Every Single Album - 'Who's the Clown?' | Every Single Album: Audrey Hobert

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

Nora and Nathan briefly recap their favorite moments from the VMAs (1:00) before getting into the debut album from Audrey Hobert, 'Who's the Clown?' (12:22). They talk about Hobert's other job—writing songs with Gracie Abrams (17:47)—the ways in which this album is similar to and different from Abrams's 'The Secret of Us' (23:33), and the complex lyrics over simple chords that make this album one of the best debuts since Olivia Rodrigo's (44:01). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan HubbardProducer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to every single album. I'm Nora Pinciotti, and as always, I am here with Nathan Hubbard. Nathan, how are you doing this week? I'm doing great, but we are going to take a risk today, Nora. Oh, are we? I feel like this is the first time that I don't have to ask you what we're doing, because I know what we're doing, because I've been hounding you and pestering you for at least one week to do this show.

Yeah, we're going to talk about Audrey Hobart and who's the clown today. By pestering me, Nathan means that he texted me, hey, we should talk about Audrey Hobart. And I was like, yeah. But if that's what you mean, then I totally agree. We're going to do it. We're going to absolutely do it. I'm excited.

I'm super excited. We're going to do, however, a little bit of housekeeping before we get into that. Not so much housekeeping, but like news and notes, just things that have happened. I do feel the need to just address what an. I invited this. I even requested it. What is just like a real feature of my direct messages right now? Cookies?

I know what cookie means, guys. I got a little caught up in the chips a hoy of it all. Like, what am I supposed to take from that versus a snickerdoodle versus an oatmeal raisin? Nora, we talked about this. I just, I was going. layer deeper as some I'd say. You're a female semi-celebrity who participates in football and music. You have to stay out of your DMs.

Due to some degree, but here's the thing. Our listeners are really nice and cool and smart and I want to talk to them. That is true. So I'm actually pretty good at like choosing the moments when I will engage with what is going on and like look through. And then if I've, like, written something about a football player or whatever that's, like, not who's, like, not doing well, then I will avoid it. Like, I know how to do that stuff. But so with this, I was like, guys, like, talk to me if you have a theory about the chips a hoi. And then just the number of, like, very polite, very respectful, very, like, as PG-13 as it can possibly be when people are just like, hey, Nora, like, it means oral sex.

like she's her cookie it's you know sometimes people say cookie when they mean like cookie you know cookie and so to everyone who DMed me thank you I appreciate it I see you you've been heard and that's just a really wonderful thing that has that has sprung out of this podcast community so I just wanted to say a note of thanks but also guys I'm cool I'm cool I was up to speed on the cookie part that wasn't the part that confused me well and nobody had a theory on why it was chips a hoi but i guess i i do accept that she just meant cookie generally speaking um but i just wanted to say that there's a few fringe theories that are running about on that but hey there's plenty of innuendo across the whole album for everyone norah

absolutely and that's beautiful speaking of sabrina i was checking in in between NFL kickoff weekend um the first Sunday night football game and the VMAs on Sunday. Yeah. Can I tell you something? Because the West Coast, they showed it after the game, basically. So I got to see. Oh, okay.

Okay. And then it's not like 2 o'clock in the morning for you, which is also nice. Yeah, you get the replay out here, which is super nice. But I was up late watching a bunch of it. I mean, first of all, on your DMs, I just, like, I kept waiting for some,

to talk shit to me on social media this week so that I could respond with, I just gave your mom the house tour. And nobody did. But I want you all to start using that because that's a much better come back than anything that exists. House tour, one week later, we are still in the right. It is the best song on the record. Totally.

And it seems like it's starting to pop off. Yeah. And I think it as a metaphor where euphemism is going to deeply embed itself, it's the new Netflix and chill, it really is. But Sabrina gave a pretty good performance at the VMAs that, as usual, she's becoming just a very dependable honor of legacy, isn't she? Whether it's every single one of her live performances like that harkens back to imagery or directly lifts in tribute, things from old Hollywood, old music. This was a Britney moment for sure, right?

Do you think it was a really specific one? I don't know, because the hair was a little Christina. Yeah, I didn't get like a really, really specific one in the way that the VMA alien makeout from last year felt like it was referencing the like Britney Madonna kiss and all sorts of moments like that. But it definitely felt like, you know, the aesthetics of kind of like slightly grimy 90s,

New York really came through in the set. I did think that the rain... The rain was the Britney thing. It was like very Britney, but also she did end up looking kind of Christina with it. Yeah, the hair at the end was Christina for sure. And it's cool because you never, like, her aesthetics are so consistent.

It's always like crazy micro mini kind of betty boop dress situation. The hair is the same blowout all the time. It's very, like even the way they do her makeup is not very variable. And then all of a sudden you drench her. And it's just, I don't know, just sort of that shakeup to me was like, oh, whoa, cool. And then they're doing hairography and the water's flipping everywhere. I thought it was really, really fun. I thought using all the drag queens and some of the signs and making it a little bit purposeful in that way was, to me, like the coolest moment of the night.

I don't know that that's a super, super high bar to clear. Like last year, I feel like there was so much going on at the VMAs that it felt. A little bit more like an essential moment to me, like something that you knew people were going to be talking about the next day. I think a lot of that just comes down to the fact that, like, last year was this crazy good year in pop music. And this year so far, they don't have quite as much to work with. Oh, just do you wait. Well, sure.

But like up to this point, they don't have quite as much to work with. Yeah. It felt like an assembly of who was around. Yeah. Like Ariana available around. Tate McCray, you know I'm showing up. Gaga shows up for like 10 minutes, gets the award, and then leaves immediately to go. Yeah, to go to the Mayhem Ball.

And then like, you know, I am just, I'm not into Alex Warren. I know a lot of people are. Yeah. There's like a lot of that. That's just sort of, I guess, a matter of taste. Did you see Youngblood? Yeah. Do the Ozzy tribute?

Yeah. with Steve and Ariana freak out. I liked everything about it. He's a badass. That's fun. That's super fun. In moments. It just,

it like, it didn't feel, it didn't feel like something that was going to be the big topic of conversation in quite the same way, but there were, you know, I like an awards show. But I thought Sabrina was definitely the highlight.

Yeah. Her visual performances are becoming a key part of the vibe. And man, streaming is continuing to go. People are listening to that album. I'm one of them. Can I ask you one more thing? Oh, please.

Is Taylor Swift going to play the Super Bowl? Should we just do this every week? I mean, I think there was a little Cosmo. I mean, why is Cosmo know this shit? But there was a Cosmo story on it, right, that said they're in negotiation. It's very clear the door is open. Is she going to do this?

I think we've agreed that she's not going to tour next summer. Yeah, I mean, look, here's the single most compelling reason for her to do it is the one that you gave, which is that's a stage that she can put the life of a showgirl on and have it be contained to one night and one night only,

and she doesn't have to tour the globe, but it'll feel substantial. Well, also, it sure did not look like Travis and the Chiefs are going to make the Super Bowl, at least not on Friday night. That was a very slow start now. Yeah. They're going to play a lot better through the course of this year. But I wonder if it changed the calculus at all.

