Is Taylor Swift too big to fail? Plus, Baby Reindeer and our true crime obsession

as I started to get unwell. But basically that's on me. This this is not an episode about me complaining personally about what this did to my work life balance, but, um, no, that was that was a big day Friday. It's fair to say.

I guess, the Swifty project going forward. And for people like us who who talk about her work and what it means for the culture more generally, we're just going to talk briefly about the finale of Shogun, one of my favorite shows over the past few months, and Baby Reindeer, the Netflix sleeper hit series that you mentioned last week on the Impress Your Friends segment. Seems like a lot of people have jumped on it, and there's a lot

to discuss about that very, very, very interesting show. But before we get to any of that, there's one story that's gripped the nation in the past few days. It's got an Annabel Crab from the ABC writing about the culture wars again. Are you across this RJ Barker news?

a great experience for me. She explained what happened from her perspective. The baby was gurgling a little bit. She said she was breastfeeding, so she needed to bring the kid with her. It gurgled, it winged, but nothing super loud. She said that Barker came over and she thought that he was joking when he asked her to take the baby out, but eventually she realised he was serious and she left along with a group of people around her. Now there's a couple of different accounts of what happened.

Another attendee who was there had a slightly different take, he said. It wasn't a little bit of gurgling. The baby was actually crying. I was on the second level up and I could hear it, they said. Khaled was distracted. He was trying to tell a joke. He quite politely stopped and said, would you mind? Could you please leave? And she just sat there and the baby settled down

and a few minutes later it started again. So he said, look, I was trying to be respectful in this situation, but the baby was actually interrupting his his live performance show. So look, this obviously sparked a lot of conversation about various things. I think this question of bringing kids to live performances, the right of mothers, obviously to participate in public life and do things, you know, mums are allowed to do stuff. They don't just become housebound individuals once

they choose to have a child. You, Thomas, you're a dad with a young child. What was your immediate kind of reaction to to this one?

kind of snowballs into so many different conversations. I think, firstly, the issue is that it's been it quickly became this like conversation around breastfeeding, which as far as you can gather from like reading all the different like witness accounts, that was obviously never the issue. I don't think anyone in their right mind has an issue with breastfeeding in public, and I'm kind of convinced enough that that wasn't the

issue for Rebecca, you know? And so the kind of need to put that aside, like what really seems to be the issue here is the element of noise. You know, here's a performer in a packed theater with lots of people who have paid to see the show. And, you know, there's an element of noise that's disrupting the show. Now, look, I have been lots of places when my son was like that age. And they're very, you know, children are

very hard to predict when they're that young. And I just do think the responsibility falls on the parent, that if you're in a situation where the baby, you know, you can totally be there, but once it starts disrupting people, the onus is on you to kind of like remove yourself from the situation and that calm the child down or do whatever you need to do and then like return I that's kind of like as far as it

needs to go. For me, I think it's snowballed into this big kind of ideological argument pushed by a lot of different agendas that make it seem like a bigger issue than it is. Like ultimately, end of the day, mother, father, parent, grandparent, carer, guardian. If you're looking after a small baby in an environment where you know you need to be conscious of noise and other people's, you know, enjoyment factor, then like that's your responsibility. That's that's basically how I see it. Yeah, I.

women breastfeeding in public. Right. Like this. So many of the opinion pieces that came in response to this, I mentioned Annabel Crabb before she she wrote a piece for ABC today, which she reminded a lot of people, you know, like David Kosh when he was the host, and sunrise, he went on this rant like 10 or 15 years ago about women breastfeeding in public and how they should

be classy and not do it in people's faces. And this is like a big overarching issue as a society that we just don't seem to have been able to have good, smart, sensible conversations about. And so I think a lot of particularly women reacted and are like, oh, here's another man who was trying to tell a woman how to breastfeed, which is just not something we want

to deal with. And I feel like I feel like partly why it's hard to have a sane conversation around is because there is broad, society, wide antipathy towards everyone involved in this. People kind of don't really like comedians or they're that's fun to sort of like hate and disrespect comedians. A lot of people don't think that their work deserves to be taken as seriously as other live performers.

And then obviously on the other side, there's just a broad antipathy towards women and mothers in public spaces that has a long history in society. So when you bring both of these two things together, everyone kind of goes to their respective barricades and starts yelling at each other. I wonder how much of this conversation would be different

if it wasn't. A live comedy show. Like a few people have pointed out, we interviewed a few different comedians about this for the for the paper yesterday, and it was really interesting, different perspectives. Jen Frick, a friend of the pod, she was like, look, I've had babies do this before, and it's part of my, you know, I could make it part of my routine or I try and find a more delicate way to deal with it. Michelle Lowry said, look, I just don't think babies are

appropriate for a live performance space. Comedians are in dialogue with the audience. They're doing a show. They have to remain focused. It is potentially disruptive and disrespectful to the audience. We're trying to hear the gags. If they can't hear it, if anyone is making a lot of noise and things

like that. And this third comedian made the point that if this happened at like Les Miz or Miss Saigon or another live performance, if this was actors on stage and there was a child crying who was stopping that performance from going ahead, it probably wouldn't be controversial to say, hey, can you please remove that sort of disruptive presence? Do you think there's an element to this that is just comedy is sort of seen as well. You're supposed to

accept heckling, you're supposed to just deal with it. So just make it part of the showman.

