0:00

From Lauren's office, it's

0:02

episode 81 of the Adam Ragusea podcast,

0:05

and if I played games as long

0:07

as Taylor Swift plays, I

0:09

would have worked this out so that it would be

0:11

episode 89, because

0:14

today my lovely wife Lauren and I are discussing...

0:18

1989 Taylor's version! Look

0:21

at that! Yep.

0:26

Doesn't she look so happy to own her music now?

0:30

You know, the kids were looking at that in front of our brand

0:32

new record player that was our impulse purchase

0:34

that occasioned this entire situation. But,

0:38

yeah, one of them said, oh, she looks

0:40

so happy, and the other one said, oh, she looks so

0:42

pretty. And I think we both know

0:44

which said which.

0:45

Yeah. Yeah,

0:50

aww. Bless. So...

0:55

You're driving this car, honey. I

0:57

am? You're the one that wants to talk about Taylor Swift

0:59

in front of a mass audience.

1:02

To be clear, we... I,

1:06

as I have said on this podcast before, and

1:08

just in general in our living life, that

1:11

talking with you about music is one of my

1:14

favorite things, and I wish

1:16

more often the people could hear you

1:18

talk about music, because I think you are

1:20

very smart and creative about it.

1:25

Very

1:25

politic way to handle this. So I

1:28

got the new 1989. I have

1:30

been listening to it. I

1:33

have turned some of our children, some of them,

1:35

both of them, into mini Swifties. So

1:38

then you had to listen to it in the car with

1:40

them, and you were kind

1:42

of into it a little bit, and you had some interesting

1:44

things to say. And

1:47

so I said, hey, what if we just did this for the podcast

1:50

instead of...

1:52

What if indeed? What if

1:55

indeed? So here we are. So

1:57

for the non-Swifties, 1989...

1:59

is a record that is about

2:02

the year of Taylor's birth

2:05

or the name is the year of Taylor's birth,

2:07

right? Mm-hmm. Is this going to be me correcting

2:09

all the Taylor Lords? Well, no, I

2:11

just want to make it clear so that you understand. She made

2:13

this kind of like 80s-y sounding

2:16

pop record in...when

2:19

did it originally come out? In 2014.

2:22

It also sort of marked her final

2:24

hard break with her country roots.

2:26

Yeah, this was like full pop.

2:28

She just was full pop. It

2:29

won Grammy for record of the year.

2:31

It's also when kind of like snooty

2:34

a-holes like me started

2:37

to kind of grudgingly acknowledge that

2:39

like, oh, this Taylor Swift girl, she

2:41

seems to like, she can write a catchy song. Yeah,

2:43

right. Respect Knuckles for that.

2:45

There

2:45

always had to be like big capital

2:48

B buts after that.

2:48

I know. Oh, it was horrible.

2:51

It's like...

2:51

Because girls loves Taylor Swift

2:54

and anything girls like...

2:56

Can't be real. Can't be legit. ...is

2:58

easily

2:58

made fun of. I

3:01

will also say this was like my entry. I listened

3:04

to a little bit of red and I kind of liked it. But 1989

3:08

was when I first started being like...I don't

3:11

know if we called ourselves Swifties back then. I was like, yeah, I

3:13

like Taylor Swift.

3:14

Well, also it was when you had our

3:16

first child and you had a lot

3:18

of...

3:19

A lot of sitting in a chair holding

3:20

a baby time. Downtime is not the right

3:23

word for it. But I

3:25

got a lot of podcast time and you

3:27

got a lot of Taylor Swift time. It was like prison time.

3:30

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And

3:32

so I

3:33

would sit in the chair.

3:34

They give it a time here like it's lunch.

3:36

I would sit in a chair with a baby

3:38

asleep on my chest and I would just like put

3:40

my phone on the arm of the chair and listen

3:42

to 1989. Okay. And yeah.

3:46

But I wasn't like a diehard Swiftie. It

3:48

wasn't like... It was

3:49

a flow process. Yeah. And the

3:51

reason we're talking about it now for the non-Swifties of

3:53

the audience is that, yes, so Taylor had

3:55

a business dispute

3:58

with the... the business

4:00

entities that own the masters

4:03

to her older records. And

4:05

so she has been embarking on a project of

4:07

re-recording all of her older albums

4:10

so that she, I assume she already

4:12

owns the songwriting rights, or at least those that

4:14

she does own for the songwriting that she did. Which

4:18

of course is most of it, but not all of it. But

4:21

she also owns, now

4:24

she owns the masters to the recordings

4:26

as well.

4:27

She's basically devaluing

4:29

the originals

4:30

by public. Flooding the market, yeah.

4:32

Yes, and famously

4:34

when she said she was gonna do this, the

4:37

owner of her masters, it was

4:40

like a private equity firm and

4:42

evil former people she worked with. And

4:45

they were like, she'll never do it, don't worry, your

4:47

investment is secure. And she was like, hmm,

4:49

watch me. And it has

4:51

seriously, there are some of the major

4:55

radio stations, including internet

4:57

radio, have vowed to only play the Taylor's versions.

5:00

I mean, Die Hard Swifties obviously will go in and

5:02

change all their playlists, so it's only the Taylor's

5:04

versions.

5:05

Probably the big ticket item here is that

5:07

it opens these songs up for

5:10

licensing in films and commercials.

5:12

She didn't

5:12

license anything of the old stuff.

5:16

And now she will license the Taylor's

5:18

version. So that's why you're seeing

5:20

it appear in movies and TV show

5:22

and commercials.

5:24

So basically like Taylor Swift,

5:26

among other things, is a savage

5:28

when it comes to matters of business.

5:30

She's

5:30

a business genius. And.

5:33

Which is why she, did you

5:35

hear her? She, in the estimation of some

5:37

publications. She's a billionaire now. She crossed the billionaire

5:39

mark this week, yeah. Yes,

5:42

and obviously that's not a billion in cash

5:44

dollars, that's a billion in her like,

5:47

owning of the masters,

5:49

owning of her real estate holdings and all that stuff,

5:51

so. Indeed. Congratulations to

5:54

Taylor on being a billionaire. Now

5:56

get started

5:56

giving it away. That's what,

5:59

exactly. That's right, we all know that's the true measure

6:01

of success in life, and we all know

6:03

how fondly we all think of billionaires. Yeah.

6:06

So, and so to me, my story with Taylor begins

6:09

with 89, in

6:14

part because of all the reasons discussed,

6:16

but also because it's one,

6:20

as I have tried to kind of critically examine my

6:22

own relationship to Tay Tay,

6:26

and how it started off as

6:28

that kind of, you know,

6:31

ignorant, arrogant sneering that

6:33

a guy like me would be expected to do early

6:36

in the Taylor phenomenon, right? Mm-hmm.

6:39

Then I went to the grudging acceptance,

6:42

then, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, she knows what she's doing in terms

6:44

of like, you know, commercial success

6:46

or whatever, not, you know, artistic success,

6:48

like the kind, you know, I pursue.

6:51

Oh, Jesus Christ.

6:54

I know, I know, I know, it's so bad.

6:57

When you look at it in the light of day, like the,

6:59

you know, it's so bad. But

7:02

you came around, you came around. Sure, yeah. So

7:05

anyway, to, you know, appreciating

7:08

a lot, you know, I'm subjected to the music all the time.

7:11

Because

7:11

let me be clear, I am the

7:15

kind of controlled freak that must always drive the car,

7:17

and Adam is always the passenger, I also get car sick.

7:20

And.

7:21

I do too, not that anyone cares.

7:23

And as

7:25

the driver of the car, I'm in charge of the radio.

7:28

And so Adam must often listen to

7:30

what I choose, which.

7:31

Must often?

7:34

Sometimes we come to,

7:36

usually what happens is you say,

7:38

please, I don't wanna listen to this anymore, please don't

7:40

make me listen to it again. And then, no,

7:42

they're fine, what do you wanna listen to? And

7:45

then you'll put on like, REM's most

7:47

obscure album.

7:48

Which is

7:50

fine. Which is fine. So

7:52

there are songs, individual songs

7:55

in individual, like passages or sections

7:57

or lines, that I do sincerely

7:59

like. you know,

8:02

there's much more of it that I like,

8:04

I respect for

8:07

its artistry. It's just not for me,

8:09

right? But

8:12

furthermore, but I, you know, my

8:14

interest in Taylor, I feel

8:16

like is

8:19

bigger than it should be for

8:22

an artist whose music doesn't really speak to me,

8:24

isn't for me, right? Like

8:27

I'm more interested in her than I'm more interested

8:29

in other, you know, beautiful girl

8:32

singers who grown ass women.

8:34

She's 33 or 34. Well,

8:37

I mean, you know, I can acknowledge that part

8:39

of the reason my interest in her has grown

8:42

is that it's like, I don't like... She

8:44

has become much more mature. I

8:46

like women. And like her

8:49

new phase of kind of womanly

8:51

power is very appealing,

8:53

I think. You know, in a way that your

8:56

present phase of womanly power is

8:59

quite appealing to me. Oh my God.

