Every Single Album - The 'Speak Now (Taylor's Version)' Rollout, "Dear John," and International Tour Dates | Every Single Album: Taylor Swift

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard talk about the rollout of 'Speak Now (Taylor's Version)' compared to her other albums (1:00), the speech she gave before playing "Dear John" as a surprise song (16:36), and the announcement of international dates for the Eras Tour (31:20). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons from The Ringer, and this is a podcast called The Rewatchables. We have been doing it. Really since 2017, it started with how much we love the movie Heat. We decided to structure a whole podcast with categories, most rewatchable scene. Who on the movie, Apex Mountain, what age the best? But here's the thing. If you want the full archive, you can hear them only on Spotify for free, by the way. So make sure do follow the rewatchables on Spotify.

And welcome to every single album. The summer of Taylor Swift. I'm Nora Pinciotti, and I'm here, as always, with Nathan Hubbard. Nathan, how are you doing? It's been a pretty eventful Taylor week. I think I was quasi-complaining. I was man-babying about the news slowing down a little bit. Never ever.

The news is as on fuego as ever in this hot summer of Taylor. It is very spicy. It is a spicy meatball today. We're just doing a little like news roundup rundown this week, because, as Nathan said, there's quite a bit going on. And we're going to start with a check-in on the summer of Cruel Summer, question mark, because we talked last week about that song being finally given the single treatment. And Taylor kind of goosing up the crowd at the Ares Tour and talking about how everyone had done this magical thing

and streamed Cruel Summer so much that the label had decided to do this. So we have a little bit more data under our belts. Nathan, how is it going? Well, the Billboard Hot 100 chart has this week, Cruel Summer at 18, on the rise. Last week it was 39. The week before that, it was in the 40s. So it's on the rise.

It seems to be going. Flowers is slowly starting to drop. It's at like number four. Luke Combs and Fast Cars 2. And Morgan Wallen last night is number one. Yeah, I can love me, baby. I got a fast car. Is it fast enough so we could fly away?

I know that last night we let the liquor talk. I don't know if, I mean, Karma's doing great featuring Ice Spice. She's at seven there. So I don't know if Taylor's going to take over the number one spot here. But I think the more we get out in time from this announcement, the more I think this was kind for fun, just to sort of write a wrong, and that she probably doesn't have her heart set on Cruel Summer being the story so much as she has her heart set on Speak Now, Taylor's version, being the story. And I don't know how you feel about that, but Cruel Summer, there's been a lot of conversation

about it. There's been chatter online. It definitely has vaulted up on streaming. It kind of feels like mission accomplished there. And now the focus, based on the secret songs we heard in Minneapolis last week, the speech from the stage about Dear John that I'm sure we'll speak about, she's turning her attention to all things purple. And in this case, that means speak now. Yeah. So I think that's right. I mean, we talked, when we talked about Cruel Summer, I think we both kind of hypothesized that we would get a little bit, at least if she really cared about the Cruel Summer project in terms of getting number ones and all of the metrics and stuff. She might say something.

We thought we would get a little bit more from her, like some instructions. Well, we got some instructions. Well, the instructions is to stop adding John Mayer. That's not a cruel summer instruction. As far as cruel summer, you noted, which I think is worth noting, it has shot up on streaming. I think it got to like number three on Spotify. I'm not sure where it is exactly right now, but whether that was the peak or just

what it was doing over the weekend, it definitely got a move on. which I think says something that probably should be kind of obvious, which is just that Taylor's fans stream their music, right? Like, the audience is not spending a lot of time listening to the radio unless they are directly told to do so. I really still maintain if she wanted to get this thing to number one. I mean, the Morgan Wallen thing is like a whole phenomenon where it feels like it's just really hard to knock that guy off of where he is right now.

So I guess maybe that would be a bump in the road. I feel that if she got up on stage and said, I need you guys to call the radio stations and tweet at them and find every way of putting pressure on this, that I think she has the muscle that if she harnessed it, she could do that. But she didn't do it. That was not what she spent time in Minneapolis talking about.