It's an emotional issue on both sides. But I think also I guess what makes it tricky is that because it is so emotional, like you have these reporter then like, oh, well, after the exchange took place, then you had a bunch of like other people in the audience, possibly men kind of like saying, yeah, like, you know, get out, like and then it becomes this weird mob mentality. And then that's, you know, obviously I do not agree with that. And I wasn't there. I don't know exactly the tone in

which I handled it. So perhaps he didn't handle it in the smartest, most gentle way possible. But at the actual root of the issue, do I think, you know,

do I understand that? I think I do like, as I said, if it were me in the audience and I think you're absolutely entitled to go along with the knowledge that should your, you know, your baby get into a state where, like they're causing a bit of a disruption, then you have to like step out and deal with it and like you have to live with that decision. And I got to.

that disruptive. While a baby started crying on the project and the host, Sarah, had to be like, hey, can you give it to your dad? This is like disrupting the interview. It's a sort of a pre-baby me.

a crime or anything like that. But as this poor mum and the poor baby were trying to make the case that it's all okay, actually getting cut off from the show, I think said a lot, but I think I think you said it uh, earlier and I really agree with this. It's like there's different conversations here. There's the specifics of like what happened at the gig and in a way, like, I feel like that's less interesting.

What's more interesting is how everyone reacts to these things, whether that's men in the crowd who apparently were just being very aggressive and toxic, and men in comment sections and a lot of just like conversation around this, even though I also agree with you, I think, like, you know, there's a risk to bringing young children to this event. And I guess you should be aware that if they start being disruptive, the polite thing to do is to like,

remove yourself. Uh, as frustrating as that might be, that's sort of life. That's the world. But the way that so many people seem primed and ready to just engage in like a culture about like where women belong and where children belong and like what the boundaries of this stuff are. That feels like a little bit gross. And I feel like that that part of it, I think, is something that keeps cropping up. Man. Like, this is not the first time we've had this, and it probably

won't be again. But um, yeah, it was interesting how many comedians, the ones who are willing to talk, were pretty comfortable in saying, yeah, look, there's broader issues around like women and mothers and existing in public. But when it comes to a live performance space, it's a little bit disrespectful to not remove yourself once you're interrupting a performance.

bit too much. We've been talking about Peak Taylor, and this is all before the actual reception of her new album, but that's all the stuff you talk about when you don't have new music to chew over this kind of meta conversation around Taylor. So the album is now finally out, 16 tracks, almost all of them produced by Taylor's now regular collaborator Jack Antonoff. Two hours later, as we mentioned, another 15 tracks this time most of them produced with

her other regular collaborator, The National's Aaron Dessner. So all that. What we're talking about is 31 tracks on the Tortured Poets department. The anthology, as a second tranche of songs are collectively termed. Broadly speaking, I think it's fair to say that the album is very sonically familiar. It sounds a lot like Midnights, her last album. The synth is a constant presence to become a trademark of Antonoff production lyrically as well. I mean, this album doesn't feel like

a revolution. It sort of feels like a throwback to earlier eras of Taylor dealing very specifically with heartbreak, evaluating her past and current relationships. I think one of the things that did take fans by surprise is how much of the album revolves around her longtime fascination with the 1975 Matty Healy. I guess you could say. I think

fans are expecting this to be a Joe Alwyn breakup album. Instead, it's two dozen tracks about being ghosted by an edgelord rockstar who made a controversial appearance in a podcast formerly known as comedown. Like, that's a weird, that's a weird project for someone like Taylor Swift. Some might say. Um, and look, reviewing this album is complicated because Ken Taylor Swift sing. Of course she can. Can she write like

compelling and interesting and fun melodies? Absolutely. Can she get a talented crew of people together to make a lot of nice sounding music? Absolutely. But when you've set expectations really high, when you announce an album, literally the second you're collecting the check for the last one at the Grammys, I think it's good and healthy for us to have a reasonable bar, and I just don't think that this album hits that bar. I mean, the music is very

overly familiar. The melodies feel like we've heard them before on previous records, particularly Midnights. And in terms of the songwriting itself, I think if you're a Taylor Swift fan who wants to devour everything she says, like the gospel, and you want to build into this law that she's created and you want to join all the different dots about, well, she was photographed on May 18th in this town, and

she wrote this song and recorded it. Then you're going to eat this album up for the sheer dump of her life information she's giving you. But I think for everyone else, this is a lot of songs, some with some very, very strange and tortured metaphors and lyrics that I don't think really work. And I think if you're going to give us 31 tracks, it's not too much to ask for a couple of like, genuine, solid hits

as well. I think there's maybe one, if anything, like song on this album that will be like a hit that does well and gets ready to play and people bump. That's probably fortnight, the opening track, but that doesn't even really feel like a proper pop banger.

