The Vergecast - Lumber guitar licks

Episode Date: May 22, 2015

The music industry is (and has been) undergoing significant changes. Join Nilay Patel, Micah Singleton, Emily Yoshida, and Sam Sheffer as they discuss Spotify’s expansion, Sony Music’s no-to-secret contract with Spotify, Apple’s upcoming music service, iTunes, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Why is everybody on their computers right now? This is like, this is, this is, this show is not ever starting well. Hi, and welcome to the Verge cast. I am Neil I Patel. I work here at the Verge. I am joined today by a cast of characters, past, present and future, who are going to take us on a journey through, I would say mostly Spotify news, but also everything that the Verge covers.

That was weirdly anticlimactic. Well, that's what I like to build. If I was like an EDM producer, I do all builds that never resolve. Just like endless builds and then like, p. It's just existential EDMs. This person talking is Emily Yoshita. Hello, Emily. Hi, how's it going?

It's going really great. I'd love to talk about Spotify. I'm a frequent user of Spotify and I have opinions about it. There you go. That's all you need for the show. Yep. Just to get on. Emily's are entertained at her.

You have probably seen her work and heard her voice and I don't know, felt her presence. Over here, who's this? I am Micah Singleton, also a frequent Spotify user. And far too far away from the mic. I am. Is it better? Both of you. Get up on it.

That's great. Micah, you might know from his frequent travels around the country. We put him on a play in once a week now so that you can get hot Spotify scoops. Who's over in the corner? Is this a corner? I guess. Hi, I'm Sam. I mean, Sam, you're literally like in a lumber yard right now.

Yeah, what's going on over there? You're on a train track kind of literal planks of wood For the home listener Welcome to the Vergecastle The audio listener Is he's building some kind of gazebo I was building a

I don't even know Sam was If you're just If you're listening to this I want you to close your eyes wherever you are Unless you're in a car And imagine Sam playing a two by four

Like a guitar Because that's what he was just doing So really cool look For Sam in the hype corner. But now, let's get right into it. It is, what's say? It's the May 21st.

That's the thing that I'm supposed to do, say the date. That's the date of today. That's today. Yes. Thursday, May 21st, the year 2015 of our Lord. Oh my God, the year 2015. I've seen people say that they like hearing when we do the week of May 18th. This is like an endless debate.

That's incredibly confusing. And I disagree with that wholeheartedly. Yeah, it's. Too much? I'm vetoing it right now, right this second. Yeah. Well, no one cares as much as you do. Yeah, no.

We're picking what we want. No, do you prefer the date? You clearly don't prefer the week of date. Let's talk about Spotify. Right? I'm so bad at talking about starting the show. It is just such, like I believe that I have other talents, right? That there are things I'm good at.

But then there's like the, the, crushing realization that I'm really bad at this one thing that I do in front of tens of thousands of people once a week. It's good. No, there's something to be said for warming people up, like getting them used to the sound of your voice. Yeah, that's like what a hype man does. Like, I feel like I should leave.

And like somebody else, all warmed up. Let's have a lot of Spotify. Describe, ready to go? Sammy, take it away. Oh, my God. All right. So a huge week of news, actually. And I was not joking about Spotify news.

And now that was Emily, who's deadly serious at all times. but Spotify had an event this week where they announced podcast integration in Spotify, where they announced videos in Spotify. That's a little bit weird. And then Micah broke a huge story by publishing Spotify's contract with Sony Music, which I think is where we should start because that was honestly I think one of our biggest stories of the week, month, year. And as we go sort of into the second half the year, when Apple launches its streaming service, Jay-Z does whatever he's going to do with title.

Taylor Swift does whatever she's going to do in this world. There's so much action in the music industry right now that that that contract is the first kind of set of specifics that we've ever seen. So Michael, why don't you walk us through a little bit? So we got our hands on a 42-page contract between Sony Music and Spotify that was signed back in 2011

before they came to the States. And it shows how the label structure their deals, how much money they're taking from Spotify that may not be going to artists. And it really shows why Spotify can never turn a profit. I mean, they're not going to do it at all with these kind of deals. Right. I think Ben Popper was pointing out that Spotify always makes more money and always loses more money.

Walk us through sort of that mechanic. So first, they pay advances. Before they get anything, to get access to the catalog of the music label, they'll pay it advance. This one, they paid $25 million for two years and $17.5 for a third optional year. And this is all on Sony's. It's a whole catalog. So this is just for Sony. It's not independent.

This is not universal. Warner, they're going to pay probably $100 million in advances. And this was when they were a very small company. So now, that's going to be more. They're renegotiating some deals now. They're going to spend probably a couple hundred million.

Just to get access. Then royalties break out. Royalties are still... Wait, so let me just set this up at the top level. The argument in the music industry right now is basically who gets paid what. Right? And the argument is breaking down because we've gone,

from buying, I know, records and CDs, which were, like, physical objects and you, like, had to buy them to a world of, like, basically music everywhere all the time. Just having a pass to certain music. Right. A subscription. But it's, like, it's also just, like, on YouTube, right? It's, like, it's just around us. Like, music has gone from physical objects that we buy to, like, just everywhere

constantly all the time because of the internet. And what, like, destroyed the music industry, but also revitalized it. And I think in another kind of important. way, right? Like, there are more Beber stories in this world. Right. He's a kid on YouTube who got discovered on YouTube because he has access to, like, a broader community. And music is just way more integrated in our lives because we can listen to it all the time and we can listen to whatever we want all the time. And like, I think you see that just in the music itself, like artists that, younger artists that grew up

since the age of file sharing and the access to having everything, like influences and music are cross-pollinated all over the place because nobody is limited anymore. Everybody can, and listen to everything. Which is, by the way, kind of exactly the argument Taylor Swift made around this time last year, when she pulled her stuff out of Spotify and said music should not be free. It was like around this time last year in the Wall Street Journal. I was not at The Verge. I was at Vox.com and I wrote a piece called Taylor Swift doesn't understand supply and demand.

Yeah. Which was basically like you can't, in a world of like infinite music supply. Yeah. It's really hard to say for the average artist, my stuff should be expensive. It's very easy for Taylor Swift to say her stuff should be expensive. Yeah, Taylor Swift's argument for, because she did not say that music should not be free. She said that certain kinds of music should not be free. Nilai, this was November, by the way.

It was November. Yeah, it wasn't a year ago. It was November. Well, when she dropped out of Spotify, in the summer, she wrote an op-ed for Wall Street Journal. Those are two different events. Yeah, I think that was in July or August. I am the resident expert on everything that Taylor Swift does, and I know what month and when, and what her stipple portrait looked like in the Wall Street. Street Journal.