So I think people are streaming the song. I think things have happened in the lover sphere where there was a lot of speculation about a lover deluxe thing happening. The fake news around this stuff is unbelievable. The fake news is really in full swing. I'm probably responsible for some of it. I'm becoming the newsmax of Taylor Swift. But I think you're right.

Look, the Spotify stats are what you said. It's number three in the U.S. It's number 12 globally. To me, it feels like mission accomplished because it bridged a little bit of chatter between the Maddie stuff, which sort of set this tour into the strategy. and the Taylor Swift conversation into the stratosphere.

Then that died down. Then we got... I want to go on record as saying I disagree with that. I think the fact that she broke up with her boyfriend sent it into the stratosphere. Fair enough. Fair enough. But the real... It got pretty intense around Matt.

I mean, there was a lot of... True. You had, like, the... What's problematic about Maddie Healy and the Atlantic, for God's sake. It's like, okay. All right. This is permeated popular culture in a way that... Well, it permeated the very online, and many of the very online happened to write for the Atlantic.

But, like, that's another, that's a different conversation. Well, that's true. This is Taylor's very online summer. A lot of the choices that she's making are in response to very online people. And one of the choices that she made in response to very online people was writing this wrong on Cruel Summer. So I think she's allowed to take a victory lap over this one, taking a four-year-old song and putting it, at least in the conversation with songs top songs globally, such as as it was by Harry Styles and flowers by Miley Cyrus and, you know, where she goes by Bad Bunny, et cetera, et cetera. Is a pretty big feat.

And I think she can take the W and now move on, train all sites, all weapons on July 7th. Yeah, without, I mean, really without lifting much of a finger, right? She gave the one little talk about it, but kind of pinned that on the, oh, my gosh, the fans are doing this. I haven't done anything. This is crazy. And then we all went into overdrive and speculated music video, speculated, lover Deluxe, speculated that she would, you know, keep telling us what to do and give us some directive. It's at number three on streaming without her really doing much of anything. And that's probably worth her power. Well, and if you just take a step back and think about the last couple years of releases. We've talked extensively about

how the release of folklore and then Long Pond and then Surprise Evermore and here comes Fearless probably stepped on one of the great gems of her catalog in Evermore. It just got lost in the shuffle because we were already talking about

Love Story Taylor's version as Evermore was supposed to be having its moment. And you saw how they responded to that by waiting and having real setups. We did not see Red for a long time after that, right? And there was an entire campaign and there was the vault and all the things that she did, again, mostly for very online people, but to create a real rollout campaign around that. She mirrored that in a lot of ways with Midnight. She got on MTV to announce the album coming. I thought it might be a fun moment to tell you

that my brand new album comes out October 21st. She did a lot of the talk shows and the traditional build-it-up, send a record to number ones. And I think for Speak Now, she hasn't exactly done, you know, we didn't get the same kind of treasure hunting stuff directly online.

We got it seated through the tour. She's used the tour more than anything as the vehicle to set up this album. It was clear when we saw the first set list, Speak Now's coming because she's only playing Enchanted for Crying Out Loud. And she's used the big screen to announce it. And she's been accelerating over the last few weeks, integrating the Speak Now songs into the Secret songs. And so she's used this as the platform,

which I value because it's almost like she gets bored and she needs to challenge herself as a chief marketing officer to try something new and different. And probably the last two album setups being a little bit more traditional, you know, Red being a little more online treasure hunty, Easter eggy, midnight's being surprised,

but here's a little more of the sort of last gasp of traditional album set up. Both of them worked. I still think this one, maybe she said, I got to keep reinventing myself and the way that I introduce these things to fans. And I'm going to use the tour as a platform to do. that. The tour is the speak now Taylor's version rollout. The ERAs tour. So we're going through all of this

stuff, all the news today. And then next week, I'm actually going to be away. So we're doing a very fun mailbag that has a lot of speak now Taylor's version version questions. And it has some other stuff too, but it's primarily like a lead up to speak now Taylor's version mailbag. Thank you to everyone who sent questions for that. They were great. A lot of people asked, why is this different? Why is this lead up different. And I do think that you're absolutely right to point out it's the tour. That's the promo. That's the runway. And in part, I think you're probably right that it's because she wants just a different creative way of doing it and doesn't want to get bored, doesn't want to do it the way that she's done the last couple. You know, of course I would love an anagram or a weird