how much is too much? You know, we we were in Taylor like, we're in full Taylor Saturation mode. Anyway, she announced this album at the Grammys after cleaning up. It felt like a really it felt like it was coming very soon after everything else. She was, you know, in the middle of the year to, uh, it just people were concerned that saturation had peaked and then this

only like seems to make that worse. You know, 31 songs is just on a pure surface level, a lot of music for people to digest, like it's to sit there and listen to this out. You can't listen to it in one listen, really. It takes a really long time. But then on top of that, I guess, like it also plays into what I think a lot of people who are cynical about Taylor already thought is that she's trying to, like, gain the algorithm and the system here. Like,

you know, these like Spotify rewards you. The more music you put out, the more like ways you split it up. And if you splice it and dice it in certain ways, then the algorithm rewards that. And I think people like, well, firstly, that's what Taylor's doing, but why does she need to do it? She's already the most successful dominant popular artist in the world. She could have released ten like ten tracks and it would still be played, like to fucking death.

And so instead, she's kind of like feeding into what most people see as the biggest problem with, like, modern music and the way we devour it. My biggest issue was that in terms of the context that arrived in and then musically, it just felt like, yeah, you kind of touched on it, but like thematically it felt there was like no growth from anything. If anything, it was like she was regressing back to her old days. And, you know, musically, it just sounded like more of the

same that we already had. And so there was just like on me, like first listen, which obviously took, you know, ten hours. There just wasn't much to, like, love.

delirious reaction. And I wonder how much of that is deliberate is like, I'm just gonna pump my fans full of all these, like, juicy details about my life at 4:00 in the morning when they all desperately need to like. Have a blanket put over them and be nursed to sleep and just created this like super wild and fascinating sort of conversation. It's yeah, it is a lot. I mean, there's there's more I want to talk about in terms of the way she's marketing the album, but we'll get

we'll get to that a bit later, I think. I mean, well, I feel like with Taylor often there are these two modes, right? There's the reputation era spinning album out of everything you've been through, position yourself as this perpetual victim who's been wronged, and make a bunch of music about your pain and and get vengeance on those you think have wronged you. And then more recently, there's been this folklore evermore mode

where she's largely writing fictional narratives. She's using songwriting to craft these stories about things that may be influenced by things she's experienced, but there's these different characters and world she's building, and a lot of people think that that is some of her best and most compelling and thoughtful work. That shows the kind of growth as an artist that

you were talking about before. I think, like Tortured Poets is very much like that reputation frame, like it's a throwback to an earlier mode of Taylor that like that. That's basically entirely what this album is. This album is. I just don't see how it makes sense to a lot of people unless they know the deep, intimate details about her relationships with Joe Alwyn, her long term on again, off again thing with Matty Healy, where she's at with with Travis and stuff. I feel like this is like

an robberies of Taylor Swift. It used to be that you could enjoy her music on its own terms, and if you had an insight and you could decode these Easter eggs, you'd get this heightened meaning to it. But now it's like you need that to even walk in the door. Like if you don't understand all of the lore and everything that's going on in our life, a lot of the songs don't really make a lot of sense.

That sort of ability. She had to write something that was obviously personal to her, but felt universal, I think is what's missing from this album. Does that make sense?

It's like Taylor has now bought into the swift and universe, like, while also, you know, simultaneously being skeptical of it. She kind of like pokes fun at her own fans several times in the album, but it's like, yeah, now the the phenomenon of Taylor Swift is so all encompassing that it's no longer, like, expected that you can enjoy the music without being fully, you know, a Taylor Swift stand. You're supposed to know the rules and like, you know,

winks of this universe. And it's like she's really writing to the echo chamber as enormous as the echo chamber is. But that's still then kind of creates this divide between the people who are like, really, really, you know, like engaged with what the rules. And, you know, everything of the Swift universe are versus people who just like, oh, she's a really famous artist and I like her. So yeah,

it does seem really weird. And I guess the other thing that it's probably worth mentioning, you know, obviously everyone has said it's kind of bloated and stuff, but it's called the Tortured Poet's Apartment. We know that Taylor, like, you know, is a great lyricist and has like even all the marketing this has been driven towards. Like, I'm a wordsmith, I'm creating pop up libraries and that's my whole thing. But like, man, like I say this as someone who gets edited by you a lot, like she

needs a serious editor. Like just because it sounds clever doesn't mean it sounds good. And, you know, I just there was a sense of Taylor being surrounded by yes people and writing anything that came to her mind and, and whether or not, you know, these metaphors work. And it just it was so overwritten to the point that sometimes it was distracting trying to keep up with everything she's stuffing into every single line. Yeah.