9:02

Thank you, I appreciate that.

9:04

Alright, I'm not making a joke, you know, that's

9:06

real, right? Yes, I do. Thank you. So...

9:10

Woo! It's lushing.

9:13

Getting hot in here. So...so...what

9:17

the hell are we talking about? Well, okay,

9:20

so

9:20

I'm going to start the first comments argument.

9:23

The

9:23

first time that people in the comments are going to start

9:26

typing and being like, no, you're wrong.

9:29

I think that Taylor has

9:31

reached the point of probably

9:34

most popular pop

9:37

star of all time. Like the

9:40

only people I think who could compete, and

9:43

this is not an endorsement of this person, but

9:45

like Michael Jackson. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

9:47

sure. But even like if you look at

9:49

the level of...and it's also, I mean, you

9:51

do have to calibrate for the level

9:53

of... Population growth

9:55

and... Population growth and also just like media

9:57

saturation because there was just so much fewer

9:59

media.

9:59

Exactly, and

10:00

now you, I mean, Taylor is

10:03

everywhere. And I

10:05

just, you know, the tours

10:07

and the concert film and the social

10:10

media.

10:10

And I think this is why I am

10:13

particular, one of the reasons why I am

10:15

more interested in her than my interest

10:18

in her music would indicate. And that

10:20

is that I am just amazed to

10:22

see like a level of human performance

10:26

at that height. Yes.

10:29

Like if you consider the full package. It's

10:31

a level of excellence that is shocking.

10:34

And everything she does, yes, it is a level

10:36

of excellence that is

10:38

almost unprecedented. Yeah.

10:41

Like,

10:43

and

10:45

that's incredible. Yeah. That

10:47

is, of course that would have to get

10:50

your attention. And I always feel

10:52

ridiculous when I say this it's

10:56

almost like a truism, but I have this

10:58

particular interest in things that

11:02

are successful things that managed

11:04

to be successful at the nexus of both

11:06

artistic and commercial success. Things

11:09

that managed to be really, really good

11:11

kind of any way you look at them.

11:12

So it's not like somebody sat in a lab

11:14

and designed something to become very

11:17

successful,

11:17

to be created or said.

11:19

So for example, like the Barbie movie, which

11:21

we talked about recently, the is

11:24

something that I think is like at this nexus of both commercial

11:27

and artistic success. And

11:29

in music, an example in my mind

11:31

would be Peter Gabriel's, so album,

11:35

an album of like enormous artistic

11:38

merit, really

11:40

sophisticated esoteric stuff like he

11:42

had been doing for a while. And

11:44

also like one of the greatest biggest

11:47

pit pop albums of the eighties, the biggest

11:49

decade for pop album. That has Sledgehammer

11:53

and all the ones you know. Helper Hill.

11:55

No, no, no, no. So that's an older one. No. So

11:58

is Sledgehammer and And don't give

12:00

up and big time, red

12:05

rain, in your eyes. Okay.

12:10

Yeah. Now I'm there. Now you're there. I

12:12

knew those other songs but like, In your

12:14

eyes, okay. Yeah,

12:17

right. And this 89 album,

12:20

I remember when it came out thinking, wow, this

12:22

might be one of those. Starting

12:27

with the opening track, Welcome

12:29

to New York, which is so trite in

12:31

some ways, but as is so often

12:34

the case with Taylor, if you just

12:37

get over yourself for two seconds.

12:39

Yeah, the initial

12:41

critique of that song, I think

12:43

that Lazy Hipsters do,

12:46

cause the chorus is Welcome to New York, it's been

12:48

waiting for you. And it's like, no, it fucking hasn't.

12:50

New York is not like that, but-

12:52

But in fact, it actually has

12:54

been in many ways for generations

12:56

of people. And it

12:59

has been the place-

13:00

I mean, it's the cliche of like, you

13:02

pack up your car or you pack up your bags

13:04

and you move to New York with a dream and-

13:06

I grew up five and a half hours away from New

13:08

York City. So I don't know if it was like this for you, but basically

13:11

I grew up far enough away from New York

13:13

City to where it was this like purely

13:15

theoretical, magical fairy land of perfectness,

13:18

where we would all be accepted and you know, right?

13:20

I'll see you that and raise you one further. I

13:23

grew up in Tennessee

13:24

in the conservative South, where

13:27

all the time I was like, God, if I could just get

13:29

myself to New York,

13:30

or

13:31

the North Sea.

13:32

And think of all of the kids in your high school who were

13:34

even more different than you were. Yeah,

13:35

who like wanted to get the fuck out of there. And

13:39

if I go to New York, all of these possibilities

13:41

that are not possibilities for me here, it

13:43

could be possibilities

13:44

for me. Right, right, right.

13:45

So instead I went to Indiana.

13:46

Indeed. It worked out. That's

13:48

okay, all the New York kids went to Indiana. All

13:51

those deuce bros. I got to

13:53

New

13:53

York eventually.

13:55

You did. A

13:58

lot of my friends got to New York. because it was close

14:00

enough that like most

14:03

of us who, it wasn't

14:05

super hard to reach the escape velocity

14:08

necessary to get yourself to New York from State

14:10

College, Pennsylvania. And there were like

14:12

a lot of misfits

14:14

and punk rockers and queer people and stuff

14:17

who all wanted to get there. Yeah, you

14:19

guys being close

14:19

enough could get there and know people there.

14:22

Whereas for like, growing

14:24

up in Tennessee, it was like, Yeah, it was like,

14:26

it really was a risk of either you had to get into

14:29

college there, which that was my original plan

14:31

was to go to college there, but then I couldn't bring

14:33

myself to spend the money. So.

14:36

If you're gonna move to New York, you need

14:38

good people. You need to partner with the

14:41

right kind of person, such as when you're hiring

14:43

for your business, you didn't even know

14:45

what happened. I thought you were

14:47

looking up Taylor Swift lyrics

14:48

there for a second. I was halfway

14:50

through the transition before

14:54

I got you. Well done, sir. And so like,

14:56

that's not a full got you, that's like a half got

14:58

you, but I got you.

15:00

And if you need to get somebody who has

15:02

a lot of talent and can help you in your business

15:05

the way that I tried to help Lauren and

15:07

her business in this room, where

15:09

I am officially your employee, I

15:11

believe. Technically, according

15:14

to the Articles of Corporation. Indeed, exactly.

15:16

You weren't for me. That's right, well, yeah.

15:19

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15:22

that it's gonna work out as well for you as it has for us,

15:25

but it could work out really well for you

15:27

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15:30

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16:54

we need to talk about how

16:57

Indeed, sorry, it

17:02

has been idealized. And I know

17:04

a lot of my friends from school who

17:07

went to New York got chewed

17:09

up and spit right back again. Just

17:12

spit right back Interstate 80, like

17:15

so much loogie down a straw. But

17:19

for a lot of people, and especially

17:22

for queer friends, and

17:24

people who were just different in some really

17:26

profound way, more than I felt different, and

17:30

I felt really different from other kids.

17:32

Related to that, first Taylor

17:34

Swift reference to, she

17:37

says, boys and boys and girls

17:39

and girls. Boys and boys and girls and girls. You can love who

17:41

you want in New York.

17:42

And then it's like, it is the tiniest toe

17:44

dipped into the pond of allyship.

17:46

But like,

17:47

she got grilled about it. She got grilled

17:49

about it. It seems very timid in retrospect,

17:51

but also especially remembering that she had come from Nashville.

17:55

That was like, that was her first

17:57

political statement. Yeah. So

18:00

everyone starts somewhere. You

18:02

know, it's funny. This was the same time

18:04

when,

18:06

oh, who's the really handsome country

18:08

singer who's a incredible guitar player

18:11

and does the insurance advertisements with

18:14

Peyton Manning? Oh, Brad Paisley?

18:16

Brad Paisley, yeah. Brad Paisley. So

18:18

like good guy, Brad Paisley, right? I don't know if you remember,

18:20

this is like right around the same time. He

18:23

had a song out called, Welcome to the Future.

18:26

That was like a minor, it was like a big

18:28

country hit and a minor pop crossover hit.

18:31

And it was a song about like kind

18:33

of New York, it was like, it was basically about, it was like

18:35

the, it was his version of the Welcome to New York

18:37

song. It was kind of about like growing

18:41

up and

18:43

it's not explicitly about people from

18:46

the South the way that they are. And

18:48

yes, Taylor is from Pennsylvania, but first

18:50

of all, Central Pennsylvania is the South. I thought

18:52

she was from Virginia. She's originally from Pennsylvania.

18:54

Central Pennsylvania is the South, ladies and gentlemen.

18:57

We call it Pencil Tonky for a reason. Secondly,

19:00

she like, that's where she started. And then she like kind of came

19:02

up around Nashville. Right? So anyway, okay. Anyway,

19:04

so like the subtext of those songs is

19:06

that yeah, these are people from the South and

19:08

from Southern culture who have

19:10

managed to through the power of their careers

19:13

and the power of their talents kind of break into

19:15

a bigger, more cosmopolitan world.

