Every Single Album - The Swiftie’s Guide to the Super Bowl and the Grammy's

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

Nora and Nathan are here to walk you through everything you need to know before two big Taylor Swift events: the Super Bowl and the Grammy's. They give a rundown on the Chiefs and the 49ers and how the game might go for Travis Kelce (1:00), the logistics of Taylor getting from Tokyo to Las Vegas in time for the game (37:01), and what squad she might be bringing along with her (60:14). Then they preview the Grammy's and make some predictions on what awards Taylor might be bringing home with her (1:08:15). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, guys, it's your boy Johnny Bananas, and I'll be covering all the treachery, deceit, backstabbing, and murder from season two of the Traders U.S. on my podcast, death taxes, and bananas. I'll be joined all season by my fellow castmates to swap stories, provide all the behind-the-scenes antics, and sorted details from filming. So, Sally Forth, and join me for Season 2 of the Traders every Saturday on the Ringer reality TV podcast feed. Welcome to every single album. I'm Nora Pinciotti and I am here for the first time in a while with Nathan Hubbard. Nathan, how are you doing? My face is melting. Okay, explain. I mean, Nora, we started this podcast however long ago with the foundational mission of certainly talking to the core fan base, but also the aspirational mission. of explaining this incredible artist to people who didn't get it. And now the whole world gets it.

This pot is uninteresting. Does the whole world get it? I'm not sure the whole world gets it. I think the whole world is trying to get it. We have to figure out a way to make this interesting. I like that we said that Facebook was going to be a big company in 2000 or something. Like we called our shot on a few things, but holy crap. It just keeps going, doesn't it?

Okay. So it does keep going. It is going in, uh, as we're recording this, what, 11 days. It is going to the Super Bowl. It's going to the Super Bowl. And we're calling this episode. This is just, we needed to get together. We hadn't talked in a while.

We felt like we needed to kind of download. It's a big week. Let's be honest. It's a big week. It's a big week and a half. Taylor Swift's going to the. Super Bowl. First, she's going to the Grammys. Yeah. The Grammys are this weekend. She's also suddenly like the most important political endorsement in the world.

Yeah. Perhaps the fate of the universe rests on her shoulders. I don't know what to do. So we're just going to talk. She's going to Tokyo. And, you know, in case you forgot, she also indicated while holding an espresso with her fingers, that we're getting reputations this month. Taylor's lift is going to fly to Tokyo. She's going to do the heiress tour. Joe Biden is going to come on stage. He's going to get the 22 hat. She's going to endorse him in 2024.

She's going to fly back. She's going to go to the Super Bowl. The Chiefs are going to win the game. Travis Kelsey is going to propose. Then she's going to drop reputation Taylor's version at midnight. In between, she's going to win a bunch of Grammys and make history. And our heads are going to win a game. explode. And it's, I mean, we're laughing while, while you say that, but it's possible that

half of that comes true. It is like, we, and I will get to the podcast in a second and stop just like gawking and having my mouth agape at everything that's happening in the world revolving around Taylor Swift. But like, I do think that that is a universal experience right now. We, like a month ago when we got together to talk about the Time magazine person in the year thing. And many times this fall said over and over again, it is amazing to look back at the 1989 era and to think about how she was, that was considered this like imperial phase that could never be topped. And then now it really honestly pales in comparison. And this fall it felt like, oh my gosh, she has not only topped it, but she has just like grown to such a different scale. And implicit in that was a little bit of the same thing, right?

Like how could she get bigger than this? This is actually, it wasn't, we're learning that it wasn't that, but it's this. This is the imperial phase. I mean, it's the same era. It's a continuation of the same stuff. But she is bigger now than when she did 1989 Taylor's version. and when the heirs tour was the biggest cultural phenomenon of the summer and owned the summer, and I just, I just can't believe it.

It's just a crazy, these are crazy times we live in, Nathan. The backlash to the backlash to the thing that's just begun. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Let's talk about the Super Bowl first. I'm going to open the floor to you because I do, look, like, oddly enough, these are my two-day jobs. There's serious Venn diagram.

overlap for Nora Princeati. This is everything that you've built your life around. I went on NPR the other day. I was talking to Kai about this before we started recording. I went on NPR the other day to talk about it. And you know, you call in and you can hear the show before you go live. And I was going on after the president or chairman of the IRS. And I just think, this isn't right. Like something is broken in the world right now that it's like, All right, thank you, Mr. So-and-so. And now Nora's going to talk about football and Taylor Swet. It's fantastic.

It's good for you. You've been on the Today Show. You've been on NPR. There's probably 10 other things that I don't even know about that you're doing. It's wonderful. It's a fun. Like, genuinely, it is weird, but like it is genuinely very fun. But I also think that while there is a specific element of like,

I very randomly cover the NFL and Taylor Swift. I've been talking to a lot of my friends. And I have a friend who is a writer for a late night show. And she is just spending every day, like talking about explaining Taylor Swift bits so that they can write their jokes and write their monologue every night. And I feel like every, you know, not to generalize, but like every millennial woman and a lot more people, a lot of people who are in the core Taylor Swift universe, Like we've all just become these little mini

The Taylor Swift expert of our office Or like our group chat with our family Is it's just sort of like everyone is the little little poll of here's where you direct All of your Taylor Swift questions. So maybe we can do a version of that on this pod But because I do have my hand in some NFL stuff

I'm going to open the floor to you to just like How should we do the Swiftie? guide to the Super Bowl. What do you want to know? Well, that's the thing that I think is important because we suddenly have a brand new audience on this game. I don't think we need to like guide Swifties as to how to celebrate this thing. But I do think I want to know from you, we got to talk a little bit about the game because it sounds like if the Swifties are going to show up into these Super Bowl parties with all of the Taylor Swift details, it would be good for them.

to also have some details on this game, and I could use some details on this game too. So look, I want to start with this. Who's going to win and why? Oh, my gosh. So honestly, and I don't know if it's just that, like, the combination of Taylor and Mahomes, who are these two, like,

I do really regard both of them as these sort of like inevitable forces. Forces of nature. I, in my heart, I'm just like, the chiefs are going to win this thing. Really? That is not to say that on paper, and when you sort of break it down, these are really different teams, but they're pretty evenly matched. They honestly could not be, it would be hard for these to be two more different teams.

The strengths of the chiefs are their quarterback and their defense. The strengths of the 49ers are the three to four just like world beater pass catchers and skill position players. Right. Christian McCaffrey. Debo Samuel. Brandon Ayuk. In a slightly different way. Kyle Eusecheck, Kristen Eustech's husband. Yes. Maker of puffer jackets.

Okay. So a thing that we say in sports coverage a lot is styles make fights. And I think one way to think about this. And like, by the way, if any, I'm just like worried that some of this sounds condescending, which is just I could not possibly feel less. like, you need to learn about the football game because people should consume the Super Bowl in whatever fucking way they want to consume the Super Bowl. And if that is not paying any attention to the game, like, if that's watching Usher, that's cool. God bless you. Football needs more people

who feel that they have a place in it, but don't have to do it on the like way overly self-serious terms that we normally do this. I don't, I don't, this is for me if no one else. Well, and also, it is more fun to watch a game if you know what's going on. So, like, if that advances personal enjoyment, that is what I would love for someone to get out of this. But, like, if it's not interesting to you, I just want to say, go with God. But we say, you know, we have this,

styles make fights is, like, I think often a very useful way to think about a game between two teams that are reasonably evenly matched, especially ones that are very different, which, again, the 49ers and the chiefs. really are. So whoever wins the game is, I think, going to be the team that manages to make the game about what they do best and put it on their terms.

So, for instance, for the 49ers, offensively, that's about two things. It's about, to some extent, the run game, because the Chiefs run defense has not been great and is the thing that the Ravens really didn't test in the AFC championship game? Lots of criticism of that offensive game plan by the Ravens. They ran way less against the Chiefs than they had during the regular season. And it seemed like they frittered away some opportunities. And the 49ers have Christian McCaffrey, who's a great runner, right? Great running back.

And for the Shanahan offense, a big part of what makes it work is, staying ahead of schedule on first and second down. So for the 49ers offense, the first two downs are where they will win and lose this game. They've got to make big plays on those first two downs, right? Big chunks? They don't need explosive plays. They need efficient plays.