If she just work with other people like that. In the past, if she could have worked with with new producers on this one, but she went to people who she can be like, I want to write this song. This is what I'm thinking. Give me like that sort of synth bed with those electronic drums, Jack. Let's go. And so it felt very like she's just sprawling her words out there. And I know a lot of people

say like, she's allowed to do it. And that's what I find a little bit frustrating about these critical conversations. Of course, she's allowed to do anything right. Like we're not saying that she should go to jail for this album, but we're allowed to also say, yeah, it's interesting to talk about an artist who can do so much, who has set expectations so high and ask whether or not this is her at the peak of her artistic powers.

And I think for both of us, the answer seems to be no. And I think to your earlier point about the amount of. Information. You need to have to have baseline access to this record. You know what it reminds me of? This is going to sound a bit weird, but it's starting to feel like we're kind of like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Star Wars universe, as are at, which is that these things used to be anyone could go and see, see like Iron Man or

like the new Star Wars film, and you'd be like, ah, cool. Like, I get it, these are the good guys. These are the bad guys. There's some cute little characters here, and that story makes sense. And off I go. And now all of these worlds are so massive. There's TV shows,

there's cartoons, there's movies. And if you try and see a marvel movie now and it's like, oh, but you haven't watched like WandaVision, you haven't watched season two of Loki, you're not gonna understand who that character is in the Ant-Man and Quantumania or whatever. Like, it's just it's it's so dense. If you're a hardcore fan, you love it. And if you're a casual fan, you find it very overwhelming.

And I kind of think that the world of Taylor Swift has gotten so big because she's been feeding her stuff for so long, it has become hard for normal people to engage with. And I hear, like, really smart critics. Joyner Robinson, who podcast for The Ringer Network, who I really, really like her, takes on this stuff. She has this line which she's like, you know, make Star Wars special again, we don't need a new show every six months or a new film every year. If you really want people

to re-engage with this stuff, give them a break. Give them a bit of a reset. Think really carefully about what you want to do that is special, and then give that to them in 12 months or in two years time. And I wonder whether that is what Taylor needs to do next. She might say I don't care, like this album is going to break records. My fans

eat it up. But I think from a critical perspective, from a perspective of what would make the most interesting and compelling art, I do think some space and time would be helpful.

The bad ones, too, and is probably not sharing them. But it is. It's a really odd thing that's going on because I think she's seems to be rewarded. She's like, if you want me to shut you out to my 70 million followers, write a good review and I'll tag you. It's a very like 1 to 1 process she's in with, with critics. So yeah, you're right. She's very much part and aware of the conversation around this album.

what is happening right now, that's going to be an issue. So, you know, we had like Chris Murphy from Vanity Fair, who's review wasn't amazing, and he put out this tweet that said, it's almost like if you produce too much, too fast in a brazen attempt to completely saturate and dominate a market, rather than having something important or even halfway interesting to say, the art suffers. That tweet went viral. And then he led her and made this joke about

like him going missing. So like, and, you know, similarly, um, Paste magazine put up a pretty harsh review of the album and didn't put a byline on it, didn't identify the journalist, and then spoke about why they did that in the review. Because like, you will get fucking doxed by Taylor Swift fans. Um, because, you know, that's what they do. And so it's weird. We're living in this world now where even the critics are aware that if you don't like Taylor's album, that's going to be a

problem for your publication. But, you know, we still have to engage with it and talk about it, but it's just like it sets these very strange framework for us all to discuss the album because, like, you're constantly kind of having to, like, double back on what you say and stuff. It makes everyone feel a little bit like uneasy or unsettled. And then I suppose at the same time, as you said, you've then got Taylor tweeting out the good reviews to like 70 million followers and like, who

doesn't want that traffic? Uh, I don't know. It's a really strange environment to kind of discuss a big, important work in. I know.