19:18

And they feel liberated by that. And

19:20

they wanted to sort of celebrate that, but

19:22

also celebrate that, but also kind of rather

19:24

than kind of sneer back at

19:27

everybody back home, both of these songs kind of

19:29

say, Hey, come on, it's great. You know, the water's

19:31

great. Come join us. Everybody

19:34

can be what they want to be. All kinds of

19:36

people are here getting along and it's fine.

19:39

Yeah.

19:41

And it's a very,

19:44

it is a naive sentiment, no

19:47

doubt. I'm surprised you know that song and I don't.

19:49

I'm so sorry. This

19:51

is back when I paid attention to things more than I do now.

19:54

But it's a naive sentiment, but like this is like

19:56

Taylor's talent is taking something

19:59

that like I feel. So any other songwriter

20:01

of her caliber would

20:04

dismiss as being trite. And

20:06

she thinks, no, no, no, no. This feeling

20:08

I'm having right now of being a young woman who's

20:11

living in New York for the first time and I'm really excited

20:13

about it. Yes, I know this is a super

20:15

basic feeling, but that means

20:18

a lot of people are having it or have fantasized

20:20

about having

20:21

it. Where other people see basic,

20:23

she sees

20:23

universal. Yes.

20:25

And so then, yeah,

20:27

like the sneering hipsters are like, but

20:29

everyone else is like, I know this.

20:32

I connect with this feeling. This feels real to me. Like

20:34

how many people after this song came out,

20:37

listen to it as they were heading into

20:39

the city to move into the dorms

20:41

at, you know, City College or NYU or Columbia

20:45

or wherever, you

20:47

know, and or moved

20:50

there for their first job out of college

20:52

and,

20:53

you know, legit. Or

20:56

if it wasn't New York, it was Chicago

20:59

or it was

21:01

LA or Atlanta or Houston

21:04

or, you know, or it was, you know,

21:06

it was London. And

21:11

and all you have to do to make

21:13

a really, I

21:17

think the reason the reason

21:20

you dismiss cliches is not because they're

21:22

bad or because they're used up. It's because they're too hard.

21:25

Interesting. Because in order to pull

21:27

off a cliche, you have to like stick

21:30

the landing. Yeah.

21:33

Or just see it in a

21:35

new way.

21:36

And she took a cliche and she put a

21:39

really catchy tune to

21:40

it. Yeah. And just said it

21:42

in a new way, in a slightly new way, but in a more

21:44

perfect way than anyone had said it before.

21:47

I can't believe we've spent so much time talking about Welcome

21:49

to New York, which is honestly like one of my

21:51

least

21:51

favorite things on the album. And I'm not even

21:53

I don't even think it's one of her most successful

21:56

songs, like artistically. I'm

21:58

not even sure it even actually.

22:00

succeeds in the way that we're saying that it

22:02

does. I think it almost does for sure. But

22:05

I also think that this is how she typically

22:07

succeeds, is that because

22:10

she is so damn good at

22:13

finding just the right line

22:15

to express a feeling that a lot

22:17

of people have, she

22:20

can pull off the cliche. And

22:24

people who think that she's not

22:27

good, people who still to this

22:29

day, write think pieces

22:31

in the national review or whatever about

22:33

how Taylor Swift's cultural

22:36

hegemony of the moment is an indication

22:38

of cultural decline and blah, blah, blah.

22:40

People are,

22:42

old white men are still writing that

22:45

think piece and getting paid

22:47

per word. And they're wrong,

22:50

wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Because, and

22:53

the thing that's ironic about it is that they just

22:55

can't, these guys who fancy themselves as

22:57

deep thinkers can't be bothered

22:59

to actually listen to the song and

23:02

pay attention to why millions of people

23:04

love it. It's not because it's

23:06

trite, it's because it's universal

23:09

and very good. Yes.

23:12

That said, there's things about her as

23:14

an artist that kind of frustrate me.

23:16

Sure. And, you know,

23:18

but the way

23:19

that I'm gonna

23:22

be like a better

23:25

version of masculinity than

23:27

I would have been in a prior generation

23:30

is that I'm gonna acknowledge that that's

23:32

not a problem with her, right? What

23:37

she's doing

23:38

is working. Like, if anybody was curious

23:40

what working looks like,

23:44

it's

23:47

like Taylor Swift's last nine months, you

23:50

know? Yeah. Like,

23:52

holy crap.

23:55

To think that she has been doing the areas to her,

23:58

all of that.

23:59

And at the same time that she has been doing

24:02

this rerecord project, which we haven't

24:04

even talked about

24:05

the enormous work involved

24:08

in rerecording an album as Technically

24:10

sophisticated as really any of her albums, but

24:12

this one You and I have talked about

24:14

how like the albums she's rerecorded

24:16

up to this point have been more country So

24:19

they have been more

24:20

easy to reproduce Yeah, because people play

24:22

the instruments. A mandolin is a mandolin is a mandolin

24:24

like you just get it in front of a microphone That's

24:27

you know, but

24:27

this was her most Electronic

24:30

like she did it with Jack Antonoff.

24:31

Yeah of bleachers and fun

24:33

and as someone who has spent a lot of time

24:37

at August institutions

24:40

in Labs sponsored

24:42

by people with fancy names as

24:44

someone who spent a lot of time making

24:47

bleep blorpy sounds in a

24:49

computer. Yeah, you know and trying

24:51

to find a new and interesting bleep or blorp,

24:53

right like The way that

24:55

you get the most interesting bleeps and blorps is

24:58

by just like You just

25:00

like fiddle fiddle and and the eye

25:03

Being able to the eye the notion of being able to recreate

25:06

that is ridiculous It's well

25:07

and especially when you consider hold

25:09

on. Hello. Yes

25:13

What time is it as

25:16

soon as we're done with this year we're gonna have dinner yeah,

25:18

then you can have a cookie, okay

25:21

All right

25:22

All right, we'll be done in a little bit. Okay All

25:25

right anyway Well,

25:29

especially like when you consider that

25:32

how much that this out the original is

25:34

nine years ago Yeah, the technology

25:36

the programs they're using the computers

25:38

are different indeed Yeah, so the settings that

25:40

they use to make the original 1989 might not even exist

25:42

anymore

25:44

and it's the kind of thing where they

25:46

can't

25:48

The Legality of using individual

25:51

Samples and such that a guy like Jack Antonoff

25:53

might fabricate for the purposes of producing

25:56

a Taylor Swift track I'm not quite

25:58

sure what the lawyers told them about what

26:00

they could use.

26:01

So, yeah, they may have started fresh trying

26:03

to recave. And it does sound, and as

26:05

a result, I think this is the album that sounds

26:07

the most different of all of the re-records.

26:10

Right. And there are hard

26:12

chords to, okay.

26:13

From,

26:15

on a scale of one to 10, one

26:18

being I like some Taylor songs, and 10 being

26:21

I decode all the Easter eggs professionally on the internet.

26:24

I'm probably like a four, four or five

26:26

on the safety scale.

26:28

Oh, the scale just goes so high.

26:30

The hardcore, there are hardcore Swifties

26:32

who are like, it's different, I don't

26:34

like it. I mean, her voice has

26:37

changed in nine years. She's definitely

26:39

embracing the Alto. It's

26:42

older. She always was an Alto, right? Yeah,

26:44

but she,

26:45

I saw somebody on the internet, and I wish I could

26:47

credit them for this, saying that because

26:49

this was her first pop record, and because

26:52

pop singers are often main

26:55

character sopranos, she was being

26:57

much more, she was going higher,

27:00

and while

27:00

she- And also sort of going

27:02

for these kind of self-consciously, I think

27:04

girlish

27:05

tones. Yeah, and I, well,

27:07

I think she hits the high notes better now, but also

27:09

when she goes into her low register, it's really

27:12

resonant now. Yeah. I

27:14

think it's nice. Womanly. And so,

27:16

yeah, it sounds different. I think there are people

27:18

who are mad about that. There

27:21

are people who are mad if you say it sounds different.

27:23

These are the kind of people who like, one

27:27

of my videos recently, somebody

27:29

commented on how I looked a little

27:31

older,

27:32

and someone said, yeah. Time marches

27:34

on, asshole. No, someone said, it's true, our

27:36

millennials are aging. And

27:39

then I said that to you, and you said, yeah, time marches

27:42

on, asshole. The bell

27:44

tolls.

27:44

Yeah. They're good for

27:46

the grace of God, people.

27:49

It's all happening at the exact

27:51

same rate. Old is the goal. For

27:54

all of us. Yeah. Same

27:56

night awaits us all, motherfucker.