Yeah. I just think that's the type of thing where the second you have like the A, B of, of I want to do it if they make it. I don't want to do it if they, like anything like that, it just fall, it completely falls apart. It has to be like, yeah, this is my thing. And I'm just going to do it. I don't know. I was really firmly no. It definitely seems like the NFL is more open to it.

I mean, they should want Taylor Swift. Of course they want her. She's invited any time. I do think it will be weird if Travis has played his last football game and is not in the Super Bowl. And she's doing the halftime show that year. Yeah, and there's always, like, I guess there isn't another year that'll come right after this album comes out is the only thing. Because that's just always when my perspective is like this isn't the last Super Bowl they're ever going to play, right? Like that stage still exists and therefore why wouldn't you wait until there are so many fewer complications?

Does seem like the momentum is in the direction of it being more and more likely. is at least what it is seeming like. Now, there was a fair amount of stuff out there suggesting that she was at least in the running or in some amount of talks before the Rihanna half-time show. There's no in the running.

Does Taylor Swift want to play the Super Bowl or not? And at some point, the time to make that decision has expired and they have to go with somebody else because somebody else, it's a big-ass prep. It's not one song. Like, Sabrina had weeks of rehearsals for that show that the one song that she put on last night. When you put together what is eight or 15 minutes

worth of music or whatever it ends up being, like it's a lot, a lot, a lot of rehearsal. And it has to start now, and you've got to start procuring all of the equipment and the planning and football. We're not that far from the Super Bowl, right? Four months out. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I mean, she doesn't do, she's not someone to do things by half measures.

So I, I, we'll watch the space. That's all I got on that one. Okay. Okay. All right. You want to talk about Audrey Hobert? I really want to talk about Audrey Hobart. Okay. So you kick us off, Nathan. We are talking about who's the clown, which is Audrey Hobert's debut album, came out August 15th. But I want to hear what your introduction to Audrey was when you started spending a lot of time with this album or with any of the singles that were out beforehand and what your journey has been? Well, there's been this bubbling of chatter about this girl, Audrey Hobart, as Gracie Abrams made her rise from, you know, first this Nepo baby chatter about Gracie to suddenly, holy, wow, she's really resonating with a subset of young women in particular to, again, I've said this before,

but the first time I saw her play on the ERAs tour to six months later on the ERAs tour was like jaw-dropping the orders of magnitude better that she got as a performer. She is a student and committed to the craft of bettering her performance. So as all of these, things were happening and Gracie was sort of reaching stratospheric orbit, there was this sort of undercurrent about a co-writer of hers named Audrey Hobart who grew up in L.A., whose dad was a show producer and writer for a couple TV shows, and who was like Gracie's best friend. But we never really saw her. and a lot of people sort of thought of her as an Amy Allen-ish figure, except obviously without the here-to-for accomplishments that Amy Allen had.

But there just was this little bit of buzz about her. And I think in the industry, there was just this question of who is this person? Is she actually an artist? Is she actually a songwriter? And then this summer, I started to get through, a bunch of different channels. And I say a bunch of different channels because it's from like older folks

and also lots of younger folks. And that's when I start to pay attention is when it comes through like moms, but also like 16 year old, 18 year old, 21 year old, like my kids, that kind of thing. And Sumi came out and I listened to it and I thought, huh, interesting.

but I didn't totally get the bit. Like I hadn't sort of immersed myself in the whole thing. And then this album came out in the middle of August, and I have to tell you, I have been running it back more than any album of the year. And that is at the end of the day what prompted me to text you. Because I, like in getting underneath it,

and we're going to talk about it, I am astonished. Yeah, she's 26 years old. She's not a spring chicken, as it sometimes is in the pop world. Brutal. But let me just say this. She's like fresh out the womb.

But as a pop star, what I mean by that is this is her debut album. What I was getting ready to say is I'm like astonished at the quality of this first pitch. You know, if she was 16 years old, maybe I guess she has a level of maturity as a human being. that is reflected in the songwriting. But there is something about the way that she is writing. We talked about this last week with Sabrina, and we alluded to it, which is that, like, she's putting dialogue to music.

It's like this post-Taylor lyricism thing where people aren't trying to write these stanzas of rhymes, but they're writing dialogue. And by the way, that's what she was. She was writing dialogue for a fucking canceled Nickelodeon show and putting it over music almost like pop rapping. And I think it matters, but in particular, when I listen to this, and then I want to hear how you, because you wrote me back and you're like,

I love Audrey when I suggested it. It does not make me rethink Gracie Abrams as a star at all, because Gracie Abrams has this incredible ability to be like Princess Grace-like beautiful, but still feel like young women and girls can project themselves on. to her. She seems relatable and a lot of that is the way that she writes. But when you listen to this album and I spoke with somebody in the Gracie camp yesterday who told me unequivocally like, Audrey is the engine for a lot of Gracie songs. And that's to take nothing away from her writing. But it is an important ingredient to the recipe and you can hear the secret of us in a lot of this writing. So

I'm just interested to hear from you, like you knew her. You're like, I love Audrey. Was it Sue Me that got you? What got you to the table? So I do want to go, when we're done, when I'm done answering your question, I do want to go back to the Gracie stuff a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Not because I think it's really that important to litigate like, you know, like we're doling out certain percentages of like the credit pie, right? No way. It's not a credit take away. No. Well, it's also just sort of not how it.

sort of not how it works, but it's an, I do think that it's an interesting element to what she's doing, where pop music is right now, what's working, also what their relationship is like, also what that means for what Gracie does going forward, what Audrey does going forward. Mine, I mean, mine was really simple. A few months ago in a text thread, somebody put Sue me into the, the chat and I like you liked it. I didn't like totally latch. It's super catchy.

I think the piece of Audrey that's not like fully fleshed out in that song, the piece that is and the piece that I think is like an interesting point of differentiation between her and Gracie Abrams is that there's a little bit more like, Gracie really presents herself through the music in a way that makes you picture her standing with an acoustic guitar. And Audrey, and Audrey is working with people who are sort of out of this Phineas protege space. And that really makes sense to me because there's a lot of these songs that are dealing with like weird digital bleeps and bloops and different. sounds and we're in the studio and we're like banging stuff together and making different noises and then using them to enhance the production in a way that like if you ask me to list some

clear points of differentiation between Audrey Hobert and Gracie Abrams, that's one of them. And then the sense of humor, I think, is more dialed up in Audrey. It's present in Gracie. Now that may have something to do with Audrey as a writing part. but I don't think that that's centered in the package, whereas there's something about Audrey Hobart where I'm like, if you turn this dial up three or four more notches, you're Jane Wickline. Like it's not anybody who is like actually I do music or like music in the traditional sense as a full-time serious pursuit. It's I leave a trail of breadcrumbs and then I leave a

trail of loaves of bread on Saturday Night Live. Like there is there is a type of like sketch comedy to her writing. Um, which is interesting because it's different from Sabrina, but we have, it, it just strikes me that we're now two weeks in a row talking about some of these women who are having real moments in pop right now who are really centering their senses of humor. Um, there is a. deep connection that in particular late teen girls seem to be feeling about the way that she talks and the way that she writes. And she, you know, she wraps her verses around the end of

the stands. Like she, there isn't, there's not as much rhyming on this as you might expect. It is really just like a, a brain dump. But I still. feel like with Gracie's music a lot of the time, Gracie's perspective is, while she has her insecurities and certainly feels like an outsider at times, like just look at her up there. Like she's part of the cool kids. She's dating Paul Meskell.