They need to move the ball. Second and three. Third and one. Okay. Because if it's third and nine, then Steve Spagnolo, who's the defensive coordinator for, for the chiefs and who's really, really good.

He will just, he will kill anyone, but particularly Brock Purdy. What do you mean? With his bare hands? Yes, he will run onto the field and strangle people. No, he's a really, really smart blitz designer. He is a really, really good in-game defensive play caller, adjuster to whatever he's looking at.

But he is in particular known for his blitz packages that are really, hard to decipher. And if you get into a lot of third and long situations, that's when that becomes a huge part of the game. That's when he becomes hard. Okay. And the 49ers quarterback was literally the last guy picked in the draft last year. We call it Mr. Irrelevant. And Brock Purdy was Mr. Irrelevant. And he's only had so many reps in a big game like this. And there is a sense that he could be flustered a little bit by the chiefs if they play defense like you say and Blitz just means a bunch of guys run at him

and try to kick his ass and kill him. Yeah, Brock Party's not that good. The NFL writ large has like lost their minds about this player and he was an MVP candidate at one point. He's just not that. He's doing an incredibly admirable job at what he is being asked to do, which is as this guy

who no one expected anything of handle a very high profile and important job. Well, it's sophisticated in some ways, but one of the things that I think gets lost is that what he's being asked to do a lot of the time is point and shoot. Kyle says to him,

here's the play, and the ball is going to go either there or it's going to go there. So he's not really reading through progressions in the same way that Patrick is. I see. What percentage of the audience right now you think knows what you're? mean by that is like completely lost whatever we can be right yeah it's fine it no but it's it's it's pretty

easy to explain right what progressions means the quarterbacks looking at all the different people who he could potentially throw the ball to am i right about that yeah and he and he and he's got his first option who's maybe his best guy and then if that one is somehow covered he goes to the next one if that guy's covered too he goes to another one and the best quarterbacks do that really fast right the best quarterbacks do that really fast but also some often Offenses rely on that more than others. And that can be detrimental. There are offenses that do not do enough to support a quarterback,

even if he's capable of functioning like that. It still takes time. And sometimes you want a read that's available very quickly. The thing with the Shanahan offense is that it does a lot to help because the answers are very quickly available. But sometimes that leads to the quarterbacks playing in this sort of automatic way where they know where the ball is going to go. And if the picture that they're given defensively changes a little bit,

they get totally screwed up. Because they've already decided what they're going to do. Okay. And the difference, that is like 180 degrees different than the way Patrick Mahomes plays? Yeah. Is that fair? Okay. Yes. And that brings us to what I think is the key for the chiefs on offense. is that he has to be able to play in the style that really only he and a handful of other quarterbacks can do, which is this like magical, beautiful dance of highly efficient and coordinated passing, but also these extended plays where he uses his legs and he scrambles.

And sometimes he scrambles to keep the ball. Sometimes he scrambles just to extend to play and throw it where he can get out of the pocket and make magic. The 49ers defense has been a little shaky. Which is weird, right? Because they've got Nick Bosa and they took Chase Young. They traded for him from Washington. They've got a defensive line that seemed like a murder's row of big guys. And the defensive line are the guys who are trying to chase after Patrick Mahomes, right?

Yeah, I mean, they've had some injuries. But for instance, Chase Young, I cannot explain to you what is going on there. He just looks like he doesn't care. He's not trying. Nick Bosa is still having a problem. a very good year. Some of it is that their secondary is not great. So there's a lot of overcompensating they have to do on the defensive line. Those are the secondary of the guys who cover the wide receivers. The thing that I think is going to matter the most for them is if they can keep Mahomes in the pocket,

so not let him run around. Yeah. Then it'll be a big game for Travis if that happens. Well, so that's what I was going to. Yeah. Then you make the game about the chiefs receivers. You make the game about... These guys who've been senior dropy all season, they've had trouble holding onto the ball. Right. You turn it into a pure dropback passing game, and it's not that Mahomes isn't great for that,

but they don't have a lot of guys that they trust. Right now, they've really made it into this, like, run the ball with Isaiah Pacheco, or Travis and Rishi Rice are the, two pass catchers that they really trust. And that's it. And that's hard. That's like a hard numbers thing to make work because there's just more defenders than that

number of players. Well, so break this down even further for Travis, who has had a really good playoff so far. He scored three touchdowns in two games. How does the 49ers defense stack up for him? Does this feel like a game that he could do super well and he's going to be throwing hearts and pulling the reputation release date out of his trousers and showing to the camera?

Or does this feel like one where the Niners might have a defense and a scheme that might bottle him up a little bit? What should we look for for him? So I would say that on paper it doesn't look like a traditional huge Travis game. Okay. Because the 49ers have Fred Warner

who is a, like one of the ideal defenders who you might want to put on Travis Kelsey is the right combination of size and speed. That said, so did the Ravens. I wondered if Kyle Hamilton, who fills a similar role for Baltimore,

was going to bottle him up a little bit. And it wasn't necessarily that Travis played better than Hamilton in that matchup. Baltimore ended up just not using him to cover Travis Kelsey very much. But Travis still managed to have a huge game in a somewhat similar context. But it's definitely something that could limit him somewhat. And I also think that in combination with the fact that the weakness of the 49ers defense

is still against the run, Travis might have some blocking responsibilities. Yeah. So there's a world in which he's a really important. important player, but he doesn't have 100 receiving yards and two touchdowns? No, I mean, you heard him on his podcast talk about against the bills when, who was it, who fumbled like right? Who fumbled against the bills? It was McCle Hardman.

It was McColl Hardman. And Travis said that was on him because he hadn't finished the block on the guy who ultimately got free and knocked that ball loose. He talked about that on the podcast, which is just. Just to say, like, we get focused on the guys who catch the ball and the guys who throw the ball. But so much of what makes that possible is these big giant behemoth dudes at the line who are trying to push each other in one direction or the other. And half the time Travis is trying to catch the ball, half the time he's one of those big behemoths pushing guys and blocking, right? That's Travis being nice in that particular context.

I know it was. Overall, like, there are ways in which he can have a massive impact on this game. and it's not quite as flashy. Right. But I don't want to count him out for that either. Because, again, he was in a similar situation where there's a middle of the field defender who is just an eraser.

Okay. Last weekend, too, and it didn't happen. And he really, like, I think he's on a, he's super motivated right now. It appears so. He's really clearly in a zone. Well, and I think if we inject truth serum into Travis and Taylor,

which we never will, but that sort of on-camera micing of them, which we can talk about the kiss that maybe is the most watched kiss in the history of the planet. But the dialogue around that gives you a little bit of just a tweak of daylight into the narrative of this season,

narrative of this season for Travis was potentially, possibly, arguably the greatest tight end of all time. now 34 years old, you get the absolute shit beat out of you when you're a tight end, I believe. And there was a lot of chatter before the Taylor stuff

about him starting to slow down a little bit, wasn't there. And so when they break the huddle, the two of them in the kiss, and she says, I've never been more proud of anyone in my life ever. You kind of get the sense, don't you, that there's been some self-doubt

that he, in those games where they were losing, and we're going to come back to that because they had a tough December right around the time when the Grammy's voting opened up. And people were talking about, oh, is it Taylor? Is it Travis? Is he not there? There's some percolation. If you squint, you can see there's a little bit of a redemptive arc happening here in the playoffs, isn't there, where he maybe wasn't feeling so confident, was taking some blame, felt like he wasn't playing his best, and now it sure feels like he's figured something out and whether there's just the adrenaline of the playoffs or whatever.

And there seems to be sort of some real satisfaction for him in that, doesn't there? Yeah. I mean, look, great players can summon it. And I don't, this is not at all predictive and I don't have any inside info here. But I've got to imagine he's thinking pretty seriously about retirement. And in particular, if they win and if he has a chance. Singapore. Fuck it all. Singapore and Europe for the summer.

Not Disney World to Singapore. No, I'm off to the Ares Tour for eight months. Patrick should go with him. That would be incredible. If instead of I'm going to Disney World, he was like, I'm going to the Ares Tour. Yeah. I'm coming back to the U.S. for Indianapolis, Miami, and New Orleans. And Toronto for Canada.