27:58

Well, so do you think, are there any other? of the

28:00

original tracks you want to talk about or do you

28:02

want okay

28:03

here's well I wanted to sort of talk about her

28:06

her voice a little bit more okay I mean

28:08

she's someone who one

28:10

of the many reasons why she was unduly

28:14

dismissed by the intelligentsia

28:16

earlier on in her reign is

28:18

that she's not a

28:21

great singer she's not and she would

28:23

never call herself yeah like

28:24

well and she even references that in

28:27

one of the songs off of speak

28:30

now

28:30

mean yes about

28:32

how like her it's specifically

28:34

about a critic who often wrote about how she couldn't say

28:36

couldn't saying exactly and by the way

28:38

that's the mean that's the first song that I heard of

28:40

hers where I was like oh wow that's that's a very good

28:42

song that's whoever

28:43

no you're thinking of mine is that the one

28:46

made her a bowl of the careless man's careful daughter

28:49

I mean yeah someday

28:50

someday I'll be living in

28:52

a single city like yeah

28:55

yeah yeah no that's that's that's a

28:57

song classic I

29:00

was like I heard that that's the one that's yeah

29:03

I heard that I was like that's a that's a like a pop standard

29:05

going forward instantly you know yeah

29:08

but anyway so

29:10

she

29:11

she's not a great singer but the thing is

29:13

that it's like when we talk about male

29:16

great male songwriters when

29:18

do we ever demand that they be great singers

29:21

we only ever demand that they be competent singers

29:24

yeah and sometimes we let them get away

29:26

with being Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan you

29:30

know oh god like

29:32

you know like

29:34

and like and the level of like

29:36

it's like and Taylor Taylor is only a bad

29:39

a bad singer in the sense that you compare her

29:41

to someone like or like

29:43

somebody voicey you know yeah

29:45

yeah who's big who's big right now with

29:47

a really great voice Ariana Grande

29:50

or who

29:54

the the Albanian Alto

29:59

What?

30:01

Dua Lipa, Dua Lipa, yeah. Oh,

30:04

right. Who isn't even a very acrobatic singer,

30:06

but just tambourine, wow, what a voice.

30:09

Or like Katy Perry, tambourine, wow,

30:11

what a voice, even if not the most acrobatic. And

30:14

then there's also incredibly acrobatic singers. Like

30:16

Christine Aguilera. Yeah, yeah. And she

30:18

is none of those, but as singer-songwriters

30:21

go, great songwriters go, as great

30:23

songwriters go, she's up there

30:26

with like John Lennon and like, and Paul

30:28

McCartney and like, you know, her voice

30:30

is that good. Yeah, yeah.

30:31

You know, it's just, you know, but

30:34

when John Lennon would sing,

30:36

you know, so basically, when there

30:38

was an incident when Taylor was on the, I

30:41

think it was the Grammys or something, and

30:43

she sang the

30:45

Stevie Nicks

30:48

song, Rhiannon, is that

30:51

how you say that name? Yeah. And

30:53

which has a really tricky vocal line in

30:55

it that, and

30:58

she sang it, she didn't do so

31:00

well, because maybe she was like a child

31:02

on live television in front of millions

31:05

of people, right? And also, that's a

31:07

hard song to sing, you know, as a lot

31:09

of karaoke people have found out, you

31:11

know, that is a surprisingly hard

31:13

song to sing, you know, and people made

31:15

like mincemeat out of her. And it's like

31:18

when John Lennon would sing flat,

31:20

it's like,

31:20

oh, the emotion, the

31:23

rawness. He's so taken away

31:25

by the melody. Yeah, exactly. You know,

31:28

he's a musician from the street, you know, he's

31:31

not schooled like you. You know

31:33

John

31:33

Lennon can't read music, right? Exactly,

31:35

that's right.

31:37

Jesus

31:39

Christ.

31:41

So can we talk about the singles? Sure. Okay,

31:44

so...

31:44

If you hold your microphone a little bit like more...

31:47

Sorry, sorry. There you go. It's

31:49

getting so heavy. It's so heavy. It's so heavy.

31:51

Adam wanted to go handheld, I'm like, these things weigh

31:53

a lot. Okay. Ooh,

31:56

this is actually kind of nice.

31:57

Is that what Taylor would say?

31:59

use a lighter fucking microphone.

32:01

She'd be like, you know what, this microphone is too heavy. Bring

32:04

to me a lighter microphone.

32:04

I know that. But I am not Taylor

32:07

Swift, so I have to use this heavy microphone.

32:10

An assistant on wings would descend.

32:13

Yes. They would be like, Madam,

32:15

here is your, and she would say thank you.

32:17

And then give them a giant bonus. She

32:19

would know exactly, she would know their names. She

32:22

would know the names of their kids. Because,

32:24

ugh. Okay, so I. She would have perfection.

32:27

I think Taylor has always been really terrible

32:29

at picking singles. As

32:32

evidenced by the fact that the lead single, Office,

32:35

I don't know if Welcome to New York was the lead.

32:36

It's the first one that I remember. But, Shake

32:38

It Off.

32:39

Shake It Off, yeah.

32:41

Which is a fine song. It's like, it's

32:43

a fun party song, but that

32:45

one

32:46

leans more towards the trite. Yes.

32:49

When You Had, When Out of the Woods was right

32:52

fucking there. When Wildest Dreams

32:54

was there. When Style was there. But

32:56

honestly, Wildest, or Out of the Woods should

32:59

have been the single. I think she picks, I

33:01

think she gets nervous and picks the song

33:03

that sounds most fun and

33:06

pleasing to the masses instead

33:08

of the song that obviously

33:10

everyone is gonna be scream singing with. Well,

33:14

I think that maybe you don't give her enough credit.

33:17

But, probably. In knowing, and, like

33:19

she writes, when she writes, when someone

33:21

like that writes a song, like Shake It Off, she

33:24

knows exactly what she is doing. And

33:26

when she puts it as a single, she knows exactly what

33:28

she is doing. And it had the exact desired effect.

33:31

Right, and everyone's like this. It was a gigantic smash. Right,

33:33

and it's

33:34

a smash and all of that because people think it's fun.

33:36

Permanent

33:36

weddings and dances and anywhere

33:39

gay people are for. But

33:41

even then, like,

33:42

if you,

33:45

nobody wants, when they see Taylor

33:47

Swift, nobody wants to hear Shake It Off.

33:49

Nope, no. No, nobody wants to hear her sing that.

33:51

Nobody, please.

33:53

That is at the bottom of the

33:55

list of songs they want to hear. Let's go on TikTok right

33:57

now. And look at videos

33:59

from the stand. where there's tween

34:01

girls.

34:02

No, I'm telling you, you are wrong about

34:04

this. You are absolutely wrong. I

34:06

accept that. They wanna hear, in

34:09

the eras set for 1989,

34:13

people are very mad that Out

34:15

of the Woods is not part of that. People

34:18

wanna hear Wildest Dreams, people wanna hear Style.

34:21

I think, you know, yeah. People

34:26

don't really like Bad Blood, but I do. Anyway.

34:30

Style, I, so

34:33

I,

34:35

I took the kids out of the house the other

34:38

day.

34:39

As you often do.

34:40

Don't make it sound like it. But I did it

34:42

specifically this time because I needed to

34:44

get away from Taylor Swift. So like we, we

34:47

bought this, you bought this record. Yes.

34:50

What's the, are the awesome local record store that you found?

34:52

Lost and Found Records. Lost and Found Records in Knoxville, Tennessee,

34:55

Rad Store. It's a great, great record

34:58

store. And so,

35:00

you noticed, is it on their social media? You

35:03

saw them unboxing this and you were like, I'm gonna go buy

35:05

that.

35:05

Yeah, they do a video on Instagram

35:07

of their new arrivals and it's just like they flip through

35:09

everything, either the new stuff or also stuff

35:12

they bought from somebody that's interesting.

35:14

And they showed the 1989 record and

35:17

I had been excited about this. So I obviously

35:19

fired up on Spotify, but like that's

35:21

not fun to celebrate a release day by just like

35:24

hitting a button on your phone. And I was like, you know what?

35:26

I wanna buy this thing. I want the object. Freaking

35:28

textbook case of how

35:30

you run a brick and mortar

35:33

media business today.

35:36

You know, if you can do it and these guys

35:38

are doing it, like it's by doing

35:40

stuff like that.

35:41

Yeah, and so I went and I bought the record and

35:44

so you had, oh, you were taking the kid to violin

35:47

and he was like, and as soon as you got in the car, he was like, can

35:49

we listen to Taylor Swift?

35:51

Yes, and I was like, Jesus. Please

35:54

no. But yes, so I put it on anything.

35:57

No, I mean, so especially with what.

36:01

We have one of them who

36:06

is really being,

36:08

in the way he is developing, is developing in

36:10

a very stereotypically boyish

36:12

way, right? In a way that like,

36:15

you know, is just sort of remarkable.

36:17

And it's like, and it's sort of, I think speaks

36:19

to, because that's

36:22

not, he's not getting that from us, you know?