That was definitely Taylor Swift dropped out of Spotify and wrote the Wall Street Journal. Wait. No, no, no. She wrote the journal thing a year ago. In the summer, yeah. And then she dropped out in November. In November, yes. Right, okay.

Yeah, she wrote in July. Mm-hmm. Okay. I could have told you that, but it's cool. Yeah, I'm just blown up Emily's spot, dude. I did an entire podcast. I feel like what was probably an entire podcast about that, that op-ed. Whoops.

And you could. You could talk about it for days. No, it was because what she was arguing was that she, the kind of musical artists that she is and like by extension, I guess people like John Mayer or people with guitars who play instruments and create a narrative around themselves, that that is, that relationship that they have with fans is something that fans will pay for to continue getting the story and building their relationship with the music. Whereas like, you know, you really just letting that building a mystery joke go.

Oh, well, yeah. I mean, no, we'll talk about that somewhere. but but uh and and and and really kind of being more disparaging about the idea of of of of one hit wonders and and and and novelty songs and stuff like that which i mean and then she goes and releases her first pop album but goes out of her way to say that this is not evil pop like it's very it's very um it's very it's very Taylor Swift centric like her view of the world well I and I think that's like that that conflict was not resolved at that time. Right. The conflict was, we're not going to let anybody stream

1989, you're going to have to go buy it, and Taylor Swift commands an army of fans. And they went and bought it because they want her new stuff. Yeah. And then she's been releasing videos off it. Bad Blood just came out.

And that did not prove that music should cost money. It proved that people will pay for Taylor Swift. Yeah. Yeah. Right, which is a great thing because she has a great career and that's cool.

But it's not great for, like, other artists, particularly smaller indie artists, which is kind of where title launched a few months ago. And they, like, that's weird, because that's just artists want to get paid too. The same message is Taylor Swift being like, hey, the future is streaming. We've launched our own streaming service.

This is like Jay-Z and Kanye and all these people, so that we can get paid. And then the reaction was, but you're already rich. Right. And that it's just really, the disconnect between. Coney Taylor Swift saying, you should pay me for CDs or album downloads and not pay me for,

because I don't understand the business of streaming, to now where we are, which is the consumer has overwhelmingly going to pick streaming, right? They're going to pick YouTube. They're going to pick Spotify. They're going to pick Apple, whatever. They're not going to pick downloads every time. What are the economics of that? Well, and it's also so much more in the interest of a smaller artist because, I mean,

nobody makes the most money in their career from album sales, regardless of if you're streaming in or not. Nobody's going to do that. But especially for smaller artists, that's going to be miniscule. That's going to be nothing. You're going to make your money from touring, from selling tickets to like getting gigs places or getting licensed somewhere for like a commercial. And that's going to come about because your music was available to a bunch of people. And somebody who is making a commercial for Charmin heard it on Spotify and was like, oh, that's a good jingle for this commercial. Oh, my God.

Yeah. That is the darkest timeline. Oh, yeah. No, that's everything now. That's indie music now. Like, that is independent music. Oh, my God. The toilet paper people found me on Spotify.

I'm rich. Yep. So the broad strokes of how these deals have worked, and this is what Mike was saying earlier about advances, is Spotify pays a company like Sony, $20 million for access to Sony's entire library. None of that money at that time, we don't know, goes to artists. because what Sony doesn't have is the information Spotify will then provide them,

which is who listen to what, when. Exactly. And Spotify will swear up and down that they don't pay per stream because the numbers per stream are so minuscule that it makes them look like garbage. But we looked at the contract and they kind of do pay per stream. Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes. Yeah, for the free tier.

For the free. Yeah, and it's really low. I mean, it's like 0.2 cents. It's really bad. Wow. You know, it's 0.0.0.2 cents. Oh, it's smaller. It's even worse.

So you just see, like, we were reading this contract. Let me paint this picture for you. Imagine Mike and I in a room. That's it. That's the whole picture. It looks a lot like this. Well, I was there for a part of that. No, never mind.

I won't. No, you can be in the room. Okay. Everyone's in the room. No, it was me and Mike are holding, can I say this? I'm going to say this. Say it. We got this contract.

I think a lot of people think it came out of the Sony hack, but that's not. No. Micah's like did some like dogged reporting and like straight up old school Woodward and Bernstein style. Running all around Manhattan. Haley Caves being like.

Meeting and like parking lots. Shows up at our office, like the Verge office where literally like this never happens. He's got 186 pages. Paper. Real pulp like tree guts. Yeah.

It was crazy. We were all like, what is that? Where did that come from? It's like binder clips. It was like. old school. So we're like all reading this contract together like like a book like a novel like over each other's shoulders. And we get to the math and Mike and I are just like standing in front of a whiteboard desperately trying to figure out this math because it's so complicated.

It really is. And it all works out to where there's Spotify. It looks like such a simple thing. Right. It's like here's some music. Here's this interface. And behind it is this. endlessly complex layer of deals and negotiations and shady garbage. Yeah, and clauses. And I mean, words, commas, numbers. Just looking at the numbers on their own, too, when you look at, like, the deal where they get, what's it called, where they buy just the rights to have the music from the $25 million? That's the advance.

It's just the advance. Yeah. So you look at a number like that that's so huge. And then you look at these like laughably small, like, fractions of fractions of pennies. And you're like, how does this exist in the same? Yeah. Like transaction. It just doesn't, it's completely, yeah, it's bananas.

But what's crazy is like that was, that's the old contract. Right now we believe that that, you know, they're like basically just like waiting to renegotiate a new contract. So everyone's like riding dirty. No one has a deal to like any of this music and they're just paying whatever. And it seems like the artists are definitely getting screwed. I mean, that's it's unclear. It really is sort of unclear whether it's Spotify.

doing it or the labels doing it because we don't have that last piece of information. Yeah. Well, we need to get, you need to get like a U2's contract with Sony or whatever. Like, you need to call up Bono. Yeah, okay. That's your next move. Sure. I have his number.

Yeah, who doesn't? It's on everyone's iPhone. Bono's on your phone, right? Anyway. But we're pretty positive that the artists are not aware of the fact that like half of their money is being taken off the top before anything. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. Sure. And then, and then, I mean, this is like the fun drama. And then Sony flipped out. They sent us not one, not two. Or so mean. But four cease and desist letters asserting their copyright in the contract, which is amazing. Because are they worried that, like, people will copy it?