vault thing, but she's doing a lot. We're going to talk about the international dates that have been announced and some of the stuff going on with that later in this episode. But she's going to be doing this tour for a long time because the demand is off the charts. She could probably do nine times the amount of concert dates that she's ultimately going to do, maybe more than that. And she has to devote a lot of time to doing this thing. So if there is an impulse to not oversaturate and not have one thing step on the other thing and cannibalize some of the interest because there's just so much going on with her,

then you do kind of have to streamline a few things. So I think I, as a person who was sitting there for a while going, where's Speak Now Taylor's Version? Where's 1989, Taylor's version? Where's my weird vault graphic anagram game to play? I have come to accept that that is what's happening. And the ramping up of the surprise songs and all of that is what's getting us, what's getting us ready for Speak Now.

Speaking of which, Here's our next news item. We've been told to stop cyberbullying John Mayer. Fine. We have. We have. And this, to me, feels again like, I mean, she just watched this happen to a current boyfriend. And I think she just wants no part...

Boyfriend might be strong. Whatever. Situation ship. Depending on what kind of mood and... Situation ship, I'm in. She wants no part of this. I have a different word, but I'm not going to use it. No, please.

Use the word. What's the word? You don't want to use the word? We're moving on. Okay, fine. Fine. Situation ship. But I think she's watched this happen now.

And, you know, there was the Taylor Lautner, pray for John stuff. And I think, look, we're going to talk about it when Speak Now comes out. better than revenge. Maybe we're over it, but there was, she is aware

of the wings of the fan base that can get unruly and at times unfair, and I think, if we're being brutally honest, at times cruel. And she's watched it happen now

in ways that I think probably affect her more personally than she expects. Joe didn't ever get like cyber bullied, right? Did he? Like, we, when we figured out that he was writing exile, like, we accepted it.

There was a little, okay, go ahead. Not during the relationship, but the thing with the photos with the scooters, that, I mean, I don't know that I think there have been other instances with other people where it's been an even darker version of that. But the stuff where the photo of Emma Laird with the scooters and Joe with the scooter and London boy, and if we're just talking about things that have led floods and floods and floods of people to make comments on people's Instagrams and stuff like that. Like, that's happened to him.

Yeah, for sure. But I would say during the tenure of the six-year relationship, there wasn't much, right? And so she probably had been insulated from that for some time. Now, she watched it happen with Red and the scarf, and she played into it with the video. And I think it's interesting to see the contrast now when she... She certainly stoked some of those fires with the creative output that she did in the video and the like. And she probably stepped back and, I mean, you wonder if somebody in Jake himself was like, yo, like, really? Because the question is, she seemed to still care about that, or at least telling the story.

The fan base was unleashed and unchecked and they lashed out. And it sort of felt like they were warming up for John. And I think it was a wise move for her to step in and say, let's not do this. Let's be kind. I don't want to be the person who turns loose a bunch of cyberbullying on other human beings. I don't believe that she doesn't care what happened to her when she was 19. Oh, yeah. Do you?

Bull crap, Taylor Allison. I mean, also, I care what happened to me when I was 19. I do too. So does she. So do you. So does producer Kaya. So does everybody. I mean.

Silliness. Silliness. Yeah. But, but silliness and service. So, okay, just in case. And maybe we can play, drop the audio in here or something. So what I'm trying to tell you is that I'm not putting this album out so that you can go and like should feel the need to defend me on the internet against someone you think. I think I might have heard a song about 14 billion years ago.