36:24

It's like, if coming from somewhere powerful,

36:27

you know? And it's been interesting to watch. But

36:30

anyway, so when that one especially

36:32

wants to listen to a female

36:34

singer, or watch the Barbie movie, or

36:36

something like that, I say yes.

36:38

The little one, when I asked him what records he wanted

36:40

to get, he said Twisted Sister. But

36:42

he also...

36:43

Which is pretty awesome.

36:44

I love taking him into the record store and being like,

36:47

tell the man what you're looking for.

36:48

Do the voice, do the voice.

36:50

I want Twisted Sister.

36:54

My proudest moment is apparent.

36:55

But he also wants to listen to Taylor

36:58

Swift, because he enjoys it.

36:59

So that's why I grudgingly said, yes,

37:01

I'll put on 1989. He

37:04

asked for 1989. Yeah. Taylor's

37:07

version. So I put it on and I'm listening to

37:09

it, and it gets to Style, which

37:12

is a song that is about Harry Styles,

37:14

right? Well,

37:15

there's some debate, but probably

37:17

about Harry Styles.

37:19

And

37:21

I've never liked that song.

37:24

Ugh. You don't like it because she calls herself

37:27

pretty in it. I've

37:29

got the red, the magic

37:32

thing that you like. Anyway.

37:33

So here's the reason. I've actually interrogated

37:36

my feelings on this, and I think it's actually a little

37:38

bit different than what you would expect. Okay. Because

37:40

it's different than what I expected. But I actually think this is true. Okay,

37:43

let's hear it. I find that song

37:45

to be exclusionary of non-gorgeous

37:48

people. Oh, jeez. Maybe

37:53

that's what I like it. I thought you said

37:55

you love it and I as a mere mortal.

38:00

Like this song that's just

38:02

about two really hot people

38:05

celebrating how unbelievably

38:07

hot they are together. There

38:09

is someone in the comments right now unironically

38:11

typing, Lauren's not hot. And

38:13

you know what to

38:14

that person? Double deuces to you, sir. I say, get

38:16

fucked. I

38:17

like myself. You can't.

38:19

So we know. Anyway.

38:20

Anyways. I love the

38:22

imagery of

38:24

it. I think it's fantastic.

38:26

I think it's fun.

38:28

What caught my attention this time,

38:30

and that's a good dumb hang up for that's a

38:33

dumb reason for me to not like that song. Right.

38:36

That's not a problem. That's not a problem with the song. That's

38:38

not a Taylor problem. That's an Adam problem.

38:40

Okay. But what caught my attention. I was listening to the rerecord

38:43

was the first has

38:45

got the feel. You

38:47

know, it's a, it's very much like a full

38:49

live band and it's got

38:52

this like great 70s feel

38:54

to it. Oh yeah. It's

38:57

just wind in your hair and

38:59

it feels like driving your Camaro

39:02

and your aviators. It feels like

39:04

boys of summer. Oh hell yeah.

39:06

It really does. It's always a summer. Yeah.

39:09

Yeah. It doesn't sound like it. It

39:11

feels like it. It feels like it. I

39:13

love boys of summer. The same windbreaker and sunglasses

39:16

would be applied to either song. Yeah.

39:20

Right. And in her. And so anyway,

39:22

so I think I remembered that I always

39:24

liked that verse and that groove and

39:27

I'm ashamed that I first noticed it

39:29

when what's his name? Hipster Mccountry

39:32

abuser covered it. Oh,

39:35

Ryan Adams. Ryan Adams. Yeah. For

39:38

reasons that pass understand. I know, but I remember he was

39:41

on like a late night television show that was on in the

39:43

background and he played style.

39:45

Yeah. And I remember that whoa, that versus

39:48

that group is hot. Like, but

39:50

he didn't do anything new to it. And he just played it as,

39:53

as, as written, you know? But

39:55

anyway, and I heard that now with her older

39:58

womanly voice.

39:59

Yeah, and she's like putting a little

40:02

like

40:03

almost kind of stereotypically

40:05

kind of male 60s

40:08

70s soul singer kind of sex

40:10

on that performance and

40:13

that got my attention Adam

40:15

that got my attention. I

40:18

will admit to you

40:19

He to the point where he texted me and

40:21

said I think I like style now

40:24

and I said Welcome

40:28

to the circus. We're all clowns here She

40:32

talked about the vault tracks sure. Okay.

40:34

So for anyone who's Unversed

40:37

how could you be but all the

40:39

rerecords come with what are called

40:41

vault tracks? Which are songs

40:44

that she wrote to some

40:46

degree or another? At

40:48

the time of the recording of the original album

40:50

that he

40:50

sketched out Biss some of them

40:53

you got

40:53

further than others but for whatever

40:56

reason they did not make the album

40:58

and so she has Produced them

41:00

to completion obviously as

41:02

part of the rerecords. This

41:05

one has one two three

41:07

four five Fault

41:09

tracks if you get the deluxe

41:12

version. It also has an extra version of bad

41:14

blood with

41:18

Yeah So

41:22

Do you do you have any interest in any

41:24

of the vault tracks? I? Mean

41:27

the most famous of all the vault tracks is obviously

41:29

shoulda woulda coulda wrong coulda woulda

41:31

shoulda wrong Shoulda woulda coulda woulda shoulda

41:33

wrong. That's not a vault track coulda woulda shoulda wrong

41:35

That's that is a bonus

41:37

track on bone. We just not a rerecord.

41:40

Okay, it doesn't count It's

41:41

just noteworthy because it's like maybe her

41:43

best song ever and the notice that the notion

41:45

that it was a bonus track is kind Of is

41:48

just yes interesting thing But the

41:50

most famous of all vault tracks is obviously the

41:52

10-minute version of all too well

41:55

right That she

41:57

performs at the arrows to her

41:59

song about John Mayer? Jake

42:01

Gyllenhaal. Jake Gyllenhaal, yes. Okay.

42:04

Allegedly. Allegedly. Alma,

42:10

I believe the supposition

42:12

is that all of these vault tracks are about Harry Styles,

42:15

which is especially interesting

42:17

for the last one, Is It Over Now, where

42:20

she calls him a heartless

42:23

traitor, I think.

42:24

Dang. And

42:26

Patil- You had a microphone in front of your face. Is

42:29

it- No, no, no. Here. You gotta get more in

42:31

front of your face. I thought you wanted over here so

42:33

they could see my face. No, no, no. I

42:36

do want them to see your face, but this is an audio

42:38

program. Sorry. I'm

42:39

sorry. This is why handheld is bad. My

42:41

hand hurts and I'm not even holding it correctly. I

42:45

don't know if you've listened to enough of the vault

42:47

tracks to have opinions on them.

42:49

I would like- I have thoughts on her

42:52

vault tracks in general. Yeah.

42:55

Which is, you know, they are in general

42:57

pretty extraordinary. Yeah.

43:00

Now that is in part because, I mean,

43:03

maybe it's a self-protection

43:05

mechanism for me to believe

43:07

that it's a more mature, skilled

43:10

adult version of her that's really sprucing

43:12

up and finishing these songs and not

43:15

that the younger version of her was really so

43:17

genius as to write a song like that and then to

43:19

leave it on the cutting room floor. As a self-protection

43:22

mechanism, I like to believe that it's- Yeah, you're

43:24

wrong. Oh, shit.

43:25

Well, it's interesting because the chatter

43:27

online amongst people who don't like the vault tracks, they're

43:29

like, oh, they don't sound like 1989. They sound like midnights.

43:32

And I'm like, well, yeah, she finished them as an adult.

43:35

Right. Yeah, sure. And you and I were talking about how they're

43:38

relics of her younger self, but

43:41

with her adult present

43:43

self authorial

43:45

voice. Voice, yeah.

43:46

And I just think that must be kind

43:48

of a mindfuck. I mean, I am

43:50

not- I

43:52

know you are not strong enough to

43:54

go into your personal archives

43:57

and journals or whatever and pull

43:59

out stuff that- you wrote 20

44:01

years ago and be like, hmm, this

44:03

is good. Let's share it

44:05

with the world. I

44:07

don't even want to look at my old journals,

44:10

much less publish them. So

44:12

yeah, that's pretty

44:15

daring. That

44:18

shows a very strong sense of self.

44:19

Yes, it does.

44:22

And forgive me for bringing it back to this, but

44:25

maybe this is a good place to sort of wrap it

44:27

up. Sure.

44:28

Because I think it's how I engage with Taylor

44:30

and it's how I imagine these

44:32

seven people who are still listening.

44:35

Most of them probably engage with Taylor because my audience

44:38

is overwhelmingly young and male

44:40

and because they're like mine, they're

44:43

probably like a bunch of know-it-alls, right? Well,

44:45

hopefully we have convinced

44:47

them to go sit down with their internet

44:49

machine and listen to some tracks.

44:51

So one reason why, like,

44:54

you know, A-holes like

44:56

us boys, one reason why

44:58

a lot of us still tend to dismiss Taylor

45:00

Swift is that they'll say like, oh, well,

45:03

she's not like

45:06

a sole proprietor.