They're beautiful. This seems like a pretty good idea. Oh, man. This is a great movie. This section on annual true-up of royalties. Exactly. There's some real character development here. Like, what do they think?

So they, for cease and desist, which is amazing. And again, that claim, I tweeted it last night and some of the copyright lawyers I, like, tweet with, I thought that was all very amusing. So we, because it's not worth fighting, it was up on our side for so long, and I'm sure you could find out on the internet if you need to. We, um, we took it off our side. Yeah. So, Micah, but I still have the hard copy. And I'll never forget it. but so that's like that all sets up um kind of this moment that's about to happen in the music industry

right like what is that moment it's just the turn from we're buying albums on iTunes to everything to everything is streaming it's yeah it's a one you pay one pay a monthly fee and you get a catch all depending on what service you pay several monthly fees if you want to actually listen to everybody yeah right yeah right right right Yeah. And that's, I think. Or you can just keep using YouTube and listen to music at 480P quality if you don't care about, you know, listening to music and lossless. Which is probably what's going to happen?

But like, what do you do when you're out and about? No, I know. I'm mostly kidding. Yeah. I mean, that's the main argument for me about not using YouTube. Like, that's fine if you're in your office just wanting to bring up a song. Right. Yeah.

It's way easier to have everything in the bucket versus going after everything. And there's like, there's not a way you can take off ads from YouTube is there. Well, you have to buy YouTube Music Pass or sign up for Google Play Music. Or use ad block. Or use Adblock. But every single week I sit here and complain about music services. And every single week, somebody tells me to sign up for Google Play Music. And it's like, I have it.

People of the Vergecast, I have Google Play Music. It's not very good. No. Like, I'm just going to say it out loud. It's fine. It's a seven. There you go. That's the number I've given it.

Well, I think the weird thing about where it's going is, like, far as there being different services that like these different groups of a list music artists are kind of like they're a part of this team now like we've definitely seen that like the optics of that at least with title just like we're team title like you know just imagine like cold play like daft punk madonna in the same room like and and then you know like i forget who the like who are the beats artists are. I mean, right now there's the, like, now everybody's sending around this thing of Kanye being on beads or with Apple.

And it's really funny because it's starting to mirror the way the old studio system looked in Hollywood, which was deemed, like, completely illegal and anti-constitutional in the 30s or the 40s, I think. Well, that was, like, super vertically. I mean, it's weird here because at the end of the day, all these companies, have to somehow kind of play nice with Apple, right? Yeah. Yeah.

They have to deliver an app onto the iPhone. Like, you can't have an Android-only music service and, like, really see it succeed. Well, that's why when the reports were coming out about the title app just, like, dropping off in the second week, I was like, well, you're getting it on the iTunes store. It's in their interest to, like, fudge that a little bit, maybe. I don't know. I wouldn't trust them necessarily. Right. And then we had, like, two weeks ago, Micah had many, many quotes from music industry people saying, like, this sucks for us because we put an app in the iTunes store and you can't actually sign up for our service there without us having to pay Apple an extra 30% on top.

Which raises its subscription prices through the app. Right. Or, and I think this is the future for all of these services where you do have a service that's like mostly streaming, but Beyonce wants to drop in an album and you can buy it. so it's all in the same place, which is, I think, a great model, right? Like, mostly streaming, but some artists are like, you have to buy my stuff. And I'm like, cool, but at least it's all in the same place. Those services get dinged that 30% too. Yeah.

So Apple's going to build the first unified service. I mean, they would be dumb not to, where you can buy the stuff and you can stream the stuff, and everyone else will be at a huge disadvantage on their platform. And, like, that's rough. And, like, that studio model, that thing you're saying about, they used to be vertically integrated. So they would shoot, they would hire their own actors. that were in their own movies.

They would shoot their stuff on their own studio. And they released in their own theaters. Right. And it was totally vertically integrated. And you go like, well, that looks so much like what Apple is about to do with music. Especially if they have Jimmy I've been running around signing artists to exclusive contracts. Yeah. I cannot wait until Kanye starts waking Elvis movies.

Like, that's the future, isn't it? Like, Kanye goes to Hawaii. He's already been to Hawaii. Like a remake of Blue Christmas with Kanye? Yeah. The biggest complaint about the app store I heard from other streaming services and people in the industry was Apple doesn't let them point users back to the website where they can get it for cheaper. That's against the rules. Oh, wow.

Yeah. You mean back to the label website or back to the artist website? Yeah, back to Spotify. You can't say you can sign up at Spotify.com for cheaper. Yeah. Yeah, it's, I don't know. I, like I said, I've said before, I feel like on this podcast about title or maybe it was something else. I don't know.

Spotify is what I use right now, but it's like by no means, like easy. Yeah. Nor do I like it particularly. It's just the first thing that came out that was like that. So I'm, but I don't really have any loyalty or faith to it. Somewhere at the CEO of Ardeo is like, weeping in a corner. Yeah, what is Ardeo? What's going on to Ardeo?

Hold on. Oh, let's talk about Groove Shark first. Wait. We're going to make a little bit of money. Do the dance. We're going to do the money dance. This episode of the Vergecast is brought to you by Linda.com, the online learning platform with over 3,000 on-demand video courses to help strengthen your business, technology, and creative skills. For a free 10-day trial, visit Linda.com slash Vergecast.

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take notes as you go and refer to them later. It's basically anarchy. You can download tutorials the watch on the go, including access in your iOS or Android device, you can create and save playlist of courses that you want to watch to customize your learning path because an un-customized learning path is for busters. Your Linda.com membership will give you unlimited access to training on hundreds of topics all for one flat rate. So whether you're looking to become an industry expert, you're passionate about a hobby, or you just want to learn something new. I want you to visit Linda.com slash Vodcast and sign up for a free 10-day trial. I also want to keep talking at this register of my voice. That was really impressive. This is the same. This is the

sales register. That's L-Y-N-D-A.com slash Vurgcast. Yeah. What? I'm getting better at this. Yeah, that was good. Yeah? It was long, detailed. I was into it. No, the ad read was long and detailed. I hate you. All right. Mike, do you want to run us through the new features of Spotify this week

a little bit? Sure. Let's see what they did. Or Sammy? You know what's up. It's actually pretty simple yet important. Spotify had an event. York. It was kind of a weird one. It was kind of a weird one.

It was weird because they had a lot of sort of, I wouldn't say they're random, but they had a lot of characters on stage, including the girls from Broad City. So Spotify introduced podcast integration. They also introduced video so you can like watch bite size clips. I don't think it's like full episodes of anything. It's just like content clips of things. It's really weird. It's strange.

