Live Music Is So Good Right Now!

Nora Princiotti (0:07)

Hello, and welcome to Every Single Album. I'm Nora Princiotti, and I am joined, as always, by my pal, Nathan Hubbard, for a conversation about the latest in Taylor Swift. And also, I think later on in this pod, some live events chatter that I'm very excited for as well. However, Nathan, I sit with you here, not at 10 o'clock at night during the VMAs, as it was last we spoke. It is the sober light of day.

Life of a Showgirl, The Showgirl, The Encore, has been with us for 10 days. How are you feeling?

Nathan Hubbard (0:46)

I am feeling the same way, Nora Princiotti. I mean, usually when we, in our own way, offer up some measured, gentle criticism of Taylor Swift, I get, I don't know, somewhere between 500 and 1000 death threats that I have to refer to the FBI.

And this time, I didn't. I got a few, but I got the usual stuff. And I think, I think there was some really interesting listener feedback. But I think in the aggregate, like across the spectrum now, I was at, I've been at a couple music industry events over the last 10 days, and this has been a gentle topic of conversation. Music supervisors, fans who are podcasters, like record label heads that work with lots of really interesting artists. And I think that the general consensus is not as much hate as was originally professed when these things came out, but an acknowledgement that it's not world burning, earth shattering from someone who has done a lot of world burning and earth shattering in the best way. And for me, and I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this.

Seeing her on SNL, and we have to talk about the SNL in particular, the closing moment where she's standing there with the cake, because I think it goes down as one of my top five Taylor Swift moments of all time. She still can suddenly get awkward feeling even though she's the most famous woman in the world and she's standing there with the cake. She did this wonderful thing and brought the cake out to Dakota Johnson. And then she realized, oh, fuck, I'm stuck with this cake. And the rest of the cast is on stage hugging everybody. And Taylor's just standing then on the side of the stage, like, oh shit, I have this cake. There's nowhere to put it down because there's no tables up there. It's the tiniest dude. And suddenly, Taylor fucking Swift is stuck, doesn't know what to do with her hands on the side as the credits are rolling. It was just one of the great all time Taylor moments for me.

Nora Princiotti (2:57)

She's got to not get frosting on anybody. It's kind of a hard job to be the person standing with the cake.

Nathan Hubbard (3:02)

I thought for sure she had baked it.

And it appears that she did not bake it. There was somebody who was sort of seemed to be taking credit for that some business, which is great that she did that. But the thought of her holding that cake that she had baked, just like, oh no, what do I? Because all of it was pure heart and intended to be loving towards a friend. And then she just got stuck holding the bag and nobody could hug her as a result. So she couldn't walk around to the cast.

It was exactly the unintentional awkwardness that I love to see. But that said, the whole SNL thing for me made these songs make a little bit more sense. Dakota has a movie coming. Taylor, when you get the BTS of the video, all the conversation about her being a director, Tom Cruise in the suite, and I know that he was there for the interview with Travis, but like she's leaning heavily into film. And to me, that was the bit of additional color that we got over the last 10 days to answer the question of why, is that at some point in the last, I don't know, 18 months, there was some story that she got, she's directing something.

Nora Princiotti (4:11)

Sorry, am I an idiot? What does releasing four songs have to do with directing movies?

Nathan Hubbard (4:17)

Because it gives her a chance to do this video. And I think she loves the directing side of it. And this was just to showcase the director.

Nora Princiotti (4:24)

So you're telling me that Taylor Swift wrote the song Cleveland! so that she could put Dakota Johnson in a music video.

Nathan Hubbard (4:33)

I think that she gets so excited.

Nora Princiotti (4:35)

It's a circuitous route to the destination, if so.