45:09

There's a lot of sort of in dude

45:11

music, there's a lot of stock

45:16

put in the value of an artist being

45:20

like Dave Grohl doing it entirely.

45:22

Like a one-man band. In his basement, yeah. Right.

45:25

Recording all the tracks. That's the thing

45:27

that John Mayer does now and talks about

45:29

like going off into the studio by himself.

45:31

By himself and blah, blah, blah,

45:33

blah, blah, blah. And I say this

45:35

as by the way, like someone who.

45:37

Does not collaborate.

45:39

Does not collaborate. And

45:41

by the way, like, you know, and anyone,

45:44

you know, like there's a reason I'm not

45:46

a famous musician.

45:47

I had game, okay, I

45:50

have some game left. I'm

45:52

someone who can walk into like a

45:55

studio and like lay down all the tracks

45:57

and like, you know, produce a song that's like, okay.

46:00

And

46:01

I'm

46:02

over that as being a thing

46:04

that we value.

46:06

And also,

46:07

think of all of the

46:10

male auteurs, male musical

46:12

auteurs who we

46:14

just revere

46:17

as gods

46:18

who collaborated with session

46:21

musicians and producers and blah,

46:23

blah, blah, blah. Everyone from

46:26

people who really were auteurs like

46:28

Brian Wilson who would go in there and really

46:30

be the director of the film.

46:34

But still, he didn't play a single

46:36

note on Pet Sounds. He

46:38

sang, but he didn't play a note.

46:44

The Beatles were collaborating with

46:46

all kinds of people at the end. Exactly, all kinds of

46:49

great. Say nothing of George Martin.

46:50

Sure, or just

46:54

to make it circular, we're talking of Boys of Summer. Yeah.

46:58

Don Henley, a song that, that's

47:00

a song that was written, the entire

47:02

music for that song was written by Mike Campbell

47:04

from The Heartbreakers, offered

47:07

to Tom Petty who for

47:09

some reason, maybe he got stabbed

47:11

in the ear that day, turned

47:13

it down and was just like, and

47:15

then like, Don Henley heard it and was like, okay,

47:18

well, that's gonna be a hit if I

47:20

can do my job right today. And he did. And

47:23

his contributions to that song should not be minimized.

47:26

Don Henley wrote the melody and the words and,

47:29

and sang it and that belty, high tenor,

47:32

seventies tenor, Jesus. He

47:35

showed up to work that day. He did, okay.

47:38

But like,

47:39

he had a lot of help on that, okay. And

47:41

no one like doesn't, no one questions

47:43

Don Henley being like a real musician.

47:45

I would also stipulate, and you and I have talked

47:47

about this, I like John Mayer,

47:50

you don't. True. But

47:52

you have argued that you would like John

47:55

Mayer more if he collaborated

47:57

and had people editing him. Yeah.

48:01

So. Hold on, I'm just checking the time. Oh,

48:03

we're good. Yeah,

48:06

truth. So I think there's

48:06

plenty of musicians out there who had

48:08

they collaborated, there could have been even better.

48:10

Right, right. So she's

48:12

someone who like has, she

48:15

could absolutely run in there and just track

48:17

the whole thing herself, okay? She could.

48:20

She chooses not to, because that's not a good use of her

48:22

time. She can, she's much better

48:24

off being a pop star, you know,

48:27

in her spare time. And letting Jack Antonoff

48:30

fiddle with the computer, you know? Who

48:32

wants to see Jack Antonoff at a

48:34

football game? Love

48:38

you, Jack, but I feel

48:40

like

48:40

you'd agree with me. Well, I

48:42

think you're

48:44

discounting the amount of time she

48:46

spends in the studio

48:47

working on the songs with him. No

48:49

doubt, absolutely. She's a studio

48:51

rat too, no doubt, okay?

48:54

But I also think, I can't imagine that

48:56

she has been there for

49:00

every minute of the production

49:02

necessary of reassembling these albums

49:05

while she's been also doing the areas tour.

49:08

She has to be delegating. And this

49:10

is not someone who does that out of weakness. This

49:13

is someone who does that because she's a strong manager,

49:15

right? And she chooses, and

49:17

she like collaborates, she chooses good employees.

49:20

And like, you know, everything she

49:22

does, she does correctly. So there's that

49:25

thing that I think is one reason why

49:27

I think idiots,

49:29

idiot boys like us, discount her and we shouldn't.

49:32

Here's one where I kind of feel like

49:36

maybe us idiot asshole arrogant

49:38

boys have

49:40

not a point,

49:41

but a function, a

49:43

legitimate function. All right, let's hear

49:45

it. It's like when there's like animals

49:48

in the ecosystem and you're just like, oh God,

49:50

fuck mosquitoes. Like they just fuck

49:53

them. But you know what, bats are hungry,

49:55

okay? And so mosquitoes have

49:57

to exist, right? So there's like a thing

49:59

that like.

49:59

the

50:01

asshole smarty pants dude. Okay.

50:05

You know, visible a character

50:07

as he may be. As much as we'd love to exterminate

50:10

him. Noted. Let's hear the argument.

50:12

Okay, so I think that I feel

50:15

like Taylor Swift

50:18

actually has stalled a bit

50:20

artistically. I

50:23

think that someone of her ability, I

50:29

think if she, let

50:30

me put it this way. I think a male artist

50:32

of her ability

50:34

would have felt the social pressure

50:37

to be more

50:40

musically and intellectually

50:43

adventurous and ambitious than

50:45

she has been.

50:47

Are you ready for me to tell you why I think that you're

50:49

wrong? Yeah. Okay.

50:52

So the common knock on Taylor

50:54

Swift for years was she just

50:56

dates guys and then writes songs about

50:58

them. She writes 90 songs about them. She writes

51:01

tea spilling songs about her. It's all

51:03

just about the guys, right? Yeah, for

51:05

sure. That was, that was,

51:08

you know. And even if it was true, like

51:10

how many,

51:12

every Leonard Cohen song is about

51:15

a girl.

51:15

Yes. Jesus. And

51:18

then, you know, then she wrote Reputation,

51:20

which was about all of that.

51:23

And then everyone was like, well, she's just complaining. And

51:25

we don't like the new style. Anyway, then

51:28

she did Lover, which was very pop.

51:31

And then the pandemic happened and

51:33

she was locked in her house as

51:36

we all were. And she produced what I

51:38

think are the two best Taylor Swift albums,

51:40

Folklore and Evermore, mostly because I

51:43

am a folkie and they speak to me. I

51:45

love acoustic shit. But

51:48

those are songs where I think she really went

51:50

in new directions with her songwriting. She did

51:53

a bunch of story songs, which were new for her.

51:55

She did a bunch of interconnecting

51:57

where she created characters and then wrote songs

51:59

from

51:59

different perspectives. She wrote

52:02

a song based on history. I think she

52:04

wrote Epiphany, which I think

52:07

blends like history and

52:09

the modern in a way that is so emotional.

52:11

I still can't listen to that song without crying.

52:14

I think she, and you know, she has really

52:16

reinvented herself in different ways than Midnight's came

52:18

along and she kind of latched

52:21

on to sort of the Kate Bush nostalgia,

52:24

I think, and did a lot of that sort

52:26

of 80s interesting thing. Do

52:28

you think that maybe she,

52:30

because Kate Bush

52:32

is sort of an early example

52:35

of a female

52:36

artist who

52:39

was kind of like a beautiful pop

52:42

star who danced around and looked beautiful in

52:44

her videos, but also fully

52:46

produced her own songs with her own keyboards

52:49

in her own studio and was

52:51

her studio rat, you know,

52:53

made all of herself soup to nuts

52:55

and was she sort of trying to

52:59

try to get everyone

53:01

to see her as the Kate Bush that she is? No.

53:03

I mean, she's honestly far more talented

53:05

than Kate Bush. I think she's just very good at trying

53:07

new things and reinventing

53:09

herself and, you know, Madonna reinvented

53:12

herself in ways that were really visually dramatic.

53:15

And I think Taylor just keeps

53:17

kind of putting new things on her plate.

53:20

And so she's always eating some of the same

53:22

things, but she's trying new foods at the same time.

53:24

No

53:25

doubt. The artistic

53:27

growth that you describe over the course of those albums

53:30

happened a hundred percent. And

53:32

I like it. And there's lots of songs there that I really

53:35

like. And a song like Snow

53:37

on the Beach on Midnight

53:39

is a song where she

53:41

actually pushed herself into some

53:43

new musical territory using some interesting

53:45

chords that are not so stock.

53:48

Yeah. This is where I wish we could play stuff because

53:50

I would love to hear you explain the chords. Yeah.