And then they. the third thing was this new integration with running. So you're running tempo. You can match music to that and like pump yourself up with Spotify music based on how fast you're running. And they, from what I can tell, didn't give too many details. For example, I'm a Spotify premium subscriber and am I going to see ads on these videos?

I don't know. Right. Also, they didn't really give any. detail of the podcast situation. Am I going to be able to get any and every podcast? Are they curating podcasts? I don't know. Also, where's the update?

I don't have it on my computer. I don't have it on my phone. Spotify updates on the computer are, I would say, the worst. And I know I've harsh on Spotify in the show a lot. Can I just say, since we had that amazing debate on this Vergecast, there have been multiple people asking us to go at it again about Spotify. They love it. They love the harsh debates that we talk about.

Look, why do you come to the Vergecast? You come for sparkling banter. You come for flawless introductions. Ad reads that draw money directly out of your pocket and deposit that in various companies' bank accounts. And you come for real talk about Spotify, which is garbage. It's just put it out there. It's not garbage.

But yeah, so that's Spotify news. It'll take, again, whenever these, I feel like whenever these kind of news updates and big events happen for these tech companies, it takes. a while for the normals and for the information to dilute amongst the masses. So we'll see how people respond to this. I bet you that most people didn't even know Spotify had an event. So yeah, it seems cool. As someone who doesn't listen to podcasts regularly because I don't, I just don't. I don't really have a reason why I've just podcast. I don't respect your competitors,

you've got to get out there, you've got to learn some podcasts, like trips and tricks. Well, so now I think that I'm going to start listening to podcasts because they will be embedded in Spotify, which I use every day. There's like an app on your phone.

Called podcasts. I know, it's just, I don't want to open iTunes. It's not through iTunes. It's all through the podcast app. See, I don't know any of this.

I don't know. I just, I don't do podcasts. I mean, well, as far as the content that they're going to have, isn't it, there are like several networks,

podcast networks. Was it, it wasn't nerdist or was it something else? It wasn't. Nerdist. Yeah. Nerdist is going to. Radio lab.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Is that all WNYC or is that just radio lab? It just says radio lab. And like, will we be on there? Like,

can you get the verge cast in Spotify? I kind of doubt it, right? Oh, it says WNYC here too. So it must be both. Well, I mean, like there's got to be a suit upstairs somewhere is working on that deal. Right.

And that's why I brought the point before. Is this a syndication of just every podcast, indie or popular, or is Spotify, I mean, Spotify is the gatekeeper in this case? Right. Yeah, but there's like a really fundamental, like, who cares of Spotify as a gatekeeper? Because what we have learned is that their management of that gate has done nothing but lose money over time. You know, it's like they're not wielding any power. They're just driving themselves slowly and slowly deeper into the red. Yeah.

Emily, you were saying something about the running. There's running features, right? I did I added more features to the app too. That seems really silly and like a waste of whatever megabytes that will add to the app and take up on my phone where I should be keeping actual music I can listen to on the train. Yeah, no, that's weird. As somebody who uses Spotify a lot while working out, I don't want Spotify to match my tempo.

Well, like that's a really, really bizarre and specific thing to want from a streaming service. I don't know. aren't you supposed to play loud, loud and fast thing, so you'll run as quickly as the music, not the opposite way. Anyway, that's my hot take about running and Spotify. You on Spotify just start slowly increasing the tempo. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, I got to catch up to it.

But, yeah, that's, and then, what does that even sound like? Like, all of your songs are sort of like, will it pitch it up? That would actually be kind of amazing. If the faster you ran, like, you could be listening to a slow jam and then you start running and it's like chipmunked. Oh my God. That would be amazing. Never mind.

I take it all back. This is a great idea. Yes. Finally a version of turn off the lights I can run to. Teddy, you did it again. Exactly. There's like Spotify ads. People like sprinting to Teddy Pendergats.

That's what you need. Like Spotify and Sam and I are just going to start. Here we go. I'm ready. They don't. They don't do anything. What does? This is the most they've ever done in that app to make it better.

And like we're sitting here saying the features are like laughable and stupid. Yeah. I mean, you guys have your feelings about Spotify? What are you going to sit around watching clips of vice videos in your Spotify app? Me? No. Absolutely not.

Who? Teens. You're, but that's why you're here. That's literally why we put you at that desk. If it's a, if it's a suggested content type thing where it pops up and it's like, oh,

that's something I'm interested in or that's a music video by an artist I like and I can watch it right here on this thing. I'm already about to listen to their song on. Is that useful? Yeah, but they're not getting music videos. Yeah, it's not music videos. So title is doing music videos and concerts. Yeah.

This is what I mean. Like, when I say we're in a moment, I think the tech industry is completely, in the media industry, like, next to it. Like, they push and pull on each other in, like, I don't know. That's why we, like, have an entertainment editor at The Verge, right? Like, the media industry and the tech industry

completely influence each other. And, like, for a decade, the tech industry drove, the entertainment industry, right? It was in charge. Like Steve Jobs basically was like in charge of the entertainment industry. He was like, we're going to do iTunes, we're going to do the iPod, we're going to blow up the music industry. And everyone listened to them. Right. Well, with a struggle. It was a struggle. And then he was like, now we're adding video to the iPod. Now we're doing an Apple TV. Now we're doing streaming. Here are all these services. Here's all this. Basically just organized it. And then Reed Hastings came along with Netflix and was like, and here's the next move. And that changed. And now like Woody

Allen is like, why do I have an Amazon deal? Oh my God. Do you remember that? No. No, so there's an interview. I totally forgot that that was happening. So there's an interview in Billboard. It's like Woody Allen, it can basically. And they're like, tell us about your life, Woody Allen. You're 79. He's like saying all these things.

I know he doesn't watch Mad Men. Yeah, he doesn't watch Mad Men. He's like, I don't have a TV. I don't care. Like, I don't care about digital. It doesn't save me any time because it just, like, even when I shot on film, it was just somebody else doing the work. Yeah.

He's like, whatever, digital is great. He's like, I signed this deal with Amazon because they like bagged and begged and bagged. We just need six half hours or whatever. And I was like, it'll be like six half hours of a movie. But now it's like, oh, that sucks. I don't want to do that. It's like an amazing, he's like super candid. He's like, I don't know what a streaming service is.

I don't watch TV. I don't know why they want me to do this, but I'm doing it. God, I hope that's worth the money they're paying me. And it's like, wow, the whole industry has changed. Like to the point where Amazon, nobody, like, I have Amazon Prime. Do you ever watch Amazon Prime streaming? No. No.