But just in case anyone missed this, in Minneapolis over the weekend, she played Dear John as a surprise song and before gave a speech about how she doesn't care what happened to her when, you know, I'm 33 years old. I don't care what happened a bajillion years ago. Please stop cyberbullying John Mayer. Although she didn't say his name and she didn't say his name. She did not say his name. The biggest part of this, I actually really love that she did this. And it really has nothing to do with John Mayer. It's just that I was thinking about it. And I think this is the first instance that I can remember

where she has given an instruction to the fans to cut it out. And I think that's really important. And first of all, it's weird to comment, you know, count your day as John on his Instagram. Like, that's too much. It is. It doesn't mean that it's not fun for you and I to sit here

or to text each other and be like, he's just a man, hit him with your car. Like, it's okay to have the jokes. We shouldn't have to say this. It's really weird to threaten someone publicly over somebody else's song about stuff that happened, you know, a decade ago. But it happens. And I think the Stan Army is a complicated dynamic, not just for her, but definitely for her because she has one of the biggest and most potent,

but for a lot of artists. And we've seen her mobilize. We've seen her mobilize the fans and service of something that she wants. And I think she's entitled to that. But I have at times in the past felt like if you're going to do that, you have to also be willing to call it off when it's getting to be too much. And I don't really know that there's been a time when she's done that other than this. And maybe it's not, you know, the biggest instance of it in the world. But I think it's a responsible thing to do.

I hope other, you know, she is incredibly influential. And if she takes some ownership for that, other people will be watching that. And that's ultimately good. Yeah. A very important precedent, especially coming from someone who the reputation album was rooted in the feelings that she had, having been cyber bullied. Right. Right. Right.

I don't like you're perfect Totally Totally. She has felt what this feels like She's better than that now. She really is. In some ways I think probably always always has been or has always wanted to be

But it's again, it's really, I think it's a complicated thing because it's not like she's doing it. But at a certain point, you know, the last decade of Taylor Swift, let's call it. I think one of the most interesting through lines to follow has been her truly recognizing her power. And right now when she's bigger than she's ever been, one of the most impactful ways in which she could really recognize that is to show some understanding of what these massive online armies do when they get whipped up into a frenzy. And this was, I think in some

ways I'm running the risk of making too much out of this small moment. And by the way, it shouldn't be lost on us that there is a little bit of a flip side where, guys, please be nice to John Mayer kind of reminds everybody, hey, this song's about when I dated John Mayer. So like, let's show some awareness of that as well. I do think like, you're right, But I do think this was an act of love and forgiveness and probably self-consern. We're just like awareness that it's not cool when people do that. You know, I don't think, and I'm not saying I think she doesn't, but I just don't, I don't know.

I don't think you have to be like, oh, John, all is forgiven and your guitar solos, John, the Grateful Dead. Like, I don't think you have to feel like that to be like, hey, everybody lay off. I think you can just think it's the right thing to do. and I think it is the right thing to do, so I think good for doing it. There are a lot of January 6th-esque signals that have been surfacing around this

where you're like, yeah, some dummies are going to storm the Capitol here and start pooping on desks. So let's call them off while we can because, again, I think, you know, there is a funness to the story. There's a seriousness to the story. I mean, I said what it could have should have,

but like that sure sounds like an extension of this same drama that she's comfortable telling. And I think the story can stand on its own and be a thing and be about the music and the story. It's that she does not need you to fight her battle, especially if for her emotionally and from a maturation standpoint, this is not a battle she chooses to fight anymore. There's not that, you know, center core of anger that she struggles with every day. Maybe it's there. She just doesn't, it's not your job. It's not your job. And also, like, the juice is not necessarily worth the squeeze, right?

Like, the distinction between Dear John, one of my favorite Taylor Swift songs, I think one of the best Taylor Swift songs, one of probably at this point the most underrated in the catalog. I got choked up listening to the whole version from Minneapolis. Oh, my God. It's so good. It is great. It is so good.

But there is sort of, I think, a twofold difference between Darejohn and All Too Well as it relates to the re-recordings. One is just that like the all too well 10 minute version. And I don't mean to reduce it to sort of a business proposition from the art that it is. But if you're thinking about making the re-recordings successful in that moment when they were ramping up to red and really trying to make that thing go. That asset, the fact that there is this thing in the trunk, the fans know about it, it has a whole mythology. It's this song that is massively important to the catalog.

And there's this artifact that she can build a 10-minute video around and do all of this stuff with it. And also, by the way, it's really flipping good. You have to lean into that. You have no choice but to lean into that. And if Jake Gyllenhaal takes a little bit of shrapnel because of that, well, you know what? Sorry, man, you made your bed.