Everybody yells, fuck off. I'm out Vancouver or whatever I'm doing. So I want to keep just sort of asking you a couple of questions on this. as our resident expert. I mean, look, the way that I sort of thought about it was transitive property. The Baltimore Ravens fucking annihilated the Niners in one of the last games of the season.

And so since the Chiefs beat them, the Chiefs must be able to beat the Niners. You've just given us a ton of insight into why that is not how it works because there's all kinds of different schemes and different strengths, and that's sort of the nuance and interesting nature of football. but do we look at that transitive property as having any weight or influence?

Certainly the Niners will learn from that loss, but the Chiefs also will learn from that loss and look at some things that the Ravens did to beat the Niners, right? Because I think that's the last time they lost. Yeah, I don't, the transitive property is a very dangerous game. I mean, the Rams beat him in the last season. The Rams beat him in the last game of the season, I should say,

but nobody was playing, so there's not much for them from that. Nobody was playing and it doesn't really count. Okay. Transit property doesn't work in football. It just doesn't really work. Okay. I mean, and you can go back, right? Like, this is a matchup that we had in the Super Bowl four years ago.

And there are some similarities. Like, there are things from that game that I'm sure both coaching staffs are going to be, are probably revisiting right now and looking at, for instance, okay, what did Steve Spagnolo do defensively to? try to get under the skin of this offense because it is fundamentally a similar offense. It's Kyle Shanahan's offense. They use similar principles.

Some of the presence of Christian McCaffrey makes things really different. And they did, these two teams played right after McCaffrey joined the 49ers. It was his first game. They didn't really know what they were doing yet. And Kansas City won.

But I'm sure they'll look at that. a little bit too. In general, though, Kyle Shanahan has done very well against Steve Spagnolo. Not in the Super Bowl. And that's sort of the one big, big exception.

But in general, this offense has really matched up well with the Kansas City defense. And a lot of that has to do with how good their run game is, how good they are at staying ahead of the sticks. And so there's a lot of, you know, you can sort of

you can cherry pick which games feel relevant and kind of write whatever story. The reality is, it's a new game, it's a new day, it's a different situation, and that's what's fun about it. Okay. So for the Swifties, you have given them oodles of inside breakdown insight, which is awesome. I want you to contextualize what it means if the chiefs win. Because you'll have suddenly this budding, dynasty that feels somewhat Patriots ass. We gotta stop saying it's budding. It's budded. So if they win Patrick Mahomes in his sixth season as a starter,

he will have three Super Bowls, he will have gone to four Super Bowls and won three of them. Tom Brady with the Patriots after six seasons, he'd been to three Super Bowls and won all of them. Yeah. Now, Tom Brady's, started his career in Super Bowl appearances

three and one. It took a long time to get to the fourth and then they lost it. I would argue that that means that if the Chiefs win this game, they are ahead

of the Patriots dynasty. Wow. That is the only relevant measuring stick for them anymore. And if they win this game, I think it's like pretty objectively true that they are ahead.

This is coming from a woman who covered the Patriots for a living. I covered the Patriots for five years, five years, no, four years. They went to the Super Bowl three of those years. That is not to say that if the Chiefs win a third Super Bowl, that they're going to win four, five, and six, and maybe seven. Yeah. It's hard to do.

But this is one of the history's great teams if they win this Super Bowl. And maybe without. Inarguably. And also, we have to stop treating it. like, oh, it's possible. They could get there, but, you know, it's so far away. It is, like, really within the realm of possibility that this team will outpace the accomplishments of the Brady Belichick-Garadritchie. He's 28 years old.

Yeah. And he also, frankly, like, he at his, when he is at his absolute best, he's a better player than Brady was at his absolute best. That doesn't mean, like the name of the game is to win Super Bowls. It's not to like look cool making no look passes. Right. And if they never get back there again after this year, like Brady's always going to have that. But he is the best player that I've ever seen play football. Well, contextualize what it means for Travis then.

There's a guy on the other side, on the other team named George Kittle, who is equally rowdy, quite possibly more insane than Travis, good at a lot of things. there is the from that Patriots team that you covered there's the gronkowski Rob gronkowski who is probably at this point the other guy who might be in the conversation for tight end but it feels like Travis is better at gruncowski might have been great at catching passes feels like Travis maybe is better at the all-round position i don't know that's for you to say what if they win this or if they don't does it have a bearing on how you view Travis as the all-time greatest player at this

position of tight end? So I'm, and, you know, with all love to our guy, I am a little bit, I feel a little bit the same way that I do right now about Mahomes and Brady, but in the inverse. Gronk at his absolute peak, it's like one of the most dominant players who's ever played football. That's what it felt like to me as a novice just watching it. Like he just, it was like the incredible Hulk running down the field. Yeah. And he had, you know, you can't put a real percentage on it, but like he had 7.4% more of that in the tank when he was absolutely at his best than Travis at his absolute best.

Travis has had a longer career. Travis has been more durable. As you said, when you play tight end, you take an absolute beating. And Grong, who is a little bit bigger. Yeah, to retire a couple times. Yeah, forget. He retired a couple of times. It just hurt. He missed some seasons. You know, he missed the 28 to 3 Patriots Super Bowl, right? Which, like, in some ways is their masterpiece, but he wasn't there that season because he got hurt.

And so Travis will, will, even if he retires after this year, Travis will have the edge in a lot of the statistical categories. He'll have, you know, he'll have more yards and more touchdowns and more games and blah, blah, blah. blah, blah, blah. He will also. And I think, like, to me, Gronk is the all-time great tight end. But Travis has this opportunity to have this just, like, amazing impact where he could potentially retire on top of the world, Taylor Swift on his arm.

If he retires this year, he and his brother could be the same class for the Hall of Fame, which would also be a really cool moment for them. And I think they both would have a very, very, very good, if not, like, sort of shoe in opportunity for that. Kai, you should put the Titanic music in the background while Nora's talking about this. And look, like, we love storybook endings. And I don't think that that's a bad thing.

I think that's part of the fun of it. And, you know, when we have these conversations about legacy and all-time greats, what we're really talking about is, like, in 10 or 20 years, when people have conversations about these teams, what are we going to say? And Travis, I think, no matter what happens, but in particular if they win this game

and he gets that moment, given everything that's happened this year. I mean, I know, like, there are tons of cool football things that happened this year. Like, CJ Stroud was an amazing rookie, and the Bill Belichick era ended in New England and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And Jordan Love and the Packers are so cool and this Rams team that was supposed to be terrible was really good and the in 10 years when you ask me about the 2023 NFL season I will say oh yeah the Taylor year and we're going to talk about him

as a player who defined if not an era to use a word that we like to use then at least was kind of the author of this season and the things that really interested people about it.

So I kind of think he already has that wrapped up, but winning the Super Bowl would put the cherry on top of that, for sure. It sure feels like he's still got energy for this. I mean, just even watching the post-field celebration stuff, where he's just like, you know, he's up on stage doing the Beastie Boys shit. But even after that, he's down on stage, like, woo! Like, he's still decompressing. Like, he's just having to vent and release some of the steam

that's built up for his, and he's telling Mahomes on stage, I could do this for 11 more years. I mean, this guy's a football player. He does not seem like he's ready to be done just yet, but. I would, and again, this is without any particular insight, but this is similar to how it happened with Grongk. The body goes before the heart does, and you still have it mentally,

still wish you could go out there every Sunday, still wish you could, you know, go through another season. but he's had, and he's never, he hinted at it in that Wall Street Journal story, but like he has not spent a lot of time talking about the injuries that he's had, the surgeries that he's had. Right. It hurts, man. Like, it's just hard.

So I think that's where the rub is because you can see that his heart's still in it, but at a certain point, your body does give out. All right. I have one last question to prep the audience for the Super Bowl, because a lot of these Super Bowl parties, you go there and there's, you know, you can pick, like, what the final score is. Like, if you're at a party with, like, 30 people, there's, like, all the different scoring combinations and you can do, like, a draft of what the final score. Oh, my God. I'm not ready for this. Well, I just, but like...

We don't have to submit our picks on the football side for, like, days. I know, but, like, in your heart of hearts, based on the defensive coordinator of the chiefs and the Mahomes stuff that you talked about, and the... the offense and the skill players for the 49ers, does this feel like a higher scoring game, you know, where you could have teams, you know, a 35, 24 type game,

where there's 50 plus points, or does it feel like some of the games that we saw, or in particular, the Chiefs game that we saw last weekend, where it's more in the teens? You do. I think it's relatively low scoring, and that's good for the Chiefs.