Did you watch Transparent? Like, that's the one to watch it. Right, right. Yeah. But I had to like, I had to like do a bunch of stuff to go watch it. Yeah. It was like, I've got to find this new set of apps. It's not just like Netflix.

But anyway, so that was like the tech industry owning the media moment. And I think this, we're about to be in a place where the media industry completely dominates the tech industry. Because the best user experience for all of these services is not going to pay the media industry the right way. Wait, what do you mean the media industry will dominate the tech industry? They're not going to give anybody the deal. right like you know they came out this week that apple was working on a TV but they dropped it and the the Wall Street Journal report was like they couldn't find a compelling hardware feature so they first they tried to make a perfectly clear TV that displayed an image

using lasers which just sounds like Apple it's no it sounds like Tim Cook called the Wall Street Journal reporter and just like spun off some bullshit you know it's like we were trying to make a TV it was going to be awesome like it was going to have lasers it's like perfectly clear Johnny Ives smoked a bunch of dope and came up with it. It was the best. You would have loved it. But it wasn't Apple enough. Like it's like you could say anything you wanted.

Yeah. Right. Then they were going to have one with like a FaceTime camera in it that like watched you all the time. Another like Steve like Tim Cook like do be special. You know, like we tried all these features. Can you imagine that should be a podcast. Just Tim Cook getting like totally high and being like what could we do? Just like gazing over the.

the Apple campus. Anyway, and then they're like, we couldn't find a hardware differentiator good enough to justify a TV. And that's a year ago. And that was, like, if you just look at the timeline, that's when they started talking about a watch and like watch rumors

started. And the reason is, because and Dieter and I had a big argument about it, and he put it up on the site, you can't make a TV unless you can fix the software of the TV, which gets you to content. So if you don't control HBO, Like, if you don't get to write the HBO app, you don't get to get Game of Thrones.

And HBO isn't going to let you write their app for them. I mean, they kind of do on the Apple TV, but that's a deal. You have to make the deal. And so you have to get deal after deal after deal after deal to deliver the right user experience. And right now the media industry knows that they don't have to do that anymore. And that's like crazy. That's Taylor's supposed to be like, you know what? Screw you Spotify.

Like, I'm not giving you the deal, even though most of her fans would probably prefer to get her stuff in the Spotify. Right. And like, I don't know. Like, this, when you talk to artists and labels and other people in the industry, like, do they care anymore? Like, it just seems like there's so much power. No, it's nothing that ever comes up anymore. It's just like, it's just sort of, I don't know. I mean, and I'm usually not talking to, like, artists at that level. So, I mean, they, like, artists that I talk to usually just care about getting their stuff license, getting money in other ways, getting, getting, you know, having a good festival placement and stuff like that. Like, not not whether or not their stuff is streaming I think most people just cut that up

it's just like a loss regardless you know like um I mean but like the festival thing and like the I actually was I was watching inside Amy Schumer on Amazon Prime streaming so I used the service okay hooked me in with transparent and then I used it to watch anything else and there was just a joke about like it's a joke it's like a guy who died on a weezer themed cruise ship but it's like that joke It's funny because it's so painfully real. Well, there is a Weezer-themed cruise ship. No! Yes.

Yeah, there was a Weezer cruise. Tell me everything about the Weiser Cruise. I'll find out about the Weiser Cruise. Okay, here's what I know. I think our fans are going to be sad. Because The Verge is going on vacation for two weeks on the Weaser boat. Well, it already happened. It was last year.

It was February 13th through 17th. Oh, it was actually not a bad... little cruise. They had cat power. They had Toro Imois. It had dive. That's such a dad cruise. Ash. Remember Ash? Osma. Wow. Wow. That's a deep Indiraoc cruise. Anyway, that's like a, that was a thing that happened in 2014. The Weezer Cruise. I know. But that's the, that's the industry. You can get more money doing the Weezer Cruise. Oh, yeah. Completely. Then Weezer could put out a new record. Yeah. I mean, I went on a cruise that was like an artist-based cruise earlier this year. And like the people who did that, like it was such a success and they were,

it was everybody won out of it, like the cruise company and the artists and everybody on it that they're actually like using the people who started organizing that cruise to keep doing it because it's just like a model that can be used for so many artists. Yeah, I, it's all about shows and festivals. I mean, festivals just makes a bazillion dollars now. And, um, and, And, you know, big stadium shows, you know, any sold-out show at the Staples Center is like, that's where the money comes from, not an album. The album just keeps sort of the artistic fuel alive. Right.

It's more a symbol than anything else. But that's why I think the music, particularly music, I keep saying it, I think there's going to be a huge turn, right? With the Apple thing and, like, Jimmy Iivine and Dr. Dre, like, running around and, like, the Kanye rumors out there, but, like, he's going to sign it. at Apple. And then you have Jay Z started his own thing. And you have Spotify desperately searching for relevance. And somewhere at Groove Shark, just endlessly rebooting itself. Oh, Groove Shark.

They tried. They were the first and most illegal of the services. That turn in the tech industry is going to totally change everything. And what you're describing is the money for the artists isn't in the music itself. So they have complete leverage. Right? They just have to get it out. there and get some money for it. And if you're a big artist, you want to get as much money as possible. But you're still just trying to get somebody to, like, Coachella. That's like your main move in life is like get somebody to a show or get somebody to an event. Or like, if you're Taylor Swift, literally license out your branding to like bath towels and like bed sheets.

And like have a different car brand in every single country that you can have your commercial for. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm just really depressed. What happened to the artistry, man? How does Steely Dan make money? Is that why they reformed? True. Well, no, I was, it's funny because all the bands that I, like, when I was like a kid, all the bands that I would have wanted to see that were broken up when I was a kid, I can definitely go see now.

Yeah, but it's not. Don't go. Don't go. That's really bad. It's a bad idea. It's like, there's the zombie Jimmy Page just playing the guitar. Like, cool. So the question is when Apple drops their streaming service,

what's going to happen? Because iTunes Radio came out and I know no one that uses it. I use it all the time. You do. Yes. You're the only person I know that uses it. I'm not the only person I know who uses it. It's pretty convenient and I have to say that the gateway between listening to something,

liking it and just clicking a button to spend a dollar or $2 on it is kind of devious and perfect. Like I do that a lot. I end up spending a lot of money that way. I'm telling you, they control everything, man. But yeah, I don't know. what happens to iTunes Radio then? Like is that just not a part of it anymore?