So why call it off here? Yeah. I think there's two things. One, I think there's just a little bit less. Like, technically, there is still some plausible deniability with all too well. This song is called Dear John and it has the little guitar soul. Like, there is just, we know, we know. It's so explicit.

it. I don't know if you, like, I should have looked this up where this was, but there was some interview she gave once where she was talking about, you know, she got asked one of the stupid questions that she's gotten asked eight bajillion times about, do any of these guys ever reach out to you and say, don't rain songs about me? And she did kind of imply that like, mayor can write a long, ranty email. That's true. Cross my mind. He's an emailer. But so put this in the context for me, then. Nora of would have could have should have. As in if we're doing songs about this.

I regret you all the time. Yeah. I regret you all the time. It's the best line on midnight. So the question is that clearly cuts very deep. I don't care what happened to me at 19. Massively meaningful with the fact that she's saying

I don't care about any. That's not true though. Like that's just... Well, that's what I'm saying. So is she swallowing her. her pride and her feelings in service of doing the air quotes right thing here because she's watched the ways in which these armies tear people down and maybe she's had a moment of recognition that it's a little bit hypocritical to have been so badly bruised and wounded by the Kim Kanye thing

and then to allow this fan base to unleash on others unchecked. Yeah, so I don't think those things, I don't think those things don't make sense together, right? They're not mutually exclusive. We're talking about unleashing the wrath of millions of strangers upon a person, right? Which is something that happened to her and was an awful experience. I think she can hold simultaneously, I don't want to stoke that for another person. Yes.

I don't think it reflects well on me. I don't think it's fair. But also say, that shit wasn't cool. And I still think it was awful. and I get to think that it was awful and I get to write songs about it and I get to put them out in the universe and I get to re-record them

and I get to feel whatever I'm feeling. But just in case any of my fans are not getting the message, that's for me to do and for me to feel and for us to feel together through the art but not to feel together by bullying someone on mind. But she didn't say that, Nora. She said, I don't care what happened to me at 19

and said, let's use the same. Kind of. That's what I'm... Yes! I got you. Did you order the code red? I said that at the top. You're goddamn right I did.

That's okay. She can say that. It's fine. We all get to pretend that we don't care about things that we definitely care about sometimes. Okay.

Now we got somewhere. She was dishonest on stage. Jacques. Yeah, she pulled an I'm not mad. Taylor Swift in Minneapolis with the golf club. It's fine. It's allowed.

Okay. But that's what's very interesting about this. And it's why it's sort of an important breakdown to go deep on this one. Because the words matter on that one. And when you put it in the context of the things that we talked about, Kim, Kanye, Jake and the re-release of All Too Well, woulda could or should have. And then that speech in Minneapolis,

you can't quite fit all the pieces together if you take her at her word from this past weekend. Yeah. I don't think that's that. Like, I sort of, my attitude toward that is like, it's not that deep.

Like, how many things, because those things that we all care about, we also, you know, stuff from however long ago that is ancient history, but you can still get really riled up if you want to about it and if you really think about it

or if something triggers it. Like, it is still, still, it is in some ways true, like, I don't, you know, I don't walk around the streets of New York City on a daily basis being like, Steve from math class. But if I want to, if I want to go there, I can access that. So like, I think it's a little gray area. There's not a Steve from math class. I made that up. Hey, Stephen. I made that up. Hey, Stephen. I was learning when I said it, but I still made it up. Hey, Stephen. No, but there is a.

My point is that there was a little bit of grace and nobility in the little white lie. I don't think she owes us the depths of her soul on stage. Her objective was, let's not cyber bully John Mayer for the next month, please. And in that regard, she can't fuel the fire by saying, I mean, I guess she could have said, this thing happened to me, it hurt a lot, but I don't want you to go out and do that. I think it's easier to cool the fires by saying, I'm cool, so you should be cool. Let's do this just for the music,

because I like this song, here we go. It's about the music, man. The music. All right. Is that horse dead yet? It's not. I mean, it's going to be very interesting to see who goes rogue

and who follows the general. I mean, also, if you go on John Mayer's Instagram, right now. Yes, I think it is a little bit lessened probably. But for every, a lot of people took that edict. And instead of just leaving the guy alone, his page is flooded with stuff like, Mom said we can't be mean to you anymore. Yeah. But I'm going to misbehavior. Like, it's, it's still there. Yeah. It's always going to be. There's going to be parts, you can't control it all. It's, it is what it is. His life's going to be a lot easier because she said it on stage. I'm pretty sure. Yes. And I think that's,