I think if somebody's scoring in the 30s, that doesn't necessarily mean that the 49ers are winning. But, like, that's, if you tell me that this game ends with, you know, this game ends 35 to 27, I'm probably more inclined to go, okay, I think maybe that's a San Francisco outcome. Okay. But if you tell me, which I, you know, I'll throw that out there as, I'll throw this out there as a prediction.

If you tell me that it ends 27 to 21, I'm saying that's a Kansas City wins. So I'll say 27-21 Chiefs. Okay. And if it's 1710, the Chiefs definitely win. Yes. Okay. Well, there's only one other prop bit for you, and that's who's going to get more screen time,

our girl or usher? You know what? Taylor's going to get, I'm sure she'll get some screen time. She has not actually been getting all. that much on these broadcast. She's been getting no screen time. 25 seconds a game and everyone's got to relax. Yeah. That said, look, at halftime of the Super Bowl, we are all for 11 minutes or whatever it is.

For those 11 minutes, we are all Kiki Palmer. It's going to be awesome. I love Usher. He's awesome. I need Usher to get his due in this moment. I one time saw him do a show at the Hollywood Bowl and he split his pants open and he like he just kept going. That's incredible. Exactly like the Harry Styles thing in front of Jen Aniston. But instead of the cover up and the shit, Usher just kept going. He was like, yeah, that's, that's my junk.

I'm going to keep doing, I'm going to keep doing the spins and the twists and the dances and the all of it. Okay, not to like not to be crude here, but I feel like I must ask what was, so he split his Hands. Yeah. Briefs? Yeah. Okay. I love it.

Yeah. He's an icon. Everybody in the crowd. Yeah. He's an absolute icon. It's going to be fantastic. I'm going to love it. I mean, you know who else is going to love it?

Is Taylor? Taylor Swift is going to be hanging out of the window of the box screaming her face off cheering in the same way that I'm sure she's going to do for these Grammys. What did she say to the back? Backstreet Boys are in Singer, whoever was, that she was like having a millennial freak out or something. That is what will be happening. Yeah. But we're going to see a lot of her because she is going to walk off stage in Tokyo after that Saturday night show at the Tokyo dome.

She's going to get on the Falcon jet. She's going to probably have to refuel between Tokyo and Las Vegas. But she's going to arrive, I think, with the time zone. changes and now the Swifties have been doing this math for much longer than we have, but it sounds like she's going to get to Vegas in time to actually sleep on Saturday night, wake up Super Bowl Sunday and get herself somehow through the zoo that is a Super Bowl. I mean, listen, Vegas can hold the crowds, but for people who haven't been to Super Bowls before, there are 70, 100,000 people at the game, but there are hundreds of thousands of people who come to the host cities,

many of whom are just fans who don't have tickets, who just come for the parties, who just come to hang out, who just sort of like wander and amble aimlessly through the streets, which is why a city like Indianapolis gets completely overwhelmed. They don't have enough, you know, volunteers and workers at the parties and stuff end up sleeping in hospitals. In Miami, South Beach gets completely shut down.

You can't get anywhere without a bike. New Orleans, the same thing. I feel like Vegas will move a little bit more, you know, orderly. Not the way that, say, New York City did or Los Angeles did, but it's going to be a zoo. And getting that woman into this game is not going to be the easiest thing that's ever happened. Nathan, I know nothing about Las Vegas. We've discussed this. No plot of land could be more of a foreign concept to me than Las Vegas.

I don't understand how it works. I would be there for a week, so maybe I will figure it out. I have been there one time, which was I went to a Raiders training camp, a couple days of Raiders training camp over the summer. I stayed as far off the strip as I possibly could, but I did go there to pick up lunch once, and I was there for 20 minutes. And that was it. And you told me about the sphere. I was with Taylor the last time she was in that stadium. I remember that.

She, right? So they're going to get her in in a motorcade, get her out in a motorcade. But it's not easy because it's across the major highway from the hotels. Most people end up walking across bridges, foot bridges to get there. It's just, it's going to be an interesting logistical situation for her getting in and out of there. Whatever. She'll be fine. It's been done before it's Vegas. They know how to ferry around famous people.

But do you have any. I mean, are there any other expectations for this game? I thought there was this very interesting lowering of the curtain. As soon as that game was over, I turned to my kids. I was like, you think she's going on the field? And in my head, I was like, no way. She's not going to come down to the field because there's the security and it's just too much, right? It's going to be too much.

But, man, she, when she's at those games, she's a chiefty. And I think that's part of what's going on with this relationship. Like the whole world is a swiftly, not the whole world, but a lot of the world is a swiftly. This thing has given her something to channel that same energy and give back sort of like, you know, just unconditional fandom and just be amongst the people. And it's working. It was great to see her get out of that box. And people seem to be respectful, except Tony Romo, who got completely armed barred by the security guy as he went to go for a hug. She was nice to him.

It was cute. She was. Even though he keeps calling her Travis's wife. The security guy was like, who the? He just grabbed. It was like a Mr. Miyagi type. Incredible wax off move to stop the Tony. But anyway, it was, I mean, seeing her on the field demystified a little bit of it.

And my feeling has been through time, the more we see of her, the more sort of normalized it will be. But then the internet took over. and all of the microphones in the shoulder pads and all of the angles. I mean, has there been a more watched kiss in the history of the world? I mean, the only thing I can think of is Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie's, like, weird kiss on, like,

but, like, man, I don't even think the internet ran with that in the same way. I just can't think of maybe a royal wedding, but this thing broke it down. Times Square. There you go. Yeah, that's that's the one. That is the one.

It's the, it's the sailor dipping the young woman in Times Square. That's really funny. I mean, like, I also wondered if she was going to go down

onto the field and part of me gets like very nervous. I'm nervous. She's in his face like that because I'm like, no, no, no, no. Somebody's going to do something weird. People don't know how to act. I will say, like, people don't know how to act, but I will say.

And I wonder if, like, this is part of what helps her game day experience be so fun is, like, NFL security is good. It's scary because it's like every event is a potential target, but NFL security is really good. There are so many layers to that. And I imagine it's somewhat similar to what she has at a tour. Well, but Nora, you've been to a Super Bowl. There is no more secure location in America than a Super Bowl. There are snipers everywhere. The U.S. military is out.

They create barriers around these things. Like, they treat this shit seriously. You cannot get there with a car. It's intense. And so, you know, rest assured that she is well-guarded. But they're still dumb-ass motherfuckers. Well, right. And like there are also people with with passes and credentials and everything like that that have the capacity to be.

Yeah, stupid billionaire kids that are dumbass, motherfucker. They don't know how to act. A lot of people don't know how to act. Team owner families who are like, you know, cousin Carl is getting a little weird with Taylor. Cousin Carl. You know it's going to happen. I mean, the people of Kansas City have understood the assignment. The people of Kansas City have understood like, let's give them their space.

they're good, you know, Midwest-ish kind of people. They want the community. They care about the chiefs. They care about, like, they've made her feel at home. They've generally, the least chill people have been the chief's owners' kids, but it seems like she's friendly with them. So that's fine. People are nice, generally.

I got a little worried in Baltimore. And Vegas, oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is crazy to me that people, like, it's still, and I exist in this world a lot, like fans of anything can be wacky and ugly and rude. It is like still so crazy to me that people would like shout rude things at her.

It's just insane. Like it's just like what is wrong with you? But I'm sure I don't think that that is the majority of her experience. And I'm very glad for that. But it is just absurd to me that someone has that reaction. It sounds like they were worse to Travis, to be honest. I think he got he got a lot of heat in the end zone in Baltimore or in And that's all well and good. But this does bring me to a thing that I just, like, a take that I want to give you.