We don't know yet. Because they do a lot of the like, you know, they'll have the advanced preview of albums that they'll put on iTunes a lot. I don't know what that does for artists. Like that's also another weird thing. That's probably paid to the label, I'm guessing. Yeah. But like, you know, even if it's not Apple, like NPR gets streams a lot from people

a couple weeks in advance and it's like I don't know if that helps anybody at all. I guess it's their way of avoiding a leak because they know it's going to leak out anyway. Yeah. I just, in the leak branding is Apple Music. Yeah. But that's like, how do you walk away from iTunes as a brand? Yeah. That's crazy.

Everyone hates iTunes. No one hates iTunes. Yeah, but if you have an iPhone, it's like, it doesn't matter if you hate iTunes. There's a part of your, like, hand at this point. Oh, God. You go. It's going. I mean, when I had an Android, like,

For the one year I had an Android phone, I used, I used, I didn't use, I used, I used Google Music, the thing where you, when it was like you could upload your entire music library and stream it from your computer, I used that. But I mostly did Amazon just for music downloads, because it didn't, you could play those MP3s anywhere. Yeah, yeah. It's like things I wish I loved. It's like this endless list of music services, and I'm just like, I don't.

I don't love any of you. Well, I just read from a few weeks ago the New Yorker article about the guy who leaked like every album in the early O's, which is an incredible story. I mean, like, he got caught eventually and all of these people. But like how there was this competition to get all, you know, like graduation and and Eminem show and stuff. All these like albums you think of as like those were the Napster era albums. And just that kind of phrase to get things. leaked out, like right out of universal, right out of the labels and the places where they're manufacturing them.

One of my favorite stories of that era, I don't remember where I read this, but it was tremendous. If somebody can find it and sentence me, I'd like to read it again, was this like, it was a story about a suburban dad who, in a, like, in New Jersey, in like his fourth bedroom had set up just like tons of computers and hard drives and just downloaded everything. And he's like, I got to do this, man. I got to save the culture while it. still be saved. Oh my God. He's like, I'm preserving all of this stuff. He's like a doomsday

prepper but for culture. But for like the torrent. It was like an amazing, like all of his things, he's like, I know this is illegal and I know I could go to jail and my family could suffer, but I have to do it. And it was like, no, he doesn't, he doesn't go far enough them because like those drives are not going to be worth anything. If, if a true apocalypse happens or if there is like an electromagnetic pulse or something, you got to burn that to like a gold disc, like a like a record. Yeah. And send it to. Yeah, and send it in the space. Like, come on.

We fully realize this dream here, guy. He's in the garage, like carving his platinum record. All right, I need to read one more ad. And then I actually just want to, I just want to emulate it. To just generally stream of consciousness talk about bad blood. Oh, God. Building what site can be tough. And even if you do know a way around coding, creating something that looks good and works well

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That would be great. When you decide to sign up for Squarespace, make sure to use the offer code Verge to get 10% off your first purchase. and to show your support for the Vergecast. That part is really important because we're going to upgrade Sam's seat to a throne. Wow. That's going to be great. We thank Squarespace for the support of the Vergecast.

Squarespace, build it beautiful. We need, Sam, play your wood guitar. Play some hot licks and your lumbar guitar. Lumbar. It's so good. Have you ever had one of these days where you just like, you talk so much that you completely forget how to talk?

Yes. All the time. I'm hitting that wall right now, and it's going to be bad. That's it. All right, Emily. In addition to, like, what is happening? Are you just playing bad blood?

Just a second. Yeah. Wait, what is this? What is Caradella being in doing in this movie? She's in it. She's in the video. No, she's in the video, but there's a trailer for a movie called Paper Towns. Oh, my God.

Anyway, Taylor Swift released a video that she had been hyping. Oh, my God. It's so annoying. She had been hyping this for like two weeks or three weeks. It felt like a lot longer. That basically has every single famous person ever in it. Taylor Swift has been casually building her circle of friends in a very public-posed way. Her Instagram is basically pictures, like just showing off how many people are her friends.

I feel like kind of the poetry of Taylor Swift is that she doesn't actually have any friends. Right. Who can relate to her? her who can talk who can actually talk to her anyway that's just my own wait because she's on such a high level or because she's such a terrible nerd because she's both you know like i mean i don't know like what is the conversation with tiley swift like like how do you when do you like get really real like she'll just go and bake you some cookies or something like i don't know anyway so she made this she made this video uh it's got kendrick in it because like she's a really big kendrick fan uh in a profile

in Rolling Stone, like, before 1989 came out, she, like, closed it with, like, a quoteu from, from, um, back. Yeah, yeah, it was from, uh, Bagsyfrestle. Yeah. Yeah. Like, that's her favorite song. That was her jam. Like, talking about her dick.

Goodness, because the Eiffel Tower. I mean, it's cool. I mean, that was genuinely surprising. It was good. Anyway, so she, um, so this video came out and, like, I, I don't really know, like, I have a few theories behind it. But I mean, she's pretty much like, is she just YouTube? Is that like the only kind of allegiance that we know that she has as far as surfaces

or music streaming services? We don't know. Rumors, Apple rumors. Right. Yeah, I mean, if Apple got Taylor and Kanye, that really, really completes the Frat Row. Yeah. Yeah. Dynamic Duo.

that would be, oh man, that's actually, that would make that an indispensable, like that would make it an indispensable streaming service for me. It's like funny when we, when we post, like I think Micah, you posted something once where you're like, you know, you can't, if you have a streaming service that has, you know, a certain amount of these big name artists on it, it's indispensable. If you're, if you like those artists and you want to be able to stream their music and everybody's like, oh, well, I don't like any of those artists, so it's not for me. It's like, well, I'm pretty sure you're lying right now.

There is one of those people that you like. One of those people, it's either a title or rumored to be at Apple or whatever. So anyway, I think my theory about the bad blood video is that it is kind of an answer to the title thing. It's an assembly of superheroes. Not all of them are musicians, but a lot of them are. And they're actually explicitly presented as superheroes. Yeah, yeah. And it's sort of this like war between celebrities happening basically.

It just feels like it is about title or about somebody else. I don't know. I mean, it's really about Katie Perry. Where's Katie Perry going to end up anyway? Man, she's in a real hype chat Katie Perry right now. Sam, it's an audio show. Six? Maybe.

Seven? Is she cooler because she dates Diplo? Does she date Diplo now? Whoa. Can't remember what she still does or not. I remember when she was married to Russell Brand. That was a thing, right? Yeah.

Good celebrity callback, Sam. Thanks. I know my culture. I'm all the way back in 2010 now. I've checked the bad blood video. I couldn't even, I didn't watch the whole thing. Wow. It's bad, right?

