathan Hubbard. Thank you to the fabulous Kai McMullen for producing this episode, and we'll talk to you soon.