Because you've spoken to how there are some, in particular political conservative parts of the country that are starting to have backlash. And I wish you a lot of luck with that strategy. Best of luck. Some of this feels like a lot of extremely online people talking about something that is not residing in the heart. in minds of most people, whether they're in Missouri or Georgia or, like, I'm just not 100% sure this isn't a little bit of a manufactured thing. Definitely the right-wing news networks have picked it up. Again, I wish you a lot of luck with that. I'm guessing that's a trial balloon that they're floating when they figure out how bad that messaging generally lands, I think, with voters who you are

trying to bring out like suburban women and young people that it's going to be a temporary thing. So I sort of understand it politically why they're trying it. It's not going to last very long. I just think I see so much stuff in my timeline about the reaction to that that it feels like it's an extremely online discussion that may not actually be a thing that's Brad's and Chads and Dad. There may not be that many Brad's and Chads and Dads is what I'm suggesting in real life. You tell me. What do you see? I mean, I think it can be a little bit of both. And even with the, even with the, you know, Fox News going hard on like Taylor Swift as a sciop,

to quote, I can't even say it with a straight base. It can kind of be both, right? We're like, you can, you can lose an election really easily that way, but you can also lose an election really easily if, if there is a 2% swing in the right places. Like, that's what defines this kind of stuff. That said, the people on the other side of that who get fed a certain type of messaging, we have like kind of a lot of evidence to show that a large number of people can become genuinely crazy because of the information diet that they're on. So I got it like, there's a certain parallel to that, I think, in the backlash among football fans and some of the, media where like Tony Dungey, Brett Fav and like Deshaunson's quarterback coach, who are three of the most vocal that I've seen like people saying get Taylor Swift off my screen.

This isn't football. That is the worst we have to offer. Like those are the worst people who should not still have the platforms that they have. And you can go right ahead and ignore those folks. Like, do not give them the time of day. No. We don't have to care what they, they are interested in or what they are not interested in. This is a sport where there are 11 minutes of action in every game.

And the rest is just entertainment. Like, we are in showbiz, baby, and 25 seconds of broadcast are going to the most famous woman in the world who's having the time of her life in a box. And it's working. And it is working. And it is working. The ratings tell us it's working. The ratings tell us that. fact that there are like cosmetics companies that are buying Super Bowl ads that have never

bought Super Bowl ads before. The fact that it is bringing a lot of people joy. You know what doesn't bring me a particular amount of joy is when I hear about all the different gambling lines that are available for an individual football game. I couldn't give a shit. But it's okay because there are different things for different people. Right. And we experience an entertainment product in the way that works for us. And if you can't chill out about that, then, like, I do think that everyone should feel pretty clear license to just dismiss those people because they are not serious people and you do not have to pay attention to them. I don't think it's serious. I don't think it's serious pushback. And, like, when Pat McAfee on his show is, like, talking about how great it is, like, that feels

like more of a finger on the pulse. Like, I just think there are, the great thing about social media is it gives every person a voice. The horrible. thing about social media. You talk about this all the time when I was at Twitter, is that it gives every single person a voice, including weird basement Carl. And I just feel like we got some weird basement carls who are getting more attention because it's a story, because everybody's trying to do something about Taylor Swift because it generates clicks. So they're creating a manufactured controversy because it just draws eyeballs. I think Fox is talking about Taylor Swift in this way as much as anything, not because they really are worried that she's going to bring out voters, although she might,

or they're really worried that she's going to endorse. Oh, I disagree with you about that. I think they're terrified and they should be. But as much because they know it's going to draw eyeballs because she just is a click factory right now. I think that's true. I largely think that's true. And I just think that like we need to sort of wrap our heads around when we say that something is a very online conversation, a very large part of the world is very online. And there is a trickle-down effect not of like, it just, it polarizes people is what happens. So it's not that I think that like people who are reasonable people and might not be as excited as I am to see Taylor Swift on a football broadcast, but like are not weirdo freaks or fine about it. It's not that I think

that someone like that is going to change their mind. mind. It's that the people who don't have a strong opinion, but might be like, I feel weird about this woman and like, I'm insecure and I on some level feel like she might not give me the time of day. And therefore, I don't like that in my man cave space. It's her fault. If that person is fed, what? If that person is fed a constant stream of Taylor Swift is a government plant. Yeah. That's how weird shit happens. That's how radicalization happens. I agree.

But in that regard, though, that moment after the game on the field, the kiss changed the narrative for a lot of people. Because I think understandably, not from us, but our initial reaction to this relationship. I mean, I'm on Twitter constantly. How could I not have seen it at least a thousand times? I mean, over a thousand times, probably. Just as it's passed by my feed.

I'm not stopping every time for crying out loud. But this... All right, fine. This thing changed the narrative because when you... Look, go back and listen to an earlier episode of every single album. We tagged on at the end our first offline discussion about this. You and I were not sure this was a real relationship, to be fair. And you fast forward today.

And I understand all of it. It's the family stuff. It's that she loves having somebody root for it. It's because they're super different. It's because he's so completely comfortable with her. When it flipped was understanding that she went after him. Okay, okay, okay, let's come back to that. But what I'm saying is there is no rational human being,

of which I believe there are many more online than not, than, you know, weird Carls in the basement. No rational human being could look at that interaction and say, this is a fake staged relationship for publicity. No rational person could. She's in love. He's in love. it was wonderful. Everybody from Letterman to McAfee is celebrating it of sort of reasonable people.

And that, I think, probably changed a lot of people's minds about what was actually going on here, even if, you know, the people who've really been paying attention had a pretty good sense that she wasn't just flying to Kansas City for, you know, photo op. She doesn't need a fucking photo op. I hope so. I'm a little less confident that there are as few weird Carls as maybe, I think. there are a lot of weird car. Well, your point is that the, is that the misinformation is increasing the volume of weird,

weird carls because, if you're like me, there are a lot of people who have like a weird Carl inside of them. Sure. But sometimes weird Carl is not at the steering wheel, but then all it takes is a couple like insane Tommy Laren segments. Weird Carl grabs the wheel.

Yes. And if you see, I mean, this is what happened to Aaron Rogers. Yes. If you see enough weird shit in your feed, like I've seen this, fucking kiss as many times I have in my fucking feed. Like at some point, you start to, you start to think about it and talk about it.

Three years ago, Aaron Rogers was just like a California libertarian. And now he is like around the bend. And it is because he is consuming the weirdest media that you can find. Can I just say something? This does happen to people. A lot of people have someone in their family who it's happened to. Like, shit gets strange. My brother's a pro golfer.

He's playing the 18 T-Pest. level beach PGA tournament this week, and they play with amateurs. And as you know, Tom Brady is playing. Josh Allen, quarterback of the Bills is playing. Aaron Rogers is playing. They paired Josh Allen and Tom Brady together as quarterbacks. They paired in the following group, Aaron Rogers with his orthopedic surgeon in the group. And I just found that to be just a one, like they didn't put him with a quarterback. They're like, no, no, you're a lunatic who needs to talk about his medical condition and other medical conditions with an actual doctor for two days while playing golf. It just felt wonderful.

Anyway, we digress. Dr. Alatrash? Yes. Dr. Neil Elitrash. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. So, I mean, but that's where it's gone. Aaron Rogers no longer really thought of his quarterback. He does like every high profile athlete surgery. It's always like, got to go to Dr. Neil. Yeah. Well, he's playing with Dr. Neil instead of the quarterback because that's sort of the

frame of reference that we have of him now. Yes, that's what it is. They're like, the only guy who wants to play golf with you is the guy who repaired your Achilles tendon. Anyway, we digress on that front. I do think we're in a very, very weird moment, and this is what I wanted to bring you to, which is she keeps getting bigger. We now have this week in which it's very possible that She breaks the record for most ever album of the year wins with four, breaking the tie that she has with Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, and Frank Sinatra. Holy shit. A week later, she is on the field of the Super Bowl after her boyfriend wins,

and she's celebrating holding the freaking trophy. Somewhere in between that, reputation is announced. Do you think that's happening? Do you think reputation is? I think she's way too much going on. I just am coming back to the, I feel like what, as a fan base, the fan base tends to invent lots of dots

and connect them in clownish ways that we're not there, that are not there, right? They invent all kinds of Easter eggs that don't exist. That video, where she has her thumb and her finger on the months, proved to be accurate. It's when we got 1989, and I think it's when we're going to get reputation. And listen, now I might be clowning, but that was a slightly different hairdo than we've seen before on the field.

It was so reputation. It was reputation, and she's been wearing a lot of black, and she's been wearing some snake skin. And it's coming, Nora. Yeah. Yeah. All right. It's just when. I have reached equilibrium with reputation where I'm just like, like, it'll have.