It was mostly because I was interrupted for work, but like it was just, it was a lot of, it was a lot of choreographic ninja stuff. Yeah. From what I saw. It's very, it's very dumb. It's like, it's like. It's just scenes from other movies. But it's not even with the self-awareness of like a Quentin Tarantino movie. It's just like, let's do Tron for a second.

Like, I don't know. It's weird. But it's just part of her overall thing of like, look at how many people are on my side. Look at how many friends I have. Which I think is sort of tragic. So anyway, those are my... That's a ear drained. Yeah.

She's like 0 for 2 on these videos though, right? Like, what? Blank space video is great. I'm not a fan of the blank space video. I also, that house, I shot a or I helped shoot a student film at that mansion. Wow. It's on Long Island. It's called O'Hika.

Well, The Virgin is going on vacation for two weeks because you're going to the Taylor Mansion. We're going to take the Weezer boat to the Taylor Mansion. Oh, Jesus. Wait, what was the other one? No, Style is a good video. Style just looks like the true detective opening credits. So I think that the, well, it was the first one, shake it off and blank space are fine. Mm-hmm.

Right? Yeah, I don't like, I don't like shake it off. You mean, are you talking about the videos or the songs? The videos. The videos. The video is very bad for Shake It Off. I don't care that Mark Romanek made it. It's not a good video.

I think that's kind of why I like, anyway, so those are those two. And she has really good hair in that one. David Pearsight. Oh, she has great hair. David, like, David, that song, when David was here in our office in New York, like you would just start to hear Shake It Off. and it was never him, like, listening to it. He was always him watching the video because he... And he was like, it's such pretty hair.

He was such a nerd for it. Oh, my God. It was adorable. So those two. But I thought style was, like, super medium. Yeah. It's, I don't know. I really, like, I mean, I think this video, this album was fine, but I, I, I, not that

into Pop Taylor. Like, it's kind of like a larger music feeling I have. in general that everybody wants to be everything. I don't want Taylor to want to be like, I don't know who she wants to be like, iconopop or whatever. What's your favorite song on the album? Oh, the Lana Del Rey one. Of course.

Oh, what's it called, Wildest Dreams? That's the best song on the album. But that's like a mode that's like weird and over. Like it's kind of like with Mad Men, right? Like that like sad. That's like, no, no, it's true. Like sadness is like over. Oh, that's not true.

You think sadness is back in? Like, Madman ended with, like, explicitly, like, no more sadness. Yeah, that was... I feel like that was a Matt Weiner troll, though. I feel like everybody expected either somebody to commit suicide or for Don to end up being D.V. Cooper, and, like, Matt Weiner will never... He refuses to give anybody what they want. Like, that is, like, his signature thing.

So, of course, he ends up, like, at a retreat, meditating and smiling with the ocean behind him. That's just how it was going to be. Wait, hold on. I think this is true. I want to say this is true. Yes. Do you know where the D.B. Cooper theory came from? Yeah, it was a blogger actually during the second season.

I can't remember her name. Lindsay Green? Yes. Do you know who Lindsay Green is? You guys don't have any idea. Are the editorial director of Vox Media Lockhart Steele, that is his way. Oh, really? Ha, ha, ha.

It's like the whole world constantly collides. Yeah. It was a good theory, and he totally teased it. eased it in like the second to last episode. But he did the Manson family thing too. Like he played into it super hard. Yeah. But no,

what I'm saying the end of set, this has been my theory about sort of our mode is that everything is triumphant all the time. And Taylor Swift is like the apex of triumph. Like that's her collection of friends. That's like the I'm on a beach with like, who is the girl band? She's on the beach with? Do you know what I'm like? Oh, Hime.

She's always hanging out with Hime. Right. It's just super funny. It's like that's all triumph. It's all victory. All the, like, EDM is like basically builds to victory. Like, EDM never builds to sadness. Yeah.

Well, that gives me an idea, though. No, I agree with that in some ways. I mean, it's like, yeah. It's hard to, it's hard to succeed with downer music. I mean, I think that's why, like, Lord and Lana Delray are interesting because they have some downer songs. Right. Or, like, the XX was, like, vaguely interesting.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. But that's like a different level of success. Like they're not playing the XX on the radio necessarily. Yeah, the XX is that new album is going to be the best album of the year. The New Jamie XX album is going to be the best album of the year. Wow. Yeah.

I'm excited for that. What about the Rattatette album? The Rattatat album, we sampled into toilet paper commercials from here until the, from now, until the other time. Wow, that's terrible. Really? No, that's just, it's like an essential fact of Rattitat. Right. Like I was talking, you know, we have like a, every media company is like a branded agency thing that like makes native ads.

And they, they did a present, you know, there's like upfronts, like media companies present. Like here's all the video shows are going to make. And so we had one. And I've been asking for the video of our upfront presentations because I want to see it because I'd like to know what the hell they said about the, no. But anyway, so I'm asking, you know, like, we can't. We, none of the music got cleared. And I was like, why? And like, well, it's so much ratatatat.

Like if you're going to, you know, like if you're an ad agency. Too much ratatat. They're like, you know, because, you know, agencies, like, we just default to ratatat. Yeah. That's like their go-to-to. It's so true. Yeah. So they'll be fine.

Ratatat will be fine. No, they still use Rattat as like transition music on NPR stories. Like, it's crazy. It's like, like, Rattitat is sick. I just, they're great. Ratatatat. They're great band. Like, you guys can poop on them all you want.

I'm not a poop. I'm not saying they're rich. I made a list. I like my 25 favorite songs of the last decade of 2000 to 2010. And they were 17 years from their first album is like one of the best songs. It's like one of the best pump-up jock jam type songs ever. It's great. It's just amazing.

Rattahat's like the older child that no one worries about. Like they're just going to be fine. Oh, Rattita. He's going to be fine. I think they're going to be a govall. Like, and that'll be a nostalgia act now, apparently. Yeah, right? I don't know.

Wait, when did they hit? I feel like Rattatatat, like... It's July 17th or something. That album comes out? No, I meant when did Rattatatat like start? When did they... Oh. 2004 or 2005?

Yeah, they've been around. I feel like they just made a huge appearance in my iPod. Like one day they were not on my iPad, and like the next day it had everything. My whole iPod is Rattat. That's all we listened to. What else did? We barely talked about Mad Ben. Do you want to talk about Mad Ben for two minutes?

