Episode 0309: "ME!" by Taylor Swift

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome again to another episode of This Song Sucks. Podcasts with three musical pals get together and talk about the music that we hate. I'm Josh Cavanaugh and today I'm joined as always by Hayden. Say hello to my little friend Crawford. How's it going, buddy?

[00:00:25] The rooster came back. Not good. Oh no! Keep you up all night? No, I had to chase it off the stoop a couple of times yesterday though. Was it completely covered in Mardi Gras beads?

[00:00:33] No, I think he came back for the dead possum though, to eat it. For those listeners who did not see my Instagram post, there was a Mardi Gras day here in New Orleans. There

[00:00:43] was a dead possum in the gutter on my street and rather than put it in the trash, people would just put Mardi Gras beads on this neck. There's also a fair amount of like king cake bits all around it too. Yeah, just all around it.

[00:00:54] You just look like, bro, I partied a little too hard last night. Exactly. I've been there. We've all been there. Let's be honest. I'm there right now. Oh yeah. Today we're joined by Sarah, please leave so I can close the bar Ferguson. How's it going Sarah? Accurate.

[00:01:10] Please, Josh and Hayden, get the fuck out of my bar. Yes, you said that to two of us probably at least once but I'll give a little intro to Sarah here. Fans of the show may know her from the beautiful artwork that she did

[00:01:23] for our Weezer episode, the Rivers Bomo image. She's a talented graphic designer, also a fantastic singer with a great voice. I don't know. Are you still singing with anybody or? I'm retired. Retired. Yeah, just taking a step back, really focusing on shit talking people that are still doing

[00:01:41] it. That's really where I thrive as an individual. Well, you're on the right podcast. Yeah, for sure. And before we get started, can you tell us where they can find your graphic design artwork?

[00:01:55] Oh, yes, of course. They can head on over to the World Wide Web and visit slfergisondesign.com to view my very much not updated website and reach out for inquiries if they want to give me money, which I enjoy.

[00:02:14] Yeah, I enjoy your t-shirts. I bought the Big Nick Energy for the football season last year. Yeah, some party poovers shut me down on that. They're like, oh, you need to pay rural deeds or whatever for this. So fuck off university. I know. Let people have fun.

[00:02:31] You sent that out and you're like, get it while it's hot before it gets taken down. And that's probably true for our podcast as well. So you're a good company here. Oh yeah. If only anybody listened to it, we would be in trouble.

[00:02:41] Yeah, if anyone listened to this, we'd be in big trouble. But Sarah has brought in a song today. Why don't you tell us real quick what we're going to be talking about? We're going to be talking about just an audio irritant that has been plaguing my

[00:02:55] ears any time I go into a grocery store or just out in public for years now. It's called me, all capitals, exclamation point. And it's just it's a problem. It's a problem. Me by Taylor Swift featuring Brandon Urie of Panic at the Disco. Yeah.

[00:03:12] Yeah, speaking of that, I really hated the guy from the mummy is on this track. Who let him sing? I don't. Brendan, right? Don't talk about Brandon Frazier like that. He's a he's a treasure. Brendan Frazier is my number one lead singer to actor in America. Oh man.

[00:03:31] There's so many worse. Something bad. It's pretty awful. OK, we could definitely talk about this later, but let's get directly into the song. Actually, I wanted to start out with just Sarah sent me like, you know, here's the audio clips I want to play.

[00:03:44] And this is sort of like a throwaway, but I thought it was a hilarious. But apparently this sound is what Sarah hears when she hears the song. What is happening? So this is like an ASMR clip that she sent of like someone

[00:04:07] scratching their fingernails against like drywall or stucco or something. I have like pretty severe misophonia or misophonia, whatever that it like when you have a physical reaction of anger to me, so soup. Yes, don't even say those words again. Just like sounds that just trigger you really hard.

[00:04:30] So like that's definitely one of them. That in a course of bagpipes is what I would rather listen to than not a corn fantasy, then then hear this song again. I it just gives me such a just a physical, just carnal

[00:04:47] anger reaction that's on this very hard to control. Well, we'll try to dive into that a little bit further as we get through great. As usual, I'll give you some background on our artist here. There's too much of this out here.

[00:04:59] I mean, she's obviously one of the biggest selling recording of artists in the last two decades. The fandom is insane. So I've got a little bit of information on her sort of background and what brought her to us as a famous country than pop star.

[00:05:16] And then I'll just kind of hit the highlights of the discography to show how incredibly ridiculous her stats on this kind of stuff. Born Taylor Allison Swift on December 13th, 1989. That's Allison with one L by the way, which makes the fact that her middle

[00:05:34] names Allison that much worse. Sorry to all the Allison's out there with two L's. Yeah. She was born in a place called West Reading, Pennsylvania. This is about an hour northwest of Philly. But she was raised in the nearby suburb called Wyomissing.

[00:05:51] Looks like someone tried to spell Wyoming and they just stuck the word missing at the end of it. And she had quite the leg up with her family background. So her father is a descendant of three generations of bank presidents and works as a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch.

[00:06:06] Jesus Christ. I couldn't find much other on her mother other than she worked in finance before becoming a full time homemaker, whatever working in finance means she makes more money than the three of us, but combined in a year. Financing these nuts. Sorry.

[00:06:22] Man, you're off to a good start on this. Hidden X out of their Spotify app immediately right now. But according to Swift, Wyomissing was the kind of place where, quote, it mattered what kind of designer handbag you brought to school.

[00:06:41] Things immediately make so much more sense to me. I didn't know that. Yeah, she also, quote, unquote, was raised on a farm. But this was a Christmas tree farm that her dad bought from one of his clients with like 70 Arabian stallions running around. Probably.

[00:06:57] I mean, those two sentences like talking about her school and then the