It'll happen when it happens. Yeah. I think... To be it upon me, Taylor, at your leisure. You don't like odds, okay? I understand you don't like the football odds. And I respect that. But right now, if we look at the odds

for the major categories that she is nominated for... Also, by that, it's not that I don't like it. It's just that it's not like a thing that I care about. My only point there is, like, it doesn't bother me when people talk about it on a broadcast because I'm a normal fucking person. Or have a different angle or a different interest, exactly. Anyway, they're not serious people.

She has a 93% chance to win album of the year. Those are the implied odds. She's a minus 1,500 favorite to win album of the year, okay? So there is a decent chance. She is a minus 1,000, which implied percent chance is 90% chance, 91% chance to win best pop vocal album. She is a 71% chance, like, favorite to win record of the year for anti-hero.

She is an 84% chance favorite to win song of the year for anti-hero. Look, the betting markets say she's going to sweep the Grammys. My take is one of those speeches she announces reputation. Okay. I like it. Do you think that she, so the only thing that I, the time, makes sense. It would mirror things she's done in the past for the re-releases and for midnight.

She just has a lot going on at the moment. She does have a lot going on at the moment. And then the other thing is, I wonder if reputation is not going to be announced. I wonder if there's just going to be a, there will be no explanation. There will just be reputation approach to this. And all of a sudden, Reputation Taylor's version is just going to exist. I will tell you, I know that very soon. after the Super Bowl, a piece of content is going to be released on a popular streaming platform

that has to do with football that is going to include one of the Taylor's version, well, a Reputation Taylor's Version song. Okay. That's news. That's news. I don't want to screw over some people that I've worked with and who I like very much by like totally spelling beans, but that I am positive that that will be happening. and Reputation Taylor's version has...

Are you ready for it? There are things that have been recorded that have been distributed to media entities. So we're moving in that direction. We're moving in that direction. We're starting to warm up the gong for reputation. And perhaps she waits a little while.

I mean, it would feel incredibly chaotic. But it also would be... Look, she's never going to have a bigger audience. she still cares about the audience for her music. Never forget, this is the point of the whole project is to reclaim her art and having the biggest stage to do that. She would do that at the Grammy.

She obviously wouldn't do that at the Super Bowl because she is doing an incredible job of playing supportive partner to Travis. She's loving that role. She's loving the focus being on somebody else and being able to just support it. Oh, it's fantastic. It's really fun.

It's like very, it's, and I know it's complicated for a lot of people. And I've talked to, you know, I've talked to other like women who work in football. And sometimes it's a little bit like there is a genuine, and these are none of the bad faith arguments that some people are making. There's a genuine sort of like, are we really bifurcating what it is to be a woman in this space where there is like to me, there's something very cool about. this influx of like hyperfemininity into this hyper masculine space where it just feels so clearly on her terms. And to me, there's something like a little bit subversive and very juicy about that. I do also like think it's valid that there are some people and I know there are some women who work in football who are sort of like, this isn't the only way for a woman to exist in this space where it's about who your partner is.

And it's very, you know, everyone's blonde and pretty and rich. And that's a very narrow definition of what it is to be a woman. And it's, it's the fact that it's sort of thorny and complicated is like what I think is so interesting about it. But I will say that I think for a lot of people and definitely for me, it's just so awesome to see her just like cut her way into this absolute boys club and have the time of her life. like not really give a shit about the people who are complaining. Well, that's it.

For me, it's this. You, and I say this to the fan base, I'm one of them. We put so much on the shoulders of this woman with our fandom. We project our own feelings. We make up stories and narratives about who she is. We do podcasts about her. We do 55 hours of podcasts or whatever we've done at this point. By the time we're done with this in four more hours.

Like she wears so much from being the central point of fans. It's wonderful for her to be a fan, for her to rechannel that laser that she gets hit with. And by the way, as you drive to Vegas, there are these three insane power. Like there's like a energy project in the middle of the desert. And it's like 20,000 mirrors. around a giant tower. And these mirrors collect all of the sunlight and redirect it, boom, at this giant tower.

You can see this shit from space. And when you drive by it, it's blinding. But like, I think of Taylor as that tower just absorbing all of this solar energy from people. She's got to send it somewhere. And yes, it's one of those things are present. But isn't it just great to see her happy? Yeah.

Yeah, and having fun. She is happy. She's in love. God, everything else we've ever seen from her has been about heartbreak or has been about a mysterious relationship where she's been hidden away and not able to express herself in that way.

It's just great to see this person happy. And so when she and Travis put, you know, get into the us against the world, fuck everybody as long as I'm like, yeah, yeah. You don't owe anybody anything because in some capacity, both of them. Travis with his physical body, Taylor with her mind, have given an enormous amount to the people who every day root for them

and create stories around the stories that they're creating. It is just great for them, and in particular for her, to just be able to be a fan of somebody and something. And so for that, I'm judgment-free on the way that she's worked her way in. At the same time, isn't it nice that that relationship has so many cascading ancillary benefits. It's good for football. It's good for, man, I don't know.

I'll stop waxing poetic. So I agree with all of that. I do want us to switch gears and talk a little bit more about the Grammys. But just to close the loop on the Super Bowl stuff, there's one more thing that I want to make sure that we talk about before we move on, which is that, you know, Taylor's going to the game. He's not proposing on the field. He's not.

That's not what I'm bringing up. They're not there yet. That's not what I'm breaking up. We're still in the honeymoon face. What? What? No. Say it. I'll tell you later. I'll tell you later.

What? No, I will tell you later. The thing that I want to ask you about is who's going with her? Who's going to be in the suite? Yeah. We've talked about this beforehand. What is Carla Dahlavi? She's British.

Does she know anything about football? Is that the point? Point? Why is she the one who's tagging along? Is she now the best friend? Taylor Swift bringing a a queer British model to all of these football games. So awesome.

Kara like screaming her head off with Jason Kelsey is so fun. It is my favorite. Like you just said there are so many ancillary pieces of this. Yes. Karen Delavine and Jason Kelsey in the suite together is my favorite

ancillary benefit. There was a tweet early on when this started happening that like really, really just made me chuckle and continues to make me chuckle where it was like, I like Taylor and Travis together because I really like, or like, I hope Taylor and Travis get married because I really like the idea of Andy Reid having a conversation with a hym sister. The follow up to that is like all of the imagined conversations I have written in my head about Caradelphine and Jason Kelsey. just like talking to each other and I bet they had a blast. Yeah. But I mean, I assume she's bringing the same crew. Look, this girl is nothing if not superstitious

and focused on detail and like, again, masterminding. No way she's switching it up. Yes. Kelly Teller, maybe Kara, her brother's been a lot, her brother and her brother's girlfriend. Whatever weird Carls were in that box with her are getting the most unexpected invite to the Super Bowl.

Because it's going to be the same crew. She did not fuck around. She knows. Karma is her boyfriend. Karma is her boyfriend. The one, I guess she can't, she can't mess with that. The one thing I'm curious about is like,

is Selena ever going to go to a game? Selina's a dinner. They're going to no boo. They're hanging out. But she hasn't been to a game. What's going on? She probably doesn't care. I don't know.

Yeah, that's probably true. But I don't know. It's just... Slina does whatever she wants to do. She's in a new relationship. She ain't worried about all that. All right. To be very clear, I'm not suggesting, like,

anything dramatic. I'm just like, Selena, like, get on the list. Let's go to a game. You'll have a good time. Look, she can go to a regular season game against the Chargers when Harba is trying to get her shit together. Like, I think it's, you know,

right now, Taylor's worried about not breaking the job. I don't think that Jim Harbaugh is a draw for Selena Gomez. I think going to the Super Bowl of Taylor Swift might be a draw. Yeah, but she can't screw it up, man. You know this. She just can't, she can't risk it. She can't risk it. So you are going all the same crew.

I am going, got to keep an eye out for Salina. Let's talk about the Gramies. Selina. So you set the stakes. I did sort of the legacy talk stage setting from the football angle. I'm going to ask you to do a little bit more from the Grammy's perspective. You very kindly laid out the odds that suggest that, you know, a sweep is definitely possible. And Taylor is a real heavy favorite for a lot of the big awards.