Like she's in the center of the cool kids circle. And what's so interesting about Audrey is she's giving voice to the kids on the outside who think they have a fucked up face to use her words and who got invited to go to the party but are having an whole internal dialogue about whether they're actually wanted there and there's something about this and and the core question to me about Audrey is is she going to be a pop star or is she going to be Amy Allen for a whole host of reasons, one of which is that as she tells us repeatedly through this record,

you know, there's that point where she, the song where she goes to New York because the guy in the suit said she's going to be famous and her response to that sounded like she didn't really believe in herself, right? And that is a thread that goes through this whole record in such a, what feels like as I take the temperature of this record, just like a deeply relatable way to young people right now. It does sound an incredible lot like the secret of us. Tell me, is she prettier than she was on the internet? Are you conversations cool?

Like, I don't think that there's, again, like I'm not trying to parse out. Yeah, I'm not trying to parse out credit here. I just think that it is inescapable. It really is. That it feels like a curtain is being raised on someone who did a lot to make that album what it was. And, you know, I think people can make of that what they want to. It is a, that was, it's stunning to me how much this feels like the secret of us. and that's why I did the digging.

And, like, I was not surprised to hear it, but I think Audrey Hobart is the engine for a lot of that music. And I think it's fascinating to hear that element of the way she writes then come here on her own, because these are not complicated songs, Nora. These are three-cord riffs or four-cord riffs chords we've heard before, but that,

first of all, anyone with an acoustic guitar could play, even though there's certainly, I mean, there's a freaking sax solo on Thirstrap for coming out loud. Oh, yes.

We will talk about the saxophone. But the way that these things were crafted, really her and Ricky Gourmet in a room, with him creating beats and bass lines and her then taking those home and writing over them, which feels a little bit Taylor, Aaron Dessner-esque, right?

Aaron dumping his hard drive and Taylor doing what she does well. But these are not complicated songs. It really is this like advent of, I don't know another way to say it, but pop rapping where she's singing for sure. And these songs are melodic. And part of what's interesting about...

I think they're very melodic. Yeah. Part of what's interesting about the musically is that the underlying chord structure is really simple, but the melodies that she puts on top of them makes you lose track of the fact that she's actually done an interesting job of separating verse, pre-chorus, choruses, bridges where they exist

from one another by singing different melodies over the same chord structures. But at the end of the day, there is, like, this album, another way of thinking about this is, it is not vaguely, it is somewhat reminiscent of Brat but I think it has it is Brat but with more richer substance

and none of the flash I don't know if I I really love this album and I think it has plenty of substance I think Brat has a lot of substance and I don't I think I think the best songs on who's the clown deliver on that substance

in the intricate way in which she writes and tells stories. I really like this album. I think I was challenging myself to think of the last debut album that I think is this impressive. And I go to Olivia Rodriguez. Yeah.

That's exactly right. And that's a big thing to say. Yeah, but that's why we're doing this on this episode of every single album. Well, but just to close the thread on that, I don't think it works every single time. Like, I don't, I actually think some of these songs come across is like fairly shallow. Really? Like, just that there's an idea that doesn't totally connect,

but that is rendered in this almost, like dollhouse intricacy of details and a type of storytelling that I think is like it's fun and then sometimes there's a there there and sometimes I think it's a fun party trick. And both of those things are fine, but I think that one of them has a lot more depth than the other is just all I would say. Just because you said brat and that's a big thing to say too. Yeah. Yeah.

but I think I think yeah I guess again there Charlie is underground but unequivocally cool and in the middle of her club Audrey is again writing for people who

are not in the club and are in fact uncomfortable even with the suggestion that they maybe belong in a club but I think from a song perspective man I don't know I don't hear a lot of skips on this record

I really don't. I don't either. I also, it's funny. Like, I don't hear it as, and obviously there are lines about, you know, I think I have a fucked up face and like sort of,

there's such a through line of wanting to feel affection and someone's desire especially. I don't, like, my, I don't experience this album as a collection of songs

about like feeling like an outcast necessarily. I experience it a lot more as a collection of songs about, yes, feeling awkward, but feeling awkward in experiences, like in the experience of adolescence, right? Because yeah, maybe she's uncomfortable at the club, but she's at the club sometimes. And she's hooking up and, hanging out with friends and talking to friends about their relationships.

And like, this is a person who is out in the world. It's not someone who is eating lunch on the tray in the toilet stall because no one wants to sit with her. Yeah. And like, that's neither here nor there. I actually think that I would prefer it to the alternative. But it's not like, it's not, I'm not invited to the, the party type of outcast. It is a little bit of like, I'm a ghost in this room of famous people, though.

And as the Cyrano de Berzac to Gracie Abrams, that's a deeply interesting perspective to me. She's written about every single one of these songs. And there's a line that she said something to the effect of, like, I've struggled my whole life to feel beautiful, but have always felt beautiful on the inside. It's that struggle comes out across a lot of the writing here. And I think, you know, she's wonderfully self-deprecating. She's funny as hell. I guess my question to you is, can someone who feels this way and writes this way be a pop star?

Oh, yeah. No, totally. Now, like, can they be a pop star on the same scale as Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Gracie? Like, maybe that's a more challenging question. We have mega, mega pop stars who present themselves as total weirdos, right? Like, the entire arc of Gaga starts with her presenting herself as androgynous and, like, detached from the entire idea of the male gaze, which was so, so central to so many of her predecessors. Like, that is not... But she was always in costume. She was playing character. She was dressed up. She was doing something visual.

Yes. No, so that's what I'm saying. I'm just saying that it doesn't... I don't think, like, it comes down to how conventionally be... Like, that's just sort of not even, I think, part of the conversation. It's that Audrey Hooper does do... do something that's like pretty intricate. Like again, like something about these songs makes me imagine them as little diaramas, almost.

Or like these little mini renderings of these kind of tragicomic sketches of awkward adolescent coming of age experiences. And it's super charming, but it does make it a little bit harder to. like perceive the scaled version of it because it's not particularly broad and it's easier to be big when something is broad. That said, some of the biggest Gracie Abrams songs sound exactly like this record. Yeah.