I don't really have that. much to say because I have to go to a meeting. The first cast, everyone. We make it explicitly clear that other things are more important. But I will say that I think it's funny. I think that there will always be two worlds, the world that watched that show and cared desperately about it every week and like assumed that because

90 people that they knew on the internet also cared desperately about it every week that like it was the biggest and most important show and uh i mean i watched it just because of that because it's like that's just a talking point you got to watch it with people but like i i never was crazy about it so it's very interesting to see now like it'll be interesting to see what its legacy is because it wasn't even nearly as widely watched as something like the sopranos which i think has sort of a similar place in people's hearts people who really like love tv what do you think will have a bigger impact bigger impact sopranos or madman Oh, Sopranos for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, you wouldn't have Madman without Sopranos because Matt Weiner was a writer on Sopranos. I mean, and Sopranos was like the, you know, that made the HBO drama thing. That made like the dark R-rated drama thing. Yeah, I mean, Madman is less like a, like, it has less effect outside of itself than Sopranos. Like Madman was just like you had relationships with the characters. within the context of the show.

And it did some interesting formal things, like, over the several seasons. But I don't feel like there's anything about the way that it told its story that's going to affect or change anything after it. That's just me. But I liked a lot of it. I just never was wild about it. Do you watch it? You don't watch it?

I've never seen it. You're a crazy person. It's really, it's not, I don't remember what the numbers were on the finale, but, like, it wasn't. It's like $7 million at its peak. 3.29 million on the finale. But it's peak, it was like 7. No. I don't think it ever got 7 million.

No, I'm looking at Wikipedia. No, I'm looking at Wikipedia. Probably 5 million. That's being generous. No, it peaked to like 2.5. 3 million million. Well, Googling 7 million Mad Men just basically takes you to a site about guns. 7 million.

And that's the name of our new band. It's like 10,000 maniacs. Oh, man. I definitely used a streaming service to listen to candy. Everyone wants to that. That's true. It's a true fact about being 10,000 maniacs. And your relationship with streaming service.

It's very interesting. We were having a long debate about Spotify and the private mode. I feel like I was talking to Dan or something about it or somebody else. Yeah. And just like I have to always put it on. It is very top secret. I just, yeah, I'm really worried about it too. Yeah, you turn off scrobbing, right?

You don't want anyone to see your activity. Yeah, but you have to do it every single time. No, no way. You can't just turn it all the way off? Yeah, you could turn it off. No, 100%. Sam, I'm looking at your... What's your people...

Am I Spotify open? Let's just do some Spotify doxing right now. And then we'll end the show. Sam, you think about where you want to... What I want to do? What you want to engage with when we're on here. Joanna Stern just listened to Rocket Man by Elton John. What's the last thing I listen to?

My friend Kyle Kramer just listened to All I Ever Need by Caribou. Casey Newton, listening to Blue Bucket of Gold, Sue Jane Stevens. You can. By the way, I'm just hard docking. Oh, wow. Nathan Ingram, Charlie XX, X, X, listening to Need Your Love. Wow, this is really bad. I'm hurting myself right now.

You go on a Spotify. Ellis Hamburger, listening to Tandlines. Dan Seafruit on my way to heaven. Okay, we got to stop this. This is really cool. This is bad. This is aim moral. Everyone has super weird music, like, listening to...

This is Big Brother right here. What did Big Brother teach us? How did the world end? We all learn that we're listening to terrible music. That Rush Rustick is listening to Jeannie in a bottle right now. Look, I'm listening. I'm listening, and I will say this publicly, thanks to Micah Singleton, I'm listening to Trap Queen on repeat for forever.

He just heard Trap Queen yesterday. Just, oh, bless your heart. It's good. It's the jam. It's a good song. It is. All right. Sam pick some social networks that are not Spotify to follow us on.

Jeez. You should, you know what? Because you said that, that made me think of, uh, of this is a little social network. I like to call Instagram. You should. No, no. Actually. All right.

Yeah. Okay. Here, let's do this. You should, you should hit up. soundcloud.com slash what's tech. It is a podcast by our own, Chris Plant. It is at soundcloud.com slash what's tech. We explain everything from Twitter to the Marvel universe to cameras.

And the audio and, you know, sort of sound clips and music that's added in there really adds a lot to that podcast. I highly recommend it. And you should follow the verge on Instagram. We are Instagram.com slash verge. We're pretty damn close to 100,000 followers. And I'm excited for when that happens. I will just tweet about it.

And back to you, Eli. Another build to nothing. Oh, yeah. I always got a pitch too. Yeah, there's going to be a new podcast on the Verge podcast network, if that's a thing that we can refer to it. Yeah. And look for the scope premiering sometime next week. I'm going to say Wednesday.

And Liz Lapado and I, also a Verge editor, the science editor. Verge employee. Virgin employee, Liz Lapado, and I will be talking about art and science. And I just sang for some reason. Is that the intro? That should be the intros of podcasts. Info-scope.

What just happened to my headphones? The system did not like that. What just happened to everything? Here's what I know. Every verge employee wants a podcast. And if you sing me a name, you'll get one. Hype check. Nope.

That was the wrong deal to make. Okay. The scope. The scope. That's going to be exciting too. You can find all these podcasts. at iTunes.com slash The Verge. Vergecast, again, creeping right up to a thousand five-star reviews.

So please, I think we're at 9-80. What should they ask or what should they answer, rather, on the iTunes review? Tell me if you watch Mad Men. Give me your thoughts in last season or the last episode of Mad Men. Did we talk about Mad Men enough? Did we, yeah, should we talk about it more? Yeah. Should we start a Mad Men podcast?

This is, that would be perfect timing. Vergemen. Bridgemen. Anyway, that was our show. Sam Sheffer. is at Sam Sheffer on the tweets. Mike Singleton is at Micah Singleton. Emily Ishita is at Emily Oshita.

I'm at at Reckless. Please find us, tweeted us. I'm sure you have many thoughts to share with us. I want to thank Dashlane. I want to thank Squarespace, and I want to thank Linda.com for being our sponsors. Whether you're looking to become an industry expert, your passion about a hobby,

or you just want to learn something new, please visit Linda.com slash Vergecast and sign up for a free 10-day trial. That's L-Y-N-D-A.com slash Vergecast. And that is our show. We're backing in next week. And actually next week is, Google I.O. and the code conference. So it's going to be, there's going to be news on news.

I think next week will be very exciting. And Monday's a holiday, so enjoy that. Yeah. Just get super drunk and then get ready for a Vergecast on Thursday. So it's I.O. Code Conference and then like a week and a half after that is WWDC. Yeah, it's about your time. Yeah. Ready. That's the Vergecast. Rock and roll.