I think that's a good thing. He's out. He's on tour right now. Like, it's kind of important. All right. Let's talk about international dates, which have been announced. And my first question for you, because now we have a whole slate, we have the Latin America shows, but now we have a whole slate of shows in Asia, Australia, Europe. I'm curious if you looked at this calendar and took anything away from when she has some dates, when she has some time off, maybe comparing that with a festival calendar. Yeah. Anything stick out to you? Yeah. I mean, this came with the week where somebody wrote, hey, she's going to do a billion dollars.

Yeah, no shit. She's grossing about $13 million a night. And you add enough of those shows together, and you're definitely going to get to a billion dollars over the course of this tour. So that is a fascinating number, especially when you distill it down to what she actually takes home after all the taxes and the costs

and the way in which they've managed this tour from a cost standpoint is fascinating. But the business end of it aside, I think she's headlining Coachella. I mean, her promoter is part of the AEG universe, which is a concert promoting company, competitor to Live Nation and a number of others. Aegee is also the parent company,

of Coachella. That doesn't mean that it was promised or that it was like a part of the tour deal because she does what she wants. But it looks to me like they've kept open the possibility that she's finally going to do the Coachella show. Which would be the time to do it, by the way,

because North America tour would be over and it wouldn't step on those dates. And she has a gaping wide hole in April of next year on the calendar. The last of six shows in Singapore, things on March 9th, and then she is off until May 9th when she opens in Paris. So it does seem as though she has the window if she wants to do it. The other question I have has to do with another festival that at one point she was going to be part of, which was Glastonbury. It just happened.

Well, it did just happen this year, but next year, she will be in the UK with Sundays free, the last two weekends next June. For what it's worth, I believe all the, you know, all the weird betting sites consider her a favorite to be a headliner at Glastonbury. She was going to be a Sunday headliner in 2020 before that got canceled. The other thing that I've seen as part of that chatter is that this year, all of their headliners are men. So if they don't go and try to do an all-female headlining lineup next year,

you've got to figure that some prominent women would be some that they would be interested in doing. Did you see Rick Astley fucking tearing it up on the drums on ACDC songs? I did. I did see that. Dude, give me all the Rick rolling to that shit that you possibly can. What a badass. Never going to give that up.

That was great. It's not so like, I guess I'm revealing my own bias here. I would so much rather see Taylor Swift at Glastonbury than Taylor Swift at Coachella because that's just my personal journey of being a person who'd rather wear wellies than like, I don't know, glitter. I love glitter.

I don't know what I'm saying. Whatever. Steve from math class really fucked this shit. Steve from math class is railing. It's not the same blank space, forgive the pun, in the calendar. And I'll write your name. But she has those Sundays off.

Do you think there is a chance that if she does Coachella, she would also do Glastonbury? Could she do Glastonbury instead of Coachella? Do you think it's one or the other? What are, you know, should I prepare my wellies? These things are not mutually exclusive. I will say this. They've announced four stadium dates at Wembley Stadium.

Right. They absolutely could do up to seven, if you really look at the schedule. And I think that they've given themselves the space in a number of these markets to add more dates, which is exactly what happened for the U.S. shows. Right. Once they got a sense of demand,

they put a number of others on. So, listen, Wembley Stadium is, she's playing other dates in the UK too. So it's not to say that Glastonbury steps on those. But I think they're going to see what the measure of demand is. No, they're not mutually exclusive. exclusive. But the reason she didn't do Coachella this year, if that was ever in the discussion, is she didn't want to step on the tour. So it seems to me, you know, the flip side is, if that

she's completely sold out for this international tour across Europe and she's playing a few fewer dates, why not play Glastonbury? It's a great place. The tickets for your normal show are already sold. It's a great place to let the masses come see you. It's a cool thing. I mean, you know, she loves the United Kingdom. She was going to do it anyway. Yeah. So, it would not surprise me if she does that. But I do think it is pending how much demand from, you know, a registration standpoint, comes in for the shows that are on the books. And I think the shows that they're expecting that they're going to put up in addition to the ones that are already announced.