And they're fucking massive. So I wouldn't put it past her. And I think there's a lot of personality that comes through, maybe even more so. And that's a really, really attractive thing. Yeah. Well, I think what's important and interesting about this case is, look, I think I would make the case that this is this is one of my favorite albums of the year. I think you can tell that. I think she's deeply interesting because of a couple of waves that are coming together in confluence at the same time.

one is can somebody really tuck out of the slipstream of Gracie Abrams who tucked out of the slipstream of Taylor Swift? But two is, you know, this is the kind of person who we think about from a skill set perspective as being this next generation of pop star and artist in general, which is you're going to have to be a multifaceted multimedia creator. and she is that. I mean, I think she is visual first. She directed and wrote some of Grace's videos. She is a TV writer. She thinks in her head as she's creating a song

about the visuals of the video that would follow, and indeed she's made a few of those videos on her own, and that was what got a little bit of buzz going around Sumi and a few of the other songs that were put out before the record came out. But I do think it's interesting because she hasn't, created a character for herself. She hasn't done the world building. That's the, that's the industry A&R buzzword is world building. Yeah. Which really means, you know, look at the brat campaign and the color and the season and the, right, the vibe was, was a world that was built. Gaga, you know, you fall down that

rabbit hole and you're in the world of Gaga for sure. So it is a thing that is even more important now because of the visual ways in which we consume a lot of media. But that's why it's interesting to me because she actually, even though she creates and thinks very visually, she hadn't done much. I mean, she's on the bits that we've seen her, she's got like a dish towel in her guitar to dampen the strings, and it's her on a couch.

Like, she's not coming out like Chapel Rhone in full, you know, drag gear, or something different. So it's, and yet I think the, to me, the quality of the writing, I do think there's a ton of depth. And I think stylistically, it matters and is a harbinger of what we're going to see going forward in this era in which, like, hey, I'm sorry, but there's not going to be a set of chords at the moment that is new and different

that we haven't heard back dating to the Beatles and before. Like, it's been done musically. So the question is, where does that innovation come from? And on the one hand, you might think, oh, are we going to start to hear all these crazy, cool new sounds? You talked about some of those sounds. There's cool-ass cowbell on drive. There's the gun sort of like cocking sounds in the background. I got to say, that scared the living daylight's out of me.

Sue me I want to be, yeah. Sue me I want to be. Sue me I want to be. Sue me I want to be. Yeah. There's a lot of interesting little integrated percussion. But the production on this is pretty simple. This is a record made by two people,

not a panoply of human beings like, you know, with all these writers and all these. Ooh, panoply. I don't know. Maybe, maybe we'll ask Travis for the definition there. But the, like, it's, and that's part of its appeal to me, is it's raw. And the way that she speaks is raw.

and the confession in, like, I stepped back after reading some articles on her and thought, you know, this is a 26-year-old who, like, the first thing that she offered was fucking my ex is iconic. Yeah. Like, she, like, the first thing she put out there was that she, like, randomly slept with.

I'm like, that's kind of like a, it's not somebody that we know. The guy's, you know, sort of irrelevant at this point, whatever. But like, it's just very raw. It is, it sort of splits her open. Now, as she's talked about a writing process, she actually really labors over these songs.

These are not Taylor Swift poop it out in two minutes when, you know, Aaron sent her a track 10 minutes ago and bang, she comes back with, you know, half the songs on Evermore in two minutes. Like, this is something that she's labored over, in part because it's new to her, right? she started as a writer. But it's the effortlessness of the songs

that I think actually works. You could have convinced me that she wrote these songs in 10 to 15 minutes each in one setting. And it just sort of poured out of her. And therein, I think, lies the art, which is that they're very believable. They're very easily connected with.

They're very plain and direct in their language, but she's worked very hard to get there. Yeah, well, and I think if you start to really dig into the lyrics, like you can see, you know, maybe it's just a natural knack for landing the punchlines, but at this rate and this volume, that's effortful, right? Like, to just sort of have that, because it doesn't feel entirely like a gag,

but it's pretty close. Like what I think is so interesting about this is just how close it is. And I would love, like I was trying to find interviews with her and stuff. And I get the sense that somebody on her team is telling her to like really just say over and over again that she didn't ever get a lead role in like high school theater.

And I don't care. Yeah. I would like to know what she thinks about comedy. I would like to know what she thinks about, like, narrative. There's so much television on this album. And again, that's part of her background. But, like, that, the way that...

Friends. Sex in the city. Yeah. And the way that those types of narrative building influence how she writes these songs, but again, like, they are, to me, three notches away from being, kind of sketch comedy,

but they are just over the line where like this is a serious pop album and this is like, you know, I don't mean serious in terms of like she's meaning for us to take her entirely seriously. It's obviously not that. But it's legible as not weird al, right?

Like it doesn't feel like something like that, but it's shockingly close. And I think that's really cool. I think that's innovative. I think it just like gives it such a charm. Yeah. Look, the biggest song on this album right now is Sumi. It's been streamed just under 27 million times.

Sabrina's Manchild will have streamed that many times by the end of this week. So this is a very early thing. We don't normally cover that here. But the thing that I wanted to cover is, is because this is such a seedling, but it's a seedling that comes from that lineage that seems to matter, and it comes in a human being who has that multifaceted potential in the future, and yet it also doesn't have the grand visuals that we've seen on a lot of pop that has gone, and maybe that's because the label didn't invest in it.

Maybe it's because it's not part of her vision. But I really, more than anything, I wanted to talk about the songs, but I really wanted to get your perspective on whether this is an artist who can become a pop star in current incarnation because I do think it's a stunning debut or she's going to go one or two ways. She's either going to go the Amy Allen route and be your favorite artist's secret ingredient in everything that they write or she's going to turn this into her own. And by the way, Amy Allen tried to be an artist and still does at time. She's got her own thing. but at the end of the day, she just didn't have whatever it is. Amy Allen did not put out a solo project

that sounded like this. Yeah, no, people, I mean, I feel pretty confident that not necessarily that this will be a huge, huge record because I do think that it's, like, you know, you can sort of name the people who are going to love this, right? It's for, it's for fans of Gracie Abrams

who want it to be a little bit more intricate and quirky. It's punker. Yeah. It's cooler. Yeah. No, I agree. It's got, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, has more personality. I think it's, Gracie, did not write fucking your ex is iconic.

No. Um, she did not write. When I'm drunk at the club, I want to be felt up as an opening fucking line. It's pretty fucking. It's pretty fucking. God. I like want to do best lyric right now because there's like a hundred of them. That's mine. Fucking your ex is iconic or I want to be. When I'm drunk at the club, I want to be felt up. It's just like leading a song with that. It's like what?

Saying is like this isn't like I just don't want us to make it seem like we're painting her as a loser. Like she's not. She's not a loser. Who's like out in the world. And I think that's where like that's the thing that's fun about it is that there. Yes. Of course there is a little bit of this like. social anxiety, but it's like not mopey. It's like, look at all of this unintentional comedy that's like coming from these ill-fated hookups and wanting to be felt up at the club, but then also wanting to stay at home and like layer my creams.