certain thing in a certain way. And I think kind of like the age conversation, you know, because that has been and continues to be a very real strain of misogyny and how, like a lot of male critics discuss female pop, like, people are resistant to two guys talking about Taylor Swift, I feel like we're doing a decent job of trying to just engage with the music as it is, but there you kind of go into these conversation like, ah, shit, I'm going to say some negative

things about this record. I'm probably going to get my DMs lit up, or if this gets clipped and put on TikTok, people are probably gonna make fun of us. I think as a critic, you try your best to remove yourself from that, that response if you can. But I think what's really interesting about Taylor Swift is talking about the fan reaction is part of the criticism, I think, because it clearly shapes her writing. Like there are songs

on this album that are about Taylor Swift's fans. She, I think in some ways has made this record for her fans because she's trying to break streaming records, she's trying to do all of this stuff. She needs to turbocharge her base. And like I said, I just don't think if you're not a deep fan, I don't think

this album works. If you are a deep fan, you probably think this is one of the best albums ever, because very rarely have you had this level of intimate detail about how she was feeling and where she was, and what she was doing with three of the big men in her life in the past few years Joe, Maddie and Travis.

they didn't approve of, which is fucking crazy. But like it, it's so funny because there is an element of like, well, hold on a minute, this is an album for the fans with all of its like kind of winks and stuff, but also like, you've got these same fans who are the ones that are going to like back Taylor to the hilt, but they're not happy with like the content she's producing. It's such a strange like thing to be in the middle of.

weren't getting traction. On the main Taylor Swift Reddit called Taylor Neutral, where they're like, we don't hate Taylor, we don't love Taylor. We just want to have some honest conversations about her music and whatever. And that started to blow up. So it does feel like there is this growing part of her fan base that wants to engage with.

I mean, the most interesting thing about this album, I think, are the tracks where she is taking aim at her fans for what they did and said to her around the Matty Healy thing, and I don't really want to get into the I resent the fact I've had to talk about Matty Healy so much already. Like, I just

I don't care about the 1975. I don't understand that this kind of weird rock star, who feels like a throwback to the era where we all agreed we didn't want anymore, seems to have this chokehold on on lots of white women of a certain age. But whatever. We have to talk about him because he's part of this album. When the I guess rumors emerged that she was maybe dating him, a big chunk of her fan base, like, wrote this letter to her and said, you know, he

said these problematic things. He's been on this controversial podcast. It's a bit of a weird guy. You shouldn't date him. And I think the song, but daddy, I love him is a pretty direct, like response to a fan. She's got things like, I'll tell you something about my good name, it's mine alone to disgrace. I don't cater to all these vipers dressed in empaths clothing. There's other lyrics in that track where she's saying to her fans, you pretend you care about me, but I'm not going to listen

to you. You don't get to tell me what I do and how I live your life. It's so funny to see an artist simultaneously tell her fans to back off, but kind of have them on this leash at the same time.

things I did enjoy. Right from, from this album is, is, I guess, the voyeuristic elements. And like some of the decoding and, you know, like, fuck, man, I just, I couldn't help but think of Travis like being so depressed as he sat there listening to But daddy, I still love him when Taylor's like gushing about how I'm like, let's be honest, Matty Healy has obviously done an enormous number on her. She's got like some serious head noise about that relationship.

I guess you could say. So she sort of had this fascination with him for ten years and she lays it all out. But I agree with you. If you're Travis, it's probably better this way. Like, damn.

you're going to be unhappy. But I would say that it's then led to, uh, some of her strangest and weirdest writing that she's like, you know, Taylor is we both went and saw her show. Aside from the fact it was an amazing performance, you really get a feel for like, how impressive she is as a lyricist and how her writing lands in a stadium of, you know, 100,000 screaming people because she's got such a way with words. And then, yeah, this is like so much of this felt like my fucking year 12.

but also on Fortnite, the opening track. Her and Post Malone are singing about Florida. I sort of got a bit conspiratorial on this one, and I wondered whether it was a political allusion, given that there is a presidential election later this year in Florida is a very famous swing state. But then I remembered it's Taylor Swift. And like, there's no there's no way she's doing that, an interview.

She's just talked about Florida being this place that like criminals and other people wanting to get away, escape to kind of like Amy from from Gone Girl. But yeah, I enjoyed that one. Any any tracks you wanted to shout out?

the broad thematic reason for its existence. Feels a bit like unnecessary, but there's some there's definitely some good tracks.

I don't know how someone around here wasn't like, should we scratch that? Also, I think in the back half of the album when there's like 50 tracks that are just people's names Peter, Cassandra, like, they're big skips from here.

100 songs about it if you if you like. But when you're at this stage in your career and you're just pumping out 31 songs about. What this, like weird rock star did to your heart? It just doesn't. Feel right. And like, I know maybe a lot of people listen to this, like women in their mid 30s or like, well, actually, that's like how we all feel. So you shut up and let us, like, emote. And I'm like, yeah, you're all allowed to emote and you're allowed to write songs

about this again. I'm not trying to say that she should be like prevented from doing this, but it just feels unnatural that an artist who's been making this kind of music for two decades now seems stuck in the same. Space of being able to write very didactic about her singular, insular experience of heartbreak. As she experiences it, processes it,

thinks about it. When she's done things like this before, when it's worked really well, it's like I said, her ability to take a singular experience, but write about it in a way that feels like it could relate to so many things. Well, this does not feel like the rest of the world exists. There's nothing broad or universal about this record. I think maybe that's because I'm not like a woman in her 20s and 30s. I don't know, but I've related to her other lyrics like I've been

hot broken before. I hate to break it to you, but like, that's the thing that a lot of people go through. But this just feels so autobiographical that it's hard to connect with, and that just feels like an odd thing to experience from a singer at this stage of her life and career.