So we got a bunch of questions for the mailbag about how international on sale differs from domestic. But maybe this would be the better time to talk about that just since we're talking about the international stuff. Yeah. I don't think there's a magic bullet for anybody. I think she and her team are hyper aware of the sensitivity, of the demand, of the reality that there are 70,000-ish tickets a night. and there are probably a million people who want them in earnest. And there are probably another 25,000 bad actors who want them in earnest because they think they're buying, you know, quarters or they're buying dollar bills for a quarter, which is to say they're buying something that's worth four times what it is. There are resale laws in some markets in Europe that will prevent that scalping activity

from happening. But my advice to fans is... listen to what her team says, follow the instructions, understand that you probably have about a 7% chance of getting tickets if you think about a million people wanting 70,000 tickets. That's just the math on it. But her team and the promoter are going to be hypersensitive to this. They're going to communicate as best they can. And I just think you're entering a lottery and you got to throw your hat in the ring and do the best that you possibly can in the lottery. Vive la France.

I really want to go in Paris. We'll see. Who would? The only other thing I'll say about the international dates is that I think we can kiss Super Bowl. Super Bowl 50. I don't remember which one it is. Next year's Super Bowl goodbye.

The ringers lead football writer. 57, 8? Is that which one we're on? Who knows? Who cares anymore? Well, not me because Taylor Swift won't be performing the halftime show. She's in Tokyo the night before the Super Bowl. So she will still do that someday, but I don't think it's going to be this year. Yeah, that's probably right.

That's probably right. I don't know that she needs it. Again, that's... Yeah, although she should, she should capture this Eagles window. Because as a person who, like, she's rewriting history, walking or going into Electric Lady Studios wearing her Eagles hoodie, I could have sworn to you. I mean, I went through a whole journey of the first time I ever heard the Eagles t-shirt hanging off your door lined.

Being like, oh, so funny, the Philadelphia Eagles. And then it occurred to me, oh, that's so silly, it must be the band. It must be the band. It must be the band. And now I find out. Now I find out. I don't know why I'm upset about this. But anyway.

I mean, it turns out there's more than one woman in the world who likes Taylor Swift. and football, Nora. There are dozens of us. There are more than that. All I'm saying, the Eagles are in a Super Bowl window and she should try to be there for it. Yeah, well, that's a fair point. I think the Super Bowls become controversial.

And by the way, Glossomberry might become controversial at some point because there's a F ton of money that gets made by that festival. It's not exactly clear where it goes because the artists get paid just like they were playing the Newport Folk Festival. Okay. So anyway, but I say that because-

Do they get paid well for Coachella? Yes, they get paid very well for Coachella. The challenge here is, I mean, I think this is part of the artist empowerment conversation. Who needs who? It used to be that you play the Super Bowl because of all the eyeballs and it drives album sales. And, you know, when Madonna played the next day, the tour went on sale in North America. Like, it's always been used as a launching platform for something else. Taylor Swift doesn't need the Super Bowl.

But that doesn't mean she doesn't want it. I think you're right. I think she probably wants it, but she'll probably do it in her own way. I'm not sure next year before she goes to Europe is the time to do a... Look, a Beyonce-like Coachella performance. I'm sure it's not the time to do it

because she's in Tokyo the night before the game. Well, yes. I just think a performance like that, just like a Coachella performance, probably unlike a Glastonbury performance, because that's more about just like band or artist on stage, more so than like visual spectacle. Coachella is about visual spectacle.

Super Bowl is about visual spectacle. And the most successful performers in those two platforms have historically turned it into a standalone thing, right? Beyonce's Coachella performance epic. Absolutely fucking epic. Rihanna last year, like a very in hindsight thought through artistic expression, right? The whole thing is, but it's got to be a thing. Yeah, but it's got to be a thing. And I think there clearly now was a ton of preparation that went into this era's tour. Does she even

have time amidst the ongoing re-records and amidst what is supposed to be a little bit of a break to prep an entirely new thing alongside the movie that she's supposedly making direct. I just don't think this is the moment or the time to create a standalone thing that lives on for eternity, which is, I think, what these performances are supposed to do. Fair. Fair.