I think we all can relate to the notion of put three drinks in me and I'm a little bit of a different human being. Yeah, totally. And that's what's great about that line is, because by the way, it comes after, right, in order, Shooting Star follows, like, a number of songs. It follows sex in the city. This isn't sex. Which there is a lot, and Chateau.

And Thirst Trap, by the way, which all those songs talk about basically wanting to stay inside in your room or in Chateau, why am I here? I'm in this room full of, like, it's a post-Grammy party. I'm an L.A. kid. Every L.A. kid who grows up there, the Chateau Marma is like the coolest place. When you're in there, you're with the cool crowd.

She's with the A-listers. And all she wants to do is get the fuck out. Sex in the city, it's like, you know, she just... But it's also, like, again, this is what's charming about it is that she wants to get the fuck out a little bit because she's like, oh, God, am I uncomfortable here? I'm not, should I, like, I'm not the center of attention. But also because, because...

She's like, these people are kind of losers. Yes, for sure. For sure. Like, this is my favorite lyric is at the very, very end of Chateau, when all the music is gone and you faintly do. Someone's saying, and you're still DJing? Yes. It's like, yeah, no, these people are clowns.

Like, a hundred percent. And I just, I, I. She's only in that room because of Gracie, and she's making fun of that room full of people. Because she doesn't, like, no one, no one cares. zero, right? But like she cares the right amount and that's a fun

that's a fun person to have be your eyes in a room like that and then like put it through in a song. But look, I hear your point on like the weird but she does open this album with a song called I like to touch people.

Yes. And it is intentionally what the fuckish. Like, it's like, wait, well... Yeah, but it's like, what the fuck weird. It's not like,

can't get a date weird. No, well... This is just, this is me being defensive of Audrey. I'm 100% with you. She clearly can get dates. She tells us a lot

about the dates that she can get versus the ones that she wants, right? Sure, but like, so did Sabrina. And then she gets in the room with the A list

and doesn't want it, right? So yeah, it's a standard thing. But this is not a, I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me? This is also, you know, like, let me just like acknowledge that this is me, if you're 26 or 27 listening to this, this is me and all my 31 year old wisdom, kind of being charmed by, like, none of this is really a problem. You're like, you're going to be great, babe.

It's going to be fine. And like, yes. The boys that break your heart when you're 25, like, it's going to be fine. And but I do acknowledge that, like, that feels very big and important. Yeah. And so I think that has like something to do with why I'm like, oh, this is very funny. Like, and she's fine. And like, it's not about.

But it's the articulation of the feelings behind it that is so fun. Because you're right. She's getting in the room, but she feels, you know, she's terrified to even go. Like, she's, is it weird if I do this? Is it crazy if I do that? Like, so much of what's it like to be admired, hot and desired? Like, she just is. And she.

is better than she gives herself credit for. She's terribly self-deprecating, and she's ridiculously harsh on herself. Aren't we all? I don't know. Yeah, but she's... That's what's so appealing about it. She sees the absurdity of it, right? Like, I think I look bad, so I take 100 in Thirstrap is so funny.

Because it's like, everybody does that. You're taking like a photo of yourself and you're like, oh, that's a weird angle of me. Let me take 27 more because that's what's going to fix it. it's not just that like I'm going to be critical of of myself in any context. And that like that's sharp, you know, that's a sharp, that's a sharp sort of call out of a very normal mode of being. And so I, like, to me, it's, it's, it's the highlighting the absurdities where I think she totally shines.

Yeah. Sex in the City is a great song for that. It's like, oh my God. Like, she's like a hot mess in an Uber. And at the end, she's like, that's all for now, Mr. Driver. I'm rating you five stars. Five stars. Thanks for listening to me.

It's absolutely one of my favorite moments on the interior. Have you been in an Uber with somebody who's just so cringially sharing things with the driver that just need not to happen? And then in the end, it's like, okay, five stars. Five stars. Have a great night. Thank you. It like falls out of the car. And the Uber driver's eyes roll all the way back in his head.

And the fact that she's coming, you know, she's coming back from some guy's apartment, he's off his meds, but he's an artist. Like he's, this is some dude in Bushwick or wherever who made himself a pizza pocket and didn't offer her one. And like, it's just really funny. It's really, really funny. And then just put it in the lens of so many people imagine their, like, young New York experience is here I am, I'm Carrie Bradshaw.

Right. Like that's, I just, I love that song. As a writer, nobody sees me in nose of my column. Nobody sees me at all is the problem. Oh my God. It's so funny. But then even like she even, but she pokes fun at Carrie too because there's a thing about like, I, no one sees me writing in my room. I would take my cool clothes off because that's like what you would normally do.

Right. But she did. Right. Oh. Yeah. So let's talk about, I mean, the biggest song right now is Sumi. Yep. And it's not close.

So that's actually not interesting because none of these songs are big. Sumi, I think, has a peak of like 26 on some charts, whatever. Like, it's not there, but it has all of the- Solidly Medium, though. Yeah. But it has all of the ingredients of something that could break out. And so do you have a favorite song from this album? Yeah. So I have, I mean, I have, I really have two. I actually have a favorite and then the other one, I think, has a bigger, a better chance of, of getting bigger. I don't know if it'll be as big as to me, but would be my other pick for something that would get big from this.

Okay. I think the best song on the album is Bowling Alley. Oh, wow. I'm obsessed with Bowling Alley. Tell me why. Because it gets it, it is those, like, the rest. of these very cheekly heightened situations where she's, first of all, I just love that she says her creams. Like, she's a 90-year-old woman putting on like pawns lotion in her nightgown. But I got my creams on and my gown. And just the juxtaposition of like of that and she's at home and she doesn't want to go.

and then the idea that she's like wanting to go being sort of dragged out or like doesn't want to miss out and wants to go to go like party and socialize and blah blah blah blah blah that it's out of bowling alley yeah I'll just I just can't get over it and then all the scenes where she she bowls the strike and everybody's cheering for her right it's just like she takes the trophy and goes right home Like, who the fuck comes up with this? Like, who comes up with this stuff? I think she indicated that this is not an actual, like, autobiographical experience.

No, yeah. But it is, like, it is foundationally about thinking nobody wants you to go to their party, even though you were already nicely invited. Well, but also, you kind of don't want to go to the party. Sure. And it's this, the back and forth of, am I going to go? Do I have to do this? but there's just that gravitational pull of your house

when you really don't want to go off and be social and feel awkward in a room full of people and go to a party and you start inventing reasons why you shouldn't go. Oh, it's because nobody wants me there. Well, they fucking invited you. Of course they want you there. Yeah.

And it's the ways in which it's not autobiographical that I think are what she's really special at, which is the ability to take it from oh, somebody invited me to a party and then I started getting social anxiety about it and also maybe I just wanted to like stay home and bed rot. That's a very universal experience. But then to be able to make it not not a true story, but this representation of the truth in a kind of campy, like technicolor and almost bizarre way. because I also going like Again, I know it's not a true story

But how many Like This is Gracie Abrams This is Gracie Abrams's best friend I mean well first of all you know the saying If you don't have the naked neighbor You are the naked neighbor You are the naked neighbor

This is a Naked neighbor It's a choice or am a cursed It's a toss This is maybe more applicable In for city living But I do think that that's true This is Gracie Abrams's best friend.