And it made a lot of sense. And it was charming for this, like 20 something singer songwriter that still had, like, the country thing going on. I'm not saying she can't write about that anymore, but it's crazy when you actually dig into the lyrics on this album, this latest album about how much that fixation remains. Like she's still talking about, like, wedding rings and happily ever after and and like, that's it.

And it feels like there's not been much evolution or if anything, there's been like a, you know, a devolution of devolution because, like, she's no longer even, like trying to expand her focus, but instead just like heading out, there's like there's so much like, you know, like fan generated songs that they want about, like getting married or

finding the perfect love or anything like that. And it's just like, look, after a while, you do have certain expectations that come with being this, you know, incredible artists like people want people know how great you are, they want more from you. And it feels just like, I don't want to say lazy, but like when you get it and it's still okay, people are a bit like, okay, well, like, I guess, nice work.

already got. She wants more. She wants to break more streaming numbers. What is the end goal here, man? Like like this isn't I mean, she also came back on TikTok. This is really interesting. Like universal pulled all of their music on TikTok as part of this negotiation to try and extract more revenue from the platform she signed to universal. But she has the streaming rights to a music so she can put it back on, which she did in

the lead up to this album. A lot of people seem like not very happy with that because they're sort of perceiving it as crossing a picket line. Insofar as this universal negotiation, a lot of smaller and big artists are not able to have their music on TikTok. But she's just like, screw it, man, I want to like, go full throttle. Let's get as many streams as possible.

And like we spoke last time, seems a bit diametrically opposed to her previous thoughts on streaming and and artist Renumeration like, what is the end goal here of of going so big and doing so much marketing?

What actually what actually comes after this. Like, you know, she's not going to go on tour with this album, obviously, like right now. And I guess the only like, you know, if I'm putting on my Taylor Swift hat and doing some like, you know, amateur sleuthing, the only thing I can kind of gauge is that in I can Do It With The Broken Heart, which is actually a pretty good song. Who she. That basically is like a it's like, you know, it's her version of like dancing on my own.

It's just kind of like really sad song which addresses basically it's like kind of in character. Her on the ears to are talking about being depressed on stage. And if anything, I was like, maybe that's a clue as to what is next. Like, she's come off this billion dollar record breaking tour, released a whole bunch of songs that maybe she just needed to fucking get out of her system and, you know, but she's directly addressing this, like,

I guess, her own fatigue. And so perhaps there will be now, uh, a period of, like, downtime for her where she's like, you know, I've done tour, album, Grammys, everything here it all is. And like, you know, it's obviously taken a toll on her, I would say. And maybe there will now be like a bit of, like downtime for Taylor and for the rest of us.

We're going to be excited to hear it again. You know, I think maybe there's also this sense of, you know, when you're at your peak, like like hit it, you know, like she's very aware, she's talked about this, she's written songs about this. The world does not have a great record for like continuing to support and pay money to like women when they reach a certain age. I think she's like, I'm at a peak right now in terms

of the cultural attention being paid to me. I want to get that bag from every avenue possible, from touring, from streaming, from whatever, and like tap that out and then potentially, like, take a bit of a break and come back at a different phase. I think if that's what she does, great. I mean, if she just continues to release stuff like this, it'll probably sound okay like this, and her fans will eat it up, but I think it will over a number of years start to impact.

I think her reputation as someone who doesn't just make really great stellar records, but as someone who's just doing that thing that, like Drake has been doing the last little while, you know, which is just releasing what sound like mixtapes. And I think that has diminished his reputation a little bit. I don't want that for her. No.

It's really interesting because I think artists you know, they want to write catchy hooks and stuff, but they also want songs to be like listened to in the context of the whole song. And when this album first came out, when there was a leak, in fact, a couple of days earlier, people got really stuck into like, individual lines, you know, like we we thought Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist and stuff. And people are like, that's crazy. When you listen to that stuff in context, you can

understand the irony or whatever, and it makes sense. But it's it's kind of like just the nature of, I guess, these platforms that she's willing to play ball with and the way that fans want to dissect lyrics that it's easier than ever to pick out something that sounds very, very bizarre. And thankfully for us, there is quite a number of totally bizarre lyrics. Um, I'll share you my favorite weird lyric. Uh, my friends used to play a game where we would pick a decade we wished we

could live in. Instead of this, I'd say the 1830s, but without all the racists. Now that's crazy. Now we should say the rest of that. Verse goes into describe like she's then ruined the game for everyone and you know she classic Taylor. She's just trying to like have fun and point things out. And she's ruining it for all of her friends. But that's crazy lyric because like, why the 1830s? There's nothing that feels very specific about that era that would make you want to go to it.