All right. Shall we move on? Let's do it. I'm giving you more credit for your dude theory. Do you want to know why? You are? Yes.

It's not that I've ever disagreed that men are embracing Taylor Schiff like never before. I just thought it was funny that you gave JJ Watt all the credit for it. I just, I want to state that for the record. I do think that it is true. I think you have done as much to create a permission structure for the dads and the bros and the dudes and the men's.

To embrace their love of this iconic performer, this iconic woman, then JJ Watt has, but whatever, that's fine. However, I do think that it is happening because there was a Taylor Needle drop in the Bear Season 2 that was just so, unexpectedly joyful and wonderful. And I don't know. People may not watch the show. It is recent enough that I don't want to spoil. But there is just a radiant scene of television. In Richie's character arc that involves a curmudgeonly man finding himself in part through Taylor Swift.

And just belting love story in a car. Woo! Knock stuff. And if you don't, like, you don't have to watch the show. Just go watch a video of it. It is so much fun. It is so perfect. But also, the bear is a very dude-centric.

Like, the restaurant industry is male-dominated. But, like, this is-this-this-is-dud world. And further evidence that dude-world is embracing Taylor Swift. So, kudos to you, Nathan. Thanks, Nora. Happy to be leading the charge. Last little news item, because this story will never die, Kelly Clarkson hopped on a little bit with Andy Cohen.

And Kelly Clarkson! And told a story about how Scooter Braun called her manager after she tweeted that Taylor should re-record all of her albums. I don't really have all that much to say about this other than the fact that like listening to Kelly Clarkson speak is joyful for me. Well, listening to Kelly Clarkson do a bunch of cover songs on her show is joyful for me. True. Clean.

That's my favorite part of Kelly Clarkson. All I can say about this is like, I feel like this is now light years away, but the dam had broken well before that. And I think there was a period of time in which the owners of her copyrights were trying to shore up and stop. the bleeding. And in large part, to tie it back to the earlier part of this conversation, in large part, she activated the fan base in a way that just made that untenable. And I think the most amazing tricks Scooter Braun ever pulled was selling that catalog to somebody else who may or may not have thought that they could get cooperation of the creator of that catalog. And here we are today, a week out from her releasing yet another death blow

to the financial model that was done to value her catalog that never took in the shit-kicking fan base, maniacal, unrelenting dedication of the artist to re-record in just painstaking detail exactly what she did. They just didn't, there was no Excel cell in that model for Taylor Swift's will

and her willpower and her like unrelenting perseverance. And here we are. If you go back and run the returns on that model, I think it's going to look a lot worse than when it did when they quote unquote bought her art. Bealgo did not account for that eventuality. Yeah, I don't think this, like this did not really add anything that we don't already know to this story.

it is just, it's a funny conversation. And Kelly Clarkson is just very sweet and is just always very, I think, very real. You didn't feel like this was a little bit of Mr. Beast being like, I could have been on that sub. I got an invite to be on that sub. This wasn't like weirdly inserting yourself in the conversation. He kept kind of going there and then she just kept saying like,

no, she's incredible. She would have thought of this. She probably already had. Right. I just was surprised that it went there. Maybe I'm, I don't know. Do you think I'm being bamboozled? I don't know.

Look, for the record, never forget that Taylor's manager, Robert Allen, is the brother of the drummer from Def Leopard who in early 2010s re-recorded their catalog. So this was a, there is a clear line between that effort and idea and where we are today. Nobody gets to take credit for it. I didn't feel like Kelly was taking credit for it. Yeah. And I don't think that's part of it. I don't think anybody thinks that. I don't think.

Nobody thinks it. No. You know, Scooter seems kind of petty. And I thought it was funny that she brought it up. That's all. Submitted without comment. This has been every single album.

I'm Nora Princeziati. As always, he is Nathan Hubbard. We will be back next week with a mailbag. focused on the upcoming Speak Now Taylor's version release. Thank you to Kai McMullen for her fabulous production on this episode and to you for listening.