But the Grammys love to surprise us, right? And there's always the potential for something funky to happen. And I wonder what you think about just sort of how the voters are likely to have experienced this year that she's had and all the success and whether that feels like something that everybody's going to get behind and really want to anoint or if you think that there's a potential for something funky to happen because it's. it's like, well, we don't want to just, you know, we want to give other things some airspace. Obviously, there's, you know, Olivia Rodriguez goes up for a lot. I would really like do Alipa to get some sort of award for Dance the Night because it's not going to get an Oscar, which it really should have been nominated for an Oscar, and that's fine. But anyway, put us in the minds of a Grammy voter.

The Billy Barbie song is better. The Billy Barbie song is better. But I disagree with it. Okay. that. Really? You think dance the night is better than what was I made for? I think it's more important. I think it is more important to the movie and I think it's a better song. What? That is your hottest take of the entire pod. I is way more like this is like this literally and I'm not going to like do the Hillary Clinton tweet for goodness sake, but like what? There is a, the comedy of Barbie and the way that the.

like a lot of the cognitive dissonance that Margot Robbie did very well in that character, the way that all of that works comes together for the first time in that dance sequence. It is really, really critical to understanding the movie.

I think this is lost on a lot of the like, you know, I don't really care. Like, I don't care about Oscar nominations. None of this matters. But it is an important song. It is also just like a bop.

So I want Duelipa to win an award for that song. I don't like, the Billy song is, lovely. It doesn't, it doesn't, I don't care about it that much. You don't care about the Billy song? Because it's just like it's a, it's, oh, I think it's beautiful. But it's nice. I don't dislike it at all. I just, I, I, there's so much more of the spirit of that movie in the dual beepa song. Well, but so, I would much rather listen to it. So I'm going to answer your question, but I mean, if that's what you want, then you're rooting for Dance the Night, which is nominated for Song of the Year to beat out

anti-hero among others, including Flowers by Mono-I-Lisirus. It's not nominated for anything else. I can't, like, win some weird category here. I mean, not much that matters, but we can talk about it. Look, never forget that the people who vote for Grammys

are mostly weird Carls. They are weirdos. And that's been reflected in the results. Don't you vote for the Grammys? that's been reflected in the results for at least the last decade that in all seriousness has ended in a place where I mean here we have a lovely group of nominees for album of the year in a year in which Latin and country and hip-hop were huge

not a single album is nominated from any of those genres for album of the year Right. Beyonce has never won an album of the year award, which, you know, look, we can get, but there's just weird shit that happens because it's massively political. And without naming names, there are people who have major nominations this year who kiss a lot of academy ass. And it works in some cases. So it is very much, I mean, if I was a black artist, I would not go to the Grammys, probably. at this point. You'd not go to this

Grammys or you just would not go to the Grammys. What's the point? I mean, it's where Drake is. It's where Abel is. It's where the weekend is, right?

Right. It's where Beyonce ought to be, to be honest, even though she's been awarded the most. It just doesn't feel like some categories of art are understood enough

to even be voted on in that way. I don't suggest that it's necessary punitive. I'm suggesting that there's a lot of blindness. Right. Because there's a lot of weird, Carl's, in their parents' basement, you know, figuratively or literally, who contribute to this. And there also, as we've seen through the years,

has been some weird inside baseball shit. There was a highly competent woman who took over the Grammys a few years ago, and she was out in no time because she tried to shake things up. So there is this club and old school way of doing it. things. That said, it's hard to take issue with a set of nominees that includes Boy Genius, Miley Cyrus, Lana Del Rey, Janelle Manet, Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, Siza. That's a pretty good class of albums. But I think just expect the unexpected and now, in this day and age, more than ever before, these awards don't really mean that much about the

quality of the art always. And you have to put... They still matter to people. They matter. They matter. But I think... If I'm Zach Bryan right now, I can't believe he didn't get a nominee...

It's crazy. That's unbelievable. Right? I can't believe it. Now, he does have best country out. But like, it's strange. Even if I'm in the academy, I want to say,

hey, let's get Zach Brian up there. We need to get him out in front of the people. This is a man of the people. we got to do whatever we need to, if we're putting a thumb on the scale, let's get Zach nominated for one of the four major awards. Because this is a really good record. It's a record worth acknowledging, worth awarding. It is immensely popular.

It's this guy who's great when he's in front of people and who a lot of people care about. Let's get him out in public. So that's not what they did, but they did nominate a lot of female artists for album of the year, which... Right. Boy Genius is not going to perform. They were not asked to perform, which is an interesting choice.

There will be some other artists who we know are going to perform. But if you look at the odds, Taylor Swift is the heavy, heavy favorite to sweep these categories. Here's an interesting fact that is worth thinking about. The voting for the Grammys

opened the final voting, final round voting, opened on December 14th, and it closed on January 4th. So people had those three weeks to submit their votes. And that was an interesting period in the Taylor-Travis situation. December 10th, the chiefs had lost to the bills.

They won the next week against the chiefs. They lost to the Raiders on, Christmas, there was a little bit of chatter in that period. We got a little bit of that sort of bullshit backlash. They lost to the Packers the week before the bills, by the way. So when the voting opens was the peak of the, oh, maybe Taylor's killing Travis, you know, there was a little bit of that initial backlash. And I don't know who these voters are.

Are they weird Carls? Are they dads, brads, and chads? are they Swifties? But there was such a public narrative about this that it's impossible to think that every single one of these categories isn't affected by the public narrative about Taylor as opposed to the art.

Even if you're voting for SZA, in your mind, you're thinking, well, shit, Taylor just became person of the Time Magazine's person of the year. This is absolutely the year of Taylor Swift. And your heart, intuitive, these aren't judges who've been, you know, who've been impartial arbiters of the law.

These are human beings. And it is impossible for these voters to not be influenced one way or the other. And they're either going to go to, it's year of Taylor, I'm voting for her, or they're going to go, I'm listening to all this chatter. This isn't about the art.

If I vote for her, she breaks the record, she leaves Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder and Frank Sinatra. in the dust. And my job as Carl in the basement is to protect the legacy of the art and make sure that Taylor doesn't get it.

Because at the end of the day, screw her. In a slightly less sinister way than that, sometimes I think there's an impulse to give something else oxygen. Right. When one thing is dominating. Like, that's how you get Beck over Beyonce. There you go.

And it's not because there's like a grand conspiracy to, I don't want this person to succeed. It's here's this, like, something is being overlooked because we do have, like, we do have sort of like a winner takes all media system a lot of the time. And I can see there being a little bit of like, wouldn't it be nice to give someone else a moment in the sun? Yes. Getting into people's heads. that's not a judgment about the art. Right. Right. Well, which is the point.

Because either way, and like, obviously I'm a little bit more willing to give someone the time of day who thinks like that versus like, I'm tired of seeing this woman. Right. Right. But in either case, that is a judgment being made not about the art and about something else. And look, there are wonderful, excellent high class, high integrity people who are associated with. the Grammys. I'm being a little bit tongue-in-cheek here. In particular, you know, there are. But it's a loose group historically in terms of the way that they voted. And sometimes, even in a fair election, when there are multiple candidates, you can have camps that divide into one or the other.

And then the third, everybody's third choice wins. I am a huge Bonnie Raid fan. But that is what happened when she won song of the year. People clustered across a bunch of different candidates. and she won. So that's the nature of the way this is done. And so you just have to sort of expect the unexpected. All that said, the most interesting category of the night that you have to look at if you're wondering how Taylor's going to do for me is you got to look at best pop vocal album. Because sitting in that category is Kelly Clarkson's chemistry. It's Ed Sheeran subtract. Fine. But it's Miley Cyrus's endless summer vacation. it's Olivia Rodriguez's guts

covered here on every single album and it is Taylor Swift's Midnights also covered here on every single album and those last three are also nominated for album of the year and I think I think that this is probably a race

between Olivia Taylor and Siza I think now the betting mark those are the three who are up for album of the year record of the year song of the year in addition to that award. But the odds boards say Olivia is the least likely to win.