It's like pre just pre-industrial revolution, but like like what? What sort of fantasies are evoked by that. Some people have said that's like around when Bridgerton seems to be set. So maybe that's what she's watching. But also she's like I'd say the 1830s, but without all the racists. I mean, does she think there were no racist? Now, this is a constant thing from every era. It's a very strange one for me.

just see this being a fucking out of context. Instagram caption on people's like, April dumps where they've just got like, photos of like, all the shit they've done with their friends, like, you know, walking in the park and sunset photos or whatever. Like it's just. And this is such a funny thing. You kind of touched on it before and like, Drake does it as well. Like, these guys write lyrics. I'm like, I know, you know, that's going to end up on

the internet. All that baked on a cake or some shit that I just saw, you know, like, you can just. And I've already seen it like 3 or 4 times, like, um, you know, different people on my Instagram, like sharing that one and being like, oh my God, like, so me or whatever. Uh, I also thought this one was really funny, uh, from Florida. And my friends all smell like weed or little babies.

I'm not, but you should see your faces. And I just thought that was actually really funny.

that's the closest I've come to my heart exploding. Now, like people have said, that's Matty Healy, kind of like love bombing her and, like, pretending to propose to it. But I'm like, you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on. That's not even a metaphor. That's just like a very dry description of something someone is doing. Um, very, very funny stuff.

enjoyable to just listen to this album. I don't think it's when I'll come back to a lot, but I also wouldn't be surprised if in like, you know, 12 months time, there's a couple of tracks from this that are on like a lot of people's favorite Taylor Swift playlist, sort of, you know, list of songs.

Maybe this will be like the catalyst for an incredible album of work that is different and doesn't feature, you know, Jack Antonoff trademark production and isn't just all like, you know, cute little lyrics and maybe it'll it'll be the start of something amazing. Um, because, yeah, I think we've, we've ironically come to the end of a very impressive and like, game changing era and perhaps, you know, what comes next will be even better.

drink on the house. And that began this kind of vicious cycle of being stalked by her while simultaneously, you know, this, I guess a bunch of other stuff in his life was unravelling. And and the one man show was the story of both his stalker and what happened to him in his personal life. And it kind of comes to

this crazy, you know, like Stranger Than Fiction ending. The TV show, which has just come out on Netflix, is a retelling of that story with Richard Gadd playing himself and his stalker is is is named Martha in the show. And basically people have become enamored over the last week with, I guess that, you know, that real life element that, you know, based on a true story element. And as happens in these situations, it's kind of kicked off this incredible,

I guess, movement. People are like, have you seen baby reindeer? Can you believe it? Is it true? What's true? Which parts of real. And it's still number one on Netflix now?

based on, like real crimes that that happened. It reminded me a bit of Michaela Coel I May Destroy You in the sense of someone who is writing about a traumatic incident that happened to them and how they sort of process a bit. Kind of unlike that. It's even tinier, more interior. It's a very small cast. It's a very small,

like number of settings and things. And to really unusual TV show, like it's very, very good, but it's almost unlike many other TV shows I've seen where you just reach like a really dark point at the end of every episode, but you kind of feel compelled to keep watching,

and it's very unsettling. I think by the end of it you don't really feel good, you don't really know how to feel, and it doesn't feel like the kind of show that would be so popular because it's not like funny and light and doesn't really have a clear message about, like, the world or whatever. I'm sort of surprised, it seems to have, you know, become so popular to so many people.

it's really amazing and everyone loves it. But what I found interesting is the how the response has, again, like, you know, we were talking earlier about like, just like how interesting it is to see how like people respond to big events. And this has thrown up another kind of challenge in that, you know, baby reindeer show based on a true story. And it's like you enter it into, you know, with the backing of Netflix to 300 million subscribers around the world. Yeah. And then you have people

who inevitably are going to go digging. And so we've had Richard Gadd in recent days kind of basically take two because essentially, you know, at the end he he shows empathy for his stalker. She obviously has his real life stalker who we don't know. You know, it's never revealed in the show. She obviously has mental health issues. And as well, you know, as part of the show

it's very triggering episode. But you know, Gad discusses sexual abuse that happened to him from someone who we understand is like a big figure in the comedy scene in London, a big producer and writer. Uh, and so people have naturally then been like, well, who are the real people who are the inspirations for these characters? And he's had to go on Instagram in the last week and say, look,