53:52

Well, that's that's good. Go watch Rick. Rick

53:55

Beato. You know, hey, Rick,

53:56

I'm going to text you after this. You

53:58

should do a wide

53:59

the song is great about snow on the beach. Cool

54:02

harmonies in that one. Anywho, so one

54:05

of the things that a guy like Rick

54:07

talks a lot about and an asshole like me

54:09

thinks a lot about, smarmily to myself

54:12

as I listen to the radio,

54:15

is how music

54:17

has in many ways gotten more complex

54:20

in this era, but in several

54:22

dimensions it has actually gotten much simpler. The

54:25

biggest one being harmonically, the chords.

54:29

Even sort of pop songs, top 40 pop

54:31

songs just a couple of decades ago just

54:33

used to have a much broader harmonic vocabulary.

54:37

And I

54:39

think, and Rick just bemoans this

54:41

all the time, and I think one thing that I would

54:43

love, that I have said to you Rick privately,

54:45

and maybe we'll have this debate out publicly

54:48

one day, is that I

54:50

think that's sort of a falsely

54:52

declinist attitude. I think that

54:54

part of what's happened is that just great

54:56

songwriters, people who are very good

54:59

at writing songs that lots and lots of people

55:01

will like, have simply learned

55:04

through experimentation and empiricism

55:06

and all of that, that there are certain

55:08

chord progressions

55:09

that work. Like

55:11

the axis progression, which Google that

55:13

one, if you, that's the one that's

55:16

with or without you and 80 million other songs

55:18

you've heard is the same. Max

55:22

Martin, that producer in Sweden,

55:25

80 million songs that you'll know and love, he

55:28

calls it sort of melodic math. He's worked out

55:30

sort of basically very simple little algorithms

55:32

for these are the chord progressions

55:35

that make hits. And I

55:37

think to a great extent, Taylor,

55:41

at least on some level, probably

55:44

on every level just knows

55:46

that. On the other

55:48

hand, I feel that someone of

55:51

her ability should

55:53

be writing songs where the chords

55:55

don't always change on the one.

55:57

So, you know what I think?

55:58

Every single time the chord.

55:59

just changes on the one, the last, the whole bar,

56:02

and you're gonna have four changes like that, and

56:04

it's just like, well, someone of

56:07

her ability should just,

56:09

should feel, it would,

56:12

I, as a listener,

56:14

would like it if she felt more pressure

56:18

to explore

56:20

more difficult

56:22

territory, both musically and

56:24

to a certain extent lyrically too.

56:26

I think, I mean, or I think, maybe,

56:29

I think topically, maybe. Okay. Because

56:32

I think as a lyricist, you can't, she's unimpeachable,

56:34

like, she, what she does, she does perfectly.

56:36

I think what's interesting,

56:38

and so the

56:40

songs that you have listened to that you think are

56:42

more interesting of hers, I think a lot of

56:44

them are the ones that are with Aaron Desner

56:47

of the National, who,

56:50

his music is more like that, and also

56:52

some of the songs were orchestrated by his brother, who is

56:56

a classical dude. Oh, dude,

56:57

doing all the string stuff. Oh, yeah. Yeah,

57:00

Bryce Desner, and so, again,

57:01

she, I think it's one of those

57:04

things where she's like, I'm gonna bring in these other people who do

57:06

that well.

57:06

Right, yeah.

57:07

And he also produced

57:10

Koda Wooda Shida, I think that's the title. Wooda

57:12

Koda, some permutation thereof. Which

57:14

is

57:14

one of the bonus tracks on Midnight, and,

57:17

I mean, he's even said,

57:20

when he performed it with her there, I think this

57:22

is the best song we've ever done. And

57:25

that's a song that has many phases

57:28

and builds in interesting ways. It's not just

57:30

verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, it's got multiple,

57:34

it's got a beginning chorus, I don't know what you call

57:36

that, multiple choruses.

57:38

Pre-chorus. Pre-chorus, yeah, it's

57:40

got the pre-chorus of the chorus, it's got like-

57:42

A very lengthy bridge.

57:44

Yeah, that has multiple phases to

57:46

it. I'm not saying it's

57:48

progra- I'm saying it's sort

57:50

of as the shape of progra- No,

57:53

no, no, it's progressive

57:56

in the sense that it

57:58

uses structure. to create

58:01

forward momentum in the song. Which

58:03

is what a lot of bad or

58:06

mediocre pop songs struggle with where

58:08

they sound circular. Where it's just

58:10

kind of like, oh the verse to the chorus and then

58:12

I've heard the whole song. It's just gonna like loop,

58:15

right? Whereas like a

58:17

song like Koda woulda whatever, uses

58:21

sections to create an overall

58:23

forward momentum, an overall

58:26

arc to the song that keeps

58:28

you listening as you go through the whole thing.

58:32

It is a little bit more what they might call

58:34

through composed in the classical music

58:36

world. Where instead of writing a loop,

58:38

you're writing a line. You know,

58:40

a thing that

58:43

got something that meanders and trails around and goes

58:45

somewhere instead of marching around in a circle,

58:47

you know. But

58:51

so I guess on the one hand there, I'm embarrassed

58:53

that like

58:56

I am on some level proud of myself

59:00

to be such a feminist that I can see

59:02

the genius in Taylor Swift, right? I

59:04

know that on some level. Yes, you've got your cookies. It's self

59:06

congratulatory for me to even have this conversation,

59:09

right? And that's kind of nauseating, right? So

59:11

on one level, I know that's what's

59:13

going on here and so therefore I am injured

59:16

when you tell me that this thing that I thought I liked

59:19

that was Taylor's might've been by some fucking

59:21

hipster dude. Like he, that

59:23

was his contribution is what's like really speaking

59:25

to this other hipster dude. Yeah, because

59:27

she wrote that song. Of course she did. And so here's

59:29

this one, but like I came up with a counter argument

59:32

to my own argument and I feel like this

59:34

is maybe like a good thing to end on, right? Sure. Because

59:36

like you want to talk about like male

59:39

songwriters who are worshiped by other

59:42

men, okay, by smart men, white

59:45

men who fancy themselves the smartest

59:48

men of all worship this

59:50

fucking songwriter, okay, as being

59:52

the best of the best, right? Talking

59:54

about Paul Simon, okay? You

59:56

and I both love Paul Simon. We

59:59

love, like. Paul Simon is a deeply

1:00:02

meaningful artist to both of us. Yes. Okay.

1:00:04

We both hate him in many ways. We

1:00:07

think

1:00:07

he is in many ways an objectionable human,

1:00:09

but a genius.

1:00:10

And an objectionable artist. There's lots of things about his

1:00:12

art that I think- Yeah,

1:00:13

all that Rhythm of the Saint stuff.

1:00:15

My favorite album, but there's

1:00:17

lots of things I hate about it. But anyways, you know,

1:00:21

anyways, okay. So this is not a knock on

1:00:23

Paul Simon, okay?

1:00:26

Paul Simon is like someone who

1:00:28

dudes like me would sort of describe

1:00:31

under the kind of auteur theory of musicians,

1:00:33

right? Yeah. Okay. That's a man who's

1:00:36

in control, right? Mm-hmm. Um,

1:00:40

you want to talk about a guy who

1:00:42

relied on his collaborators.

1:00:45

Yes. Okay. And the

1:00:47

reason you don't think of his collaborators is one of the

1:00:49

reasons why he's an objectionable

1:00:50

human. Okay, so the most obvious example

1:00:53

of this is the Graceland

1:00:56

incident where Paul

1:00:59

took a trip to South Africa because he heard some South

1:01:01

African music

1:01:03

and was understandably excited

1:01:05

by it because it was amazing. And

1:01:08

he like, you know, invited a bunch

1:01:10

of just like all- he had some fixer

1:01:13

in South Africa. Like a murderers

1:01:15

row of music. Yeah, a murderers row, all of

1:01:17

the hottest players in Johannesburg or whatever, like

1:01:19

in the theme studio. And

1:01:21

Paul- and they just, you know, Paul said, hey,

1:01:23

let's jam. And

1:01:26

which is like code for- You

1:01:28

play your best lick. You play your best lick and

1:01:30

I will record you as though

1:01:32

I

1:01:33

am an-

1:01:34

as though I am an ethnomusicologist

1:01:37

pointing a microphone at a primitive

1:01:39

tribe.

1:01:39

That's really

1:01:41

what I am is every guy in the 1950s and 60s

1:01:43

who went down to the Delta and

1:01:45

fucking stole all the

1:01:47

blues musicians. Yeah, exactly. I

1:01:49

know. As though I am-

1:01:51

as though I am

1:01:53

Methian transcribing birdsong.