Is that crowd having a lot of bowling alley parties? Like this is what I did in my small New Hampshire town in 2004. But I didn't think that that was something that like was a big part of the high school college experience these days. It's like Top Golf. It's like what Top Golf is now. Like men and women, boys and girls can play it. You can suck at it and it's still fun. There's no consequences to sucking at it.

It doesn't slow down the game. I'm not arguing the merits or lack there of of bowling. I just want to know if like, I want to know if there are a bunch of... And people still bowl? Ridiculous like L.A. guys who on the weekends are texting and being like, hey, Audrey, Gracie, swing bun. have a lucky strike at 930. Love to see you there getting all the fellas together to try to bullsems

strike. Like, I just don't think that's happening. But that's the fun of it. I definitely don't think those are the words they're using to ask Gracie Abrams out. That's what I'm saying. Collie G, we're getting all the fellas together. Well, but that's what bowling is. That's certainly a World War II movie.

I love Bowling Alley. I also think that like that song, look, the chorus. are really simple in all of these songs. The underlying structure is really simple in all these songs. But she crams a lot of hooks into quite a few of these. And so that's got a real ear-warming quality to me.

The other one that I want to talk about here, though, and I do think that if I had to choose something to take off a little bit, it's thirst trap. It's again the sort of rendering of something very real in these almost ridiculous ways.

It is also, we talked about that sax. I love when that sax comes in. She just didn't know how to end the song, and so they decided on a sax solo, and it's perfect. I think that's great. I mean, Bowling Alley ends really, really abruptly,

which I think is supposed to, like, sort of represent the Irish exit. But then Thirstrap is just, like, saxophone explosion, and I'm all for it. I like both those songs. I love the visual part of Thirst Trap and the way that she changes up the chorus and I change the lighting

because it doesn't matter, blah, blah, all that stuff. I like those songs. I gotta tell you, those were not two of my most favorites, although I, as you're hearing from me, like, it's really a no-skip album for me. My four candidates, and I have four. My favorite song in this album is Drive. Oh.

And it's her favorite song too, apparently. I just think the groove on that song is so fucking cool. Yeah. And I can just run it back. It is turning into a song for me that doesn't. Like there's a little subtle cowbell in the background. The bass groove is awesome. It just doesn't, like, again, when I listen to songs over and over again,

sometimes my ears get, like, sore. from just listening to the same thing back. This one, it's like, it just, there's like this pantheon of songs that I can listen to over and over again and they don't, and they don't hurt. And this one doesn't hurt. So I really love Drive.

But, man, Phoebe is a great song. And the framing of friends, like a whole construct around the show, Friends, I can't believe you're not totally in love with this song. Phoebe was the weird one. Like this whole song, not sweating the acne, you know, this is very much that like struggle to feel beautiful. But I just love the way she like has the parisocial relationship with Joey. All of it is just, it's just great.

So I love Phoebe. I also, sex in the city we've talked a lot about. But that song is fucking great. You know, that sounds great. From the rating you five stars, from the like part where she's like, takes a show. shower and then the now I'm ready to go back out or whatever like to like turn around of like oh I'm so tired I can't do it all right I'm ready let's go let's go but instead I'm in the shower got I feel a warm touch somehow the whole thing the energy on that song is great I think it's one of

the most well-written melodies and then she hates wet hair apparently but I love wet hair I think it's my favorite chorus melody of the album. Yeah. Yeah. I think I find that stretch. I like to touch people. I really enjoy. I think it's just like so funny.

It's such a funny way to open an album. Hello, I'm a weirdo. Sumi is great. Sumi, I think I really enjoy Sumi. I think it works a little bit differently than the few songs after it where like Sumi is hitting you over the head. with Tumi I want to be wanted. Like,

yeah. Whereas I think it's part of the bit, I think. No, totally. Totally. And she's talked about it that way. Like it's almost like a shake it off kind of pop song. Right. Drive wet hair, bowling alley, thirst trap, chateau, sex in the city.

Yep. That to me is like a pretty murderous row of great songs. I agree. And then I love Shooting Star, which follows sex in the city. It starts with that when I'm drunk at the club. I want to be felt up. I think it's the second best groove on the album after Drive. Interesting.

And then, like, how do you not like, don't go back to his ass, which is the all too well chords? But don't go back to his ass is like, it's just, it's a perfect line. Yeah, it is a great line. It is a great line. And then the part towards the end of it where she. is like imagining herself with her friend, like locked in a basement and she's screaming at her. Like that I'm totally into.

Because again, it just, it heightens it so much. And I find that so fun. I think so shooting star is is an interesting one that I've felt different ways about. I think the first couple of times that I listened to it, I was a little bit like, this is fun. It feels like shooting star has the most in common with Sumi, I think.

Because it does, it has that very sort of like repetitive, the beat is very quick. She's like galloping along in the same way. And so I think the first couple of times that I heard it, I heard it a little bit as like the the sketch of Sumi that then got tacked on later in the album.

I actually, I think if I wasn't playing that comparison game or feeling like they do a little bit of the same thing, I would be more generous to it because I like, like, musically, I think it's fun. You've highlighted some of what's fun in the lyrics. I agree with you that this is a album that I can very happily listen to top to bottom, no skips. I think it's on a real heater through sex in the city. And then to me, it takes a, it takes, it goes down a little notch. Well, Shooting Star, I think the subject of that song is the same one as in Thirstrap and Wet Hair. So it's sort of about trying to make the wrong person happen. But you think after Sex and the City, it starts to get down. I don't know. Phoebe has me around its finger. And like, Silver Jubilee, I didn't totally get, but I actually...

I think she did this to mirror Ariana Grande's Thank You Next album, where she finishes this, like, rich text with a song called Break Up with Your Girlfriend. I'm bored. Yeah. And so she just kind of wanted to make a party song that sounds a lot like Flo Rida. Club can't even handle me right now. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it's not like... And it's fun. It is fun. It's not. as, like, it's not as special as a lot of what's special earlier in the album. I do also get it from the perspective of, that's a song that Gracie Abrams would not make or like put on an album. So I, and I, I, if I were her, I would want to have a solid handful of those. So, like, I think it serves a number of purposes. I agree with you that I, it doesn't like totally land

perfectly with me. I like, she breaks the fort. She's like, for the sake of the story, let's throw it back to the chorus or whatever. It's just, it's very clever. And to me, it's like a little bit of outside the Gracie thing, Flex, which is like, I can write a party song. Yeah. Yeah. What is your, so you said, Phoebe and Sex and the City are your favorites.

Drive is my favorite song on the album. And Drive is your favorite. Drive is your favorite. Yeah. I think beyond that, it's sex in the city. It's Phoebe and it's wet hair because I just, I love the melodies on wet. hair. I know she hates it, but whatever. So I'm trying to figure out what I think you're going to cut.