I'm begging you, please don't go looking for these people. Like, because, you know, fans have like incorrectly fingered the wrong suspects and being like, oh, this, you know, he knows this producer who's, you know, big in the British comedy saying that must be the guy who assaulted him. And, you know, obviously they're getting these things wrong. And so he said, like, people are getting unfairly caught up in speculation. Please don't speculate on who the real life people could be. That's

not the point of the show. But what is interesting is that critically, people have started to say, well, like, hold on a minute. Like, you know, when you do release something that is that uses the very like dangles the carrot of being based on a true story, you inevitably do invite people in to like, scratch the surface and do some digging.

will go ballistic. There's lots and lots of Reddit threads where people think they found the person and they've named particular individuals, and he's gone on Instagram, like you said and said, like, it's not this person, but if you're that person and you're like, well, all these people are saying, it's me. He's saying it's not me. Why? Why am I even involved in this narrative? That would be, like deeply.

it's just I guess that's what we've been. The most interesting thing for me over the last week is, like, you know, because I did like there's absolutely no denying the minute I finished the show, I sat on Google and I was like, who is the real Martha?

are really great. But I think you're right that a lot of its success is due to the kind of collapsing of the real world and the TV world, and that's something that just we are fascinated with at this current moment.

this was extraordinary show. I thought the ending was, like, incredible. I think every time you thought this show was going to go down an obvious path of, like showing us a big battle scene or like violence, like the Game of Thrones, half of it. It eschewed that and went for the more subtle succession style like character play and and sort of political intrigue. But one of the main

things I thought watching this at the end is. This show is a really good endorsement of the non binge model, like what it means to release a really interesting show over the course of ten weeks, because you end up living with these characters for nearly three months. And so if they die or if they're in peril, you feel that I feel like way more emotionally than you do if you're watching like three Body Problem or even like replay, another show that we loved in one sitting, you just

can't have that same emotional impact. And I know a lot in the show. You make fun of me for like pining for the good old days of TV. And, you know, I'm not saying this needs to be 20 episodes or anything like that, but yeah, I just I'm struggling to think of any positives of the binge model these days. I think the whole point of TV was that it was great. You could watch it, you could talk about it. I know friends who were hosting final

episode parties this week. Like that collective experience where you talk, you debate, you grow with these characters and something as simple as watching the same characters over three months just makes you connect with them in a way that you can't if you watch them over 8 or 9 hours. And yeah, I just really, really, really think Netflix needs to stop doing that and needs to just like give us the weekly release, man.

it didn't seem to cut through as much over here. Like, again, based just on word of mouth, like I spoke to so many friends who I know were into that kind of TV and like lots of them, I would say dropped off Shogun despite giving it a bit of a go. Like, do you have an even myself? Like I was really into it. I've kept up to date, but I haven't been like, absolutely.

it to, which is I think is a shame. If you're listening to this and you haven't given it a go, I think it's really worth watching. It's really good.

really appeals to you. And he's basically like, you know, he's kind of like, yeah, a public intellectual who goes on talk shows and writes his, you know, popular columns. And he basically he's married really well. And then the book just throws us into this world where he is kind of like, uh, interacting with like, London gangsters and art dealers and Russian oligarchs. And basically we get access to Campbell's full interior world while also getting a snapshot of, like,

modern day London. But it could really be like modern day Sydney. It's this like, you know, he he becomes like he gets engaged with this brilliant student of his. And it's like this really interesting snapshot of like public intellectuals, academia, you know, entitlement, privilege, people who are kind of like, born into this world of privileged people who access it, people who are adjacent to it. It's a really interesting book.

Very funny. Uh, and yeah, it feels like very timely, uh, probably done a very poor job of explaining what it is. I'm only halfway through, but I'm absolutely loving it. So that's Caledonian Road by Andrew Ohagan.

in my wheelhouse. This is a really interesting, long essay about the state of Hollywood and Hollywood writers in particular through the lens of, I guess, labor relations, looking at the. Way that things are operating post the strikes, but also giving us a longer zoom look at the industry, kind of from the 50s on, and how different government policies around encouraging consolidation have changed. Who gets to make TV shows and films, and what artists are paid and why.

The culture we consume now is a direct result of reforms made by Bill Clinton in the 90s, for example, to let TV networks buy up the companies that make TV shows. It might sound a bit dry and economic and esoteric, but it's written very compellingly. And if you ever want to like, think about like, why is this a streaming show and not a film? Or why is Netflix doing the binge drop model? For example? This essay does a really good job of explaining it through the

perspective of actually, none of this is an accident. Like venture capital got involved in these businesses. The pandemic had this kind of impact, like the lack of labor power over capital here led to this happening. Obviously, all things that I care a lot about, but it's written in a very, very interesting way. If you care at all about how art and culture is made, would really strongly recommend this piece.

the episode with a friend. I'm Usman Farooqui. See you next week!