1:01:56

Yeah. Right? I

1:01:58

will record these bits and then I will- a

1:02:01

civilized man will take it back to the

1:02:03

civilized world and I will cut and paste

1:02:05

these loops of tape and Turn them

1:02:07

into song let

1:02:08

me just say at least the racists

1:02:10

who went down to the Delta and Conned

1:02:13

those people into signing bad contracts paid

1:02:15

them five dollars. I'm in originally

1:02:17

paid those guys nothing

1:02:19

No, I'm sure they got paid to show up on

1:02:21

the day, right? I'm sure they got paid a day rate,

1:02:24

but they didn't get songwriting credit, which is

1:02:26

publishing royalties, right? Which

1:02:28

is the ongoing money that's you know, that's

1:02:30

that's really the real money So anyways, yes

1:02:32

when you know, whatever it's kind

1:02:35

of objectionable But in fact the matters Graceland

1:02:37

is still one of the best albums of all time

1:02:39

Like in part because of the contributions

1:02:42

of these genius fucking South African musicians,

1:02:44

okay But also because of the

1:02:46

genius of Paul Simon everyone involved was

1:02:48

a genius and that is a genius album, right?

1:02:51

There's a great or great record But

1:02:53

of course what is tremendously objectionable about is

1:02:55

that when it came out it said music and lyrics

1:02:57

by Paul Simon

1:02:59

Period

1:03:03

And that my friends is what we call

1:03:05

a lie that's what we call You know when

1:03:07

if you think erasure isn't a real

1:03:09

thing Tell me tell me tell

1:03:12

me how that's not erasure. Okay, right

1:03:15

now. Luckily there was an uproar

1:03:18

and Whatever I don't know

1:03:20

how it happened, but they ended up getting

1:03:22

all of those musicians ended up getting their songwriting

1:03:24

credits Yeah, and therefore

1:03:26

their ongoing royalties which for a song

1:03:29

like, you know Call me out or whatever has got to

1:03:31

be a lot of money, especially in South

1:03:33

Africa,

1:03:33

right? so

1:03:36

So that's objectionable

1:03:38

That's an example of possible working

1:03:40

with collaborators, but also just like things like, you

1:03:43

know

1:03:45

All of the just hot flight jazz

1:03:47

guys that he worked with in the 70s On

1:03:50

all on you know for my favorite Paul

1:03:52

Simon album, which is hearts and bones Which

1:03:55

is like in many ways what

1:03:57

I'll just never forget the very first time you ever

1:03:59

played guitar for me You sat down,

1:04:01

we had been dating for like a minute.

1:04:03

And

1:04:04

you played Hearts and Bones, which is a

1:04:06

song about divorce. I know,

1:04:09

but it was the most impressive acoustic

1:04:11

guitar song I could play.

1:04:12

It was very impressive. You did not match

1:04:15

box 20 me,

1:04:16

a la Ken. I was genuinely

1:04:19

impressed. Thank you, thank you.

1:04:23

That's like his least successful album. It's like,

1:04:25

you know, but it's my favorite. But he was

1:04:27

just working with top flight jazz guys,

1:04:29

right? Who like brought

1:04:32

so much, a lot of what, you know, who

1:04:34

really should have gotten composition credit.

1:04:38

You know, they ended up just getting player credit and

1:04:40

that's really a shame, but like nobody

1:04:42

questions whether or not Paul

1:04:44

Simon is an auteur, okay? And

1:04:48

I'm not questioning, I do think he's the master

1:04:51

because I think one of the many things he

1:04:53

does well is recognize

1:04:56

talent, get

1:04:59

it in the room with him,

1:05:01

be a casting director and be like, oh,

1:05:03

you know, that drummer with that bass player, that

1:05:05

would be something really special. Like

1:05:09

she does that. And then

1:05:11

what's also amazing, okay. Okay,

1:05:13

and she does that on a Paul Simon level with

1:05:16

her music, okay? Now, how

1:05:18

well does Paul Simon dance? Okay.

1:05:22

How does Paul Simon look in his sparkly

1:05:24

gown? I

1:05:25

will tell you there's a long

1:05:27

going knock about how Taylor Swift is not a good dancer.

1:05:29

She has improved significantly.

1:05:32

Much

1:05:34

better than. If she was a male

1:05:36

artist. I will

1:05:37

tell you Paul Simon could not perform

1:05:39

the era store.

1:05:39

Okay, and I'm sorry, if she was

1:05:41

a male artist, no one would doubt.

1:05:44

They'd be like, oh my, if she was a dude in

1:05:47

a really masculine coded dude, if

1:05:49

she was like a rapper, like a really masculine coded

1:05:52

rapper who could dance that well, that

1:05:55

they would be like, oh, you're a genius. And you're so

1:05:57

bold with your gender performance.

1:06:00

You know? No. The

1:06:03

only reason. Yeah. And

1:06:06

now I'm thinking about Paul Simon performing the Aristotle,

1:06:09

and if so,

1:06:11

it's so like da-da in his past.

1:06:14

You know, I don't like AI. But

1:06:17

I would like to see Paul

1:06:19

Simon doing vigilante shit.

1:06:21

Yeah, like in contemporary,

1:06:23

like bald Paul Simon, you

1:06:25

know? Oh, dear.

1:06:26

With his facelift.

1:06:27

With his facelift, yeah. Ooh.

1:06:30

How?

1:06:33

It's such a, it's,

1:06:35

I'm only doing this to balance the scales

1:06:37

for all of the years that female artists

1:06:39

have been critiqued for their appearance. But

1:06:42

it's just like Paul Simon. Just age. You're

1:06:45

just, you're waking up across

1:06:47

the breakfast table from Edie

1:06:49

Brackel every morning. This woman who is

1:06:52

aging like the finest cheese

1:06:54

at the

1:06:56

shop. Okay, like because

1:06:58

she's just doing nothing.

1:07:01

She's just getting up and she's doing yoga and

1:07:03

she's just, and singing. And

1:07:05

she

1:07:06

likes you the way you are.

1:07:07

And she's like, she's like,

1:07:09

look at how she's aging. A and

1:07:12

B, she likes you the way you are. So

1:07:14

just age, dude. Just age.

1:07:19

I don't know how we land this plane now

1:07:21

that we've talked about. I'll,

1:07:24

Paul Simon's facelift.

1:07:26

You know what? This is

1:07:28

how this is how we see who our

1:07:31

real friends are.

1:07:32

Yeah. Yeah. If you comment

1:07:34

the secret, if anyone comments about

1:07:37

Paul Simon performing the Aeros

1:07:39

tour, we know, oh, did it die?

1:07:41

Oh, oh, right on battery. Yeah.

1:07:43

Okay. That's okay. So that's that's telling us that

1:07:45

we should wrap up this episode. That's okay. Cause

1:07:48

the audio is still running. So

1:07:49

we can still land the plane. Okay. So on the video,

1:07:51

then will you just have a blank? Yeah,

1:07:53

it's gonna be, it's black right now. They're looking at black

1:07:55

screen.

1:07:56

Wow. Now we'll really know who's still here.

1:07:58

Oh, don't who's coming in.

1:07:59

through the other, through the window.

1:08:01

This is like when they turn the lights out

1:08:04

of the bar. They're like, get out,

1:08:06

you horrible drunk.

1:08:08

You don't have to go home, but you can't

1:08:10

stay here. Go home

1:08:12

and listen to your Taylor Swift record. When I used to work at Petit

1:08:15

Library at Penn State, which was one of my favorite

1:08:17

jobs I've ever had, I had like worked night shift there,

1:08:19

which works with the black screen people are seeing right

1:08:21

now on YouTube. Yeah. I

1:08:25

loved that job for a million

1:08:27

reasons, but I used to love going and closing

1:08:29

up the main reading room, the big grand

1:08:31

main reading room, which I believe was

1:08:34

the paternal room. I imagine it's been renamed,

1:08:36

but I... Anyway.

1:08:38

But anyways, but I used to love going

1:08:40

and closing up that room, because

1:08:42

it was just fun. And I had to like yell

1:08:44

and bellow, the library's closing, but the

1:08:46

best part of that was during finals week when

1:08:49

everyone was cramming and it would be just chock

1:08:51

full of just desperate, scared looking

1:08:54

people. And I would go in there at 11,

1:08:56

55 and say, the

1:08:59

library is closing and they'd all just go,

1:09:02

oh, and I... That's what's happening

1:09:04

right now. And I would yell, you don't have

1:09:07

to go home, but you can't stay here. Well,

1:09:09

our children who... And every time it got a big, big

1:09:11

laugh.

1:09:11

Well, our children who would like their dinner are

1:09:14

saying,

1:09:15

bar's closed, mom, dad. So

1:09:19

if this podcast is gonna continue with me

1:09:23

trying to prioritize my mental health in the way that

1:09:25

I should, it's gonna need to be a lighter lift

1:09:27

a lot of the time. So listeners,

1:09:31

if you're still here, that's good. That

1:09:33

speaks well for the future of this program.

1:09:36

If there's nobody left, then that speaks ill for

1:09:38

the future of this program. Whatever. And

1:09:40

either way is fine. We like you either

1:09:42

way. We like, love you just the way you are.

1:09:45

It's you I like. It's

1:09:48

you yourself.

1:09:50

I like you.

1:09:52

I like you too.

1:09:54

Thank you. All right.

1:09:55

Make good choices. Talk to you next time.