Yeah, I don't know what to cut. I don't know what to cut. I don't have any skips. I think I would cut. If you forced me to do it, I would probably cut Bowling Alley or Chateau, probably Chateau, just because I don't think Chateau from a melody standpoint is one that like sticks with me. I like the song I wanted on this album. I feel the same way about Bowling Bowling Alley, which is that, I don't know, just melodically, I'm not like, oh, that is the one versus some of the other melodies that percolate elsewhere. Oh, no. I just haven't, they're the only two I don't freak out over, but I still love them. I do not have a cut on this album.

Well, you are forced to. Yeah. You are forced to. I think I would probably, I would cut Silver Jubilee. Yeah. Okay. You can convince me of that because I think you made a very compelling case for Bowling Alley, actually. and why it's important for the album.

No, Bowling Alley. You can't cut Bowling Alley. That's unhinged. Okay. Yeah, I think Silver Jubilee is probably the one then. You're right. You can't cut her

with her creams and her nightgown. Yeah. Yeah, and I think you could end the album with Phoebe too. Yeah. I'm not, like,

Phoebe doesn't, sometimes I find Phoebe very funny and charming and then sometimes I'm sort of like, okay, yeah, no, like a lot, yeah, you like friends. That's cool. Which is not to say that I don't enjoy it,

but like, I don't think that it means as much to me as it as it means to you. But it would be a kind of a funny way to... Phoebe was the weird one, Nora. Phoebe would have written a song, I like to touch people. Phoebe found love. Smelly cat.

First on the set list. Smelly cat, smelly cat. What are they feeding you? Everybody! I like to touch people second on the set list. Phoebe. Phoebe was ultimately accepted for, her weirdness.

Correct. Well, so then, like, I don't know. Maybe she hasn't finished friends. But nobody wanted to date her for some reason. Why did nobody want to date Phoebe on the show? None of the other guys tried to make out with Phoebe. So am I to take that Audrey is like midway through friends? Maybe.

That would actually be very funny. Yeah, because she's only in like the second season. She's like, she's written this. She did just started watching it when she writes this song. All right. Well, yeah, that's for her next album. Do you have, I mean, so as you said, you know, she's working with Ricky Gourmet, who's one of the, I think, first people who was signed to Phineas's little production imprint. And they seem to have a very, like, tightly knit, couple people in a room together making songs thing going on.

Is there anything that strikes you about her choice of collaborator or how they seem to work together? I think it's, it feels Olivia Dan Nigro to me. Yeah. And he's pretty clearly the end to her yang. And it reminds me a bit of the, yeah, Taylor Aaron dynamic too and the way that she's talked about the songwriting. But yeah, the only other option for most important collaborator would be Gracie Abrams. Or like her television. Her Netflix password.

Her weed stash. I mean, this is like, so here's my next album thing. Are we sure that this person isn't going to like want to go be a screenwriter at some point? No, but I mean, so is Taylor Swift. Allegedly. I just, there is a lot. We've said this, but there is a lot of TV. There's a lot of TV that comes up.

on this album. And so when we talk about like, okay, does she differentiate from Gracie? Does she want to be on stage performing the music? Or does she want to be an Amy Allen and be a songwriter and be someone who's a collaborator with artists instead of being the artist? You know, all of those are interesting questions to me. I'm just like adding to the mix. Are we sure this person doesn't want to go write television? No, we're not at all. She may well do that at the same time. She is a TV writer. It runs in the family. This is what, this is in her blood. I think, though, that in spite of all of that, it's a pretty brave and bold move when you are the, in the passenger seat with Gracie Abrams to be like, you know what, I'm going to try to do this

on my own. But I think her experience of trying to be an Amy Allen-esque writer and just getting into rooms with people didn't feel fully authentic. And so, yeah, go for it. Why not? Well, in the way that she writes, like, it, I wonder if working with Gracie is a little bit of a cheat code because they've known each other for so long and they know each other for so well that it's almost like she feels comfortable, like letting Gracie be her voice some of the time, whereas if it's someone who's a little bit less familiar, there's an awkwardness to, like, writing a line about some weirdo touching your leg

and you're sort of like perceiving his strange headboard and his gross apartment and then having someone who doesn't have that closeness perform. Like I can see how that doesn't click. I think that's right. And one of the telltale signs that she and Ricky have that connection,

I think he is the one who actually came up with the fucking your ex's iconic line. and she jumped on it. Did he come up with it or did she say it and he was like, that's the, that's the line, that's the song? I thought it was that he fed it to her. But I, yeah, I mean, I, look, what we know is she's very clearly comfortable. And these, we've had a lot of pop records that sound like lots of people in a room

and lots of instrumentation and lots of touching, you know, touching of tracks and manipulation. There's something really cool to get back to the Billy and Phineas in the bedroom first go track stuff. And that's what this feels like. And the vibe is right. The vibe is indie. The vibe is punk. The vibe is, you know, I'm in and around it, but not there yet. There's just an ambition and a hunger that I love about the way this stuff sounds.

And I think Ricky gets a lot of credit for that. Well, and it doesn't sound anything like Aaron Dessner. which is, again, like if we're talking about points of differentiation, there are people that Gracie has a real closeness to and who have influenced her a lot where I think having that be a point of divergence works. And I actually, in a funny way, like, I don't know that I think that that's like a real issue for Audrey. I think it's more likely that if someone is inclined to be sort of ungenerous, towards Gracie that some of these songs

get taken as a little bit of a don't look at the man behind the curtain but I actually think that it's less likely that that sort of falls back on Audrey just because I don't think that you can listen to this and not by that it's her you know like not by that it is

coming from her yeah and that that was my conspiracy corner. It's just like how without taking anything away from Gracie, this album does just make you rethink like who am I hearing on the story of us? Yeah. No, there's something

oh God, it's in one of the first couple of songs. It's in one of the first couple of songs. There is a flow on a lyric that just makes me go

oh oh, I heard that. I've heard that. I've heard that before. I've heard that somewhere and now I understand where it came from. The start of Thirst Trap sounds that way to me. So I'm crazy. That's usually not my thing.