The odds boards say the second favorite after Taylor is Lana Del Rey and that it's close between Lana, Siza, Boy Genius. There's another tier with John Batiste and Miley Cyrus and then it's Olivia. I think that this is a Taylor Cisa. Is that just because that seems crazy for Olivia? Is that just because they think that like Olivia voters and Taylor voters are sort of from a similar pocket. I think that there is some overlap

in the Venn diagram there and that people are going to say the Olivia record or album didn't just dig in and become a phenomenon. And so it's close enough to Taylor's that you got to go with Taylor, which to me doesn't explain at all

why Lana would be nominated other than people thought that the quality of, you know, Ocean Avenue, did you know there's tunnel under Ocean Avenue, is good enough to be, there. But I think that's the category to look at, because if whoever wins

that one of those three, and if it's Taylor, then you've probably got a two or three person race for album of the year, and it's between Taylor and Lana or Taylor and Siza, I think.

And that's, look, I saw Boy Genius at an event last night. I love the boys more than just about anybody. I love that album. I lit myself on fire when I heard Emily, I'm sorry. I think that that for whatever reason isn't going to get a Bonnie Rate moment and percolate through. I just think that there are some artists who had bigger impact with their albums who are going to be in the running. So all that said, that's what this is about.

And the stakes here are insanely high. We are talking about somebody breaking the record for most Grammys. ever given for album of the year. And Taylor is in poll position to do that. It's just going to be that this election is probably not going to be about the art, but the vibes. And in that three-week period,

what were the vibes of the classy artists and high-integrity executives and cluster of weird Carls who all collectively, just like social media, get an equal voice, whose voice will ring the loudest. I think Taylor Swift

is going to win this. But do you think she's going to sweep? You think she's going to win album of the year, is what you're saying? I think she's going to win album of the year. I do. I think there's a chance. If we go back in time, Flowers was a huge song.

And I think there's a chance that Miley wins record of the year for flowers. Song of the year, it sounds like you want Dua. Yeah, I kind of do. I think my perfect world and like, don't come at me or like

do, I don't know, whatever. And I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to. I want Taylor to an album of the year. And then I want I would like some recognition of Olivia Rodriguez. And I also want my weird

duolipa recognition. Fine. I think vampire could win Song of the Year. It's, again, at the bottom of the odds boards, the implied chance of winning is like... That's like... So it sounds like what you're saying is that the odds really do not like Olivia for like any of these things.

That's right. But remember, the odds also are reflected to protect the book that's giving, taking the bets. And if everybody and their brother are betting on Taylor Swift, what they're going to do is make the odds such that they don't have to pay a lot of money if she wins because all these people are betting. So the odds are going to get longer for the other artists sort of by virtue of all of the interest in Taylor, right? But it sounds like that's affecting Olivia a little bit more than it's affecting like Siza.

I think it is. And I think that's probably because the people who otherwise might be betting on Olivia or betting on Taylor. All right. So look, it's going to be a fascinating, a fascinating, a fascinating ceremony. There's a lot to celebrate. Best new artists, there's an incredible set of artists. Fred again, Fred again is an amazing artist. Noah Khan is an amazing artist.

Gracie, I love that album. I really do. Warren Treaty, if you haven't heard their stuff on their own, you've probably heard Driver, the song with Zach Bryan. Warren Treatie are awesome. And there's Ice Spice sitting at the top.

And she's going to be in the nomination with Taylor for Carlin. so you could see potentially them winning that one together. But Ice Spice is a pretty heavy favorite to win Best New Artist. It feels like the category that would give, it feels like she is a winner on this one. Because usually, look, it's a blessing and a curse, right? This is a category where there are people who have won Best New Artist

who you never hear from again. Never seen or heard from again. And Ice is in a very interesting spot, right? her second big song released is about a fart. And you never know how that's going to go. She's in a Dunkin commercial. It feels like this isn't...

I don't know. I feel like the basement chat's kind of like a fart song. Yeah, fair. But look, she's done it. She was introduced on Saturday Live by Taylor Swift. So there's a lot of could be around this artist if the material is strong from here. But it also could.

be a phenomenon in a moment, right, that doesn't endure. This is a very interesting list of artist. Jelly Roll too is nominated here. Yeah. There's a lot of cool stuff. I'm guessing, I mean, what do you think? Who do you think Taylor's going to sit with? You think she sits with ice? Yeah, I think that makes the most sense. They're nominated together. I think that makes the most sense. The other possibility, I mean, you know, she could go, like, Gracie. For sure. How far does she sit from Olivia? I mean, that's the subtext drama that we haven't gotten. Like, this is the first time we're going to see the two of them in a room together. And they're in competition with one another ostensibly for awards.

Well, and Taylor could kind of gather the troops, right? Because she could sit with Lana. She could sit with Gracie. She could sit with ice pies. She could, like, she also could, I mean, Is Selena going to go? Maybe that's what happens. Maybe Selena doesn't go to the football game, but she goes to the Grammys, just as a buddy. Do you think she's going to be drinking? Yeah.

More or less than she does at football games. Probably less because she is, like, right about to go back on the road. But, girl, she could become the only four-time winner of album of the year in Grammy's history. Like, yeah. have a glass of champagne.

Have something. Have a nice time. It really is a very strong set of artists, putting aside the criticism of what got omitted. It is a very, very strong and culturally impactful set of artists who are nominated for these big categories. Lots of very strong women. It's nice.

Even having Kelly Clarkson, there's a lot of artists who are in Taylor's orbit. I'm going to see Kelly Clarkson in Las Vegas, and I'm so excited. Kelly Clarkson is the best karaoke singer on the planet as far as I'm concerned. Kelly Clarkson rules. Yeah, she's badass. But she has a relationship with Taylor, as we know.

Miley Cyrus, close relationship with Taylor. You remember that from the BBC interview where she said, I'm going to call Miley after Ed Shearin. And from crazier on the Hannah Montana movie soundtrack. There you go. So there's a lot of artists in her orbit who are, all going to be here. The seating chart is probably the most interesting thing to bet on with your friends, even more so than the awards. But I, look, I will say at the end of the day, I think Taylor

deserves this. It is her year. She has peaked at a state of fame and influence. And according to the Billboard Power List, from just yesterday, Power 100 list, she's number one on that, and power in the industry that has eclipsed anything that we've seen. She has. And yes, Michael Jackson had a moment, and it was different, a different time in terms of media and reach around the globe. And yes, there are parts of Beatlemania about which nothing will ever be repeated. And yes, some of the insanity around Elvis was different. Those things, it's hard to say better, more or less, they're different. But undeniably, we've never seen anything like this moment for Taylor Swift.

And it's going to peak in the next week. what I want to ask you, Nora, is do you or do you not agree with me that we're going to see reputation the next week? Or do you think she's going to hold off, get through the Super Bowl, and it's going to come in a month or two? I don't think we're going to see it in the next week. I'm with you that there's a possibility she could announce it in the next week. And I think if that happened, it would probably be on the Grammy stage. I'm still going, you know, the calendar clue is a good clue. So look at this month. But I wonder if, if, if, it'll be a little later. Okay. Just because she can get clear of... Yeah.

All of it. All of this. Yeah. It may just be too much. It may be too much. But selfishly, I want to see her get one of the four awards and the first one that she gets up says,

I don't know what's going to happen the rest of the night, but this seems as good a time as I need to say. That would be a little too spontaneous and require some elements of chance. that seemed like the MTV award that she got when she got up, she knew she was getting it, right? Right.

So that's sort of preordained. This one, she does not know whether she's getting it or not when she walks in that building. So it feels a little bit not perfectly masterminded. Ha ha, ha, ha, ha. But we'll find out. And that's the fun of it. All right, Nathan, I feel like we've downloaded. Fucking exhausted all of this.

Yeah, no, but this was good. This felt good. It's good to catch up. I'm happy to see you, Nora. Likewise. All right, this has been every single album. I'm Nora Finciati. As always, he's Nathan Hubbard.

Thank you to Kaya McMullen for producing this episode so wonderfully as she always does. Thank you to all the chads in the basement. I'm sorry, you caught so many strays, but actually, probably I'm not. We will be back. I don't know, when Taylor Swift is announced as a member of the, the presidential cabinet of advisors or whatever insane thing happens next. But we'll make sure to talk to you soon and enjoy the Grammys, enjoy the Super Bowl.

It's been a fun season. It's been a fun year of Taylor. And as always, it is a pleasure and a privilege to be able to talk with everyone about it.