I'm crazy. The yeah, there's just so much across this album that is, that has all the hallmarks and watermarks of that. So I'm crazy. That's usually not my thing.

like the little bits of space there. Some of the fast talking, like the quickness where the syllables just keep coming and coming and coming and like that kind of very like almost sort of word vomit speaking lyrical style. Yeah. No, there's there's again, like I think if you are inclined to be ungenerous towards Gracie Abrams, you can use this album to do that. Yeah. you know, whether or not that's a worthwhile pursuit, I think, is a different thing. But I do think that, I think that this gives you the raw material to do it. Yeah. Look, I don't know if she's even big enough at this point or if she's put down enough markers for there to be a peak, Audrey. I'm happy

to hear your idea. I don't even know if there's a next album appetizer here. I think that's the most interesting question is, is, you know, can she take what I think is deeply, you know, connecting music, does it catch a spark? And what is the world to be built around Audrey Hobert? Does she, she has the visual vision clearly. It's in her head. What will she create if this keeps going? Yeah, I mean, for the next album stuff, I seriously put the TV stuff. Like, just is there a world in which she's, she goes, actually, it's the third. thing. I want to go do the

thing that I was sort of setting out to do before a bunch of things changed. There's no reason that it can't be both, right? Or all three or all three and four other things. Again, we did this episode to put down a marker. You and I have gotten a lot of things wrong over the

course of our little podcast. We leave everything up because first of all, it's fucking hilarious. But second of all, like, we may look back on this and say, you know what, actually we were wrong, this one didn't matter, but we did Chapel pretty early. We did Charlie pretty early.

We did some other things pretty early where I think you and I had a sense that something was happening and there is something happening around this artist right now. And I still, again, don't know if that's because she's going to become a big pop star or because we've unlocked a writer who's gonna power a lot of pop going forward.

But the way that she writes, the way that she matches lyrics to chord progressions to rhythms, I think matters. And I think it's defining where we're heading now. There is another artist whose album is going to come out in a few weeks named Olivia Dean, who is certainly in a more, we talk about art. There's a scale of artist development. You'd say that Audrey is in the early stages. You'd say Olivia Dean is further down and ready to blow.

She's a powder keg. She's being worked by the same label that does Sabrina. and Chapel, she is selling out like four oh-2s in London for sure. She has a song that is starting to absolutely blow up and it feels like... And it's the only thing you hear on TikTok. Right. And she just... And actually miraculously has managed to not turn me against it,

despite that being the case, which usually does happen. Yeah, I mean, man I need. is a big song and it is a great song and there's more that's going to come here. And so, like, there are, these are a couple of artists who we're trying to cover in advance because I think you're going to hear a lot more from them and because they're just of that subgeneration that is a tick below Sabrina Carpenter. A tick below, certainly two ticks below Taylor, right? and they're developing and coming.

But I think it's important to sort of put that down. I promise we won't delete this episode if we're wrong. Well, I also wouldn't know how to do that. I don't really know how to use the computer. That's not something's available to me. I made producer Kaya swear. Yeah, I don't, I feel pretty confident she's going to have a moment. I don't, you know, exactly what scale that gets to is an open question.

I think, but you just think... Does it get crowded out by Taylor and Sabrina and Olivia this fall and the return of Harry Styles whenever that happens? It's not that far away. Yeah, I mean, is there space? I just think if there's a lane, it's Audrey and Olivia in 2025, who we would look back on

and say, these are pop stars who broke out. Yeah. Don't know if they will, yeah. Look, it's a debut album. But as is tradition, we got to give it a grade. As long as you explain yourself, Nathan, then you are welcome to give us some insight on the potential curve for a debut versus a super-seasoned artist. But where did you end up with this one? See, you've talked me down. You've actually talked me down. I didn't, that was not my, I love this album. That was not my intention.

I know it wasn't. But I really think as a debut album, this gets an A for me. But I think that you have given me some pause because I think you you processed some of the lyrical component of this record is a lot less serious than I did and I don't think that I am as she says

drunk and high and so I'm crossed on this record I think I'm seeing it clear-eyed but you may be right maybe you've talked me down to an A-minus I don't think so I have

but it's funny because I think What you are taking as reason to do that is something that I am saying as a compliment. It's not that I don't think that it's... Yeah. I mean, I guess I do on some level think that it's not that serious. But to me, it's not, it's like... I mean, the album's called Who's the Clown? Well, right.

Yeah, it can't be that serious. But I think it's... That's the right question to ask. I guess I just think that... the attitude. Like, attitudeally, this album is not about, it's not about kind of earnestly looking someone in the eyes and saying, you feel left out and I see you and I love you, which is a totally worthwhile thing to do, but maybe not that rich of a text.

And instead of doing that, what I, what I, what I, feel like Audrey is doing is saying, yeah, I feel kind of like a weirdo a lot of the time. But I can poke fun at myself. I can poke fun at the people who are making me feel like that. I can poke fun at kind of the whole environment that even sets up the framework of those questions and those ideas. And that it all comes in this package that is a. about, like, it is about kind of being on the cusp of adulthood, right? Like, it is about a stage of

life where you're, like, yearning for all of these real, like, sort of solid, permanent, meaningful things, right? Like, you want to find, you want to find love and, like, feeling wanted and desired. But then at the same time, you also just, like, want to have experiences. Like, you just want to do stuff and there's a conflict of that, like, desire for permanence with that desire for just kind of like the raw material of life and growing up. And I, like, there's that messiness is, I think, kind of like the intersection of what she's writing about. And there is something very meaningful about it, but there's also something that's kind of like tossed off and fun. And these are going to be the stories that we talk about

and whatever of being young and silly and oh god we thought it was such a big deal and like again maybe that is my 31 year old perspective on someone who is a few years younger than me but that that to me is a feature not a bug I think I'm so attracted to this album because as someone who is even further removed from being young in the 20s

it feels like a it's just a fascinating capture of the inner sanctum of a early 20-something-year-old mind at a time of major dislocation in society, both in terms of like what job opportunities are for people of that age, what technology does for people of that age, the social habits of people of that age changing alcohol consumption going down is changing gathering spaces. and like where you go, like the inside, outside,

somebody who's just close enough to fame but isn't there and all those feelings that come in a time in which, you know, we all live our lives on social media and then we live our real fucking lives that are totally different and removed. It just feels like the encapsulation of so much at a weird inflection point in culture canvassed, honestly, and earn. earnestly and simply in a super digestible and unfucking believably catchy way. I love this album.

I love it too. It's, to me, it is an A-minus debut. It's really, really good. Yeah. The chord, the simplicity, what I am struggling with, and I'm probably still too close to it, is the simplicity of the musical construction does not get an A. Like, there's nothing like revolution in. but the stylistic choice of pasting dialogue over something that otherwise would be simple and sound, you know, vaguely reminiscent of lots of things you've heard before. And therefore it doesn't. There's just a rawness and an edge and a freshness to it that gets me excited about it being potentially influential on the way that others create. I hadn't really internalized the idea that in response to pop music getting,

wrote and copied over and over again from a musical perspective, that the innovation would come from the way that we paste words over music. I thought it would be more about what computer-generated, AI-generated audio will do. I still think there will be lots of innovation that comes from that until we get to a place where tonally we start, the human ear starts accepting half-tones and weird musical shit. You know, is there a genre evolution that's going to happen?

know, but I do know that this feels like someone communicating through music in a different and a new and a fresh way. And that above all else is why I'm so glad we did this today. I do really stand by. I think it's the most exciting debut since Olivia. And that's not to say that it, look, there's no driver's license on this album. But I do think that you have to go back that far. And it's going to make it really, really cool to watch. This has been every single album. I'm Norm Prince-Iotti. As always, he's Nathan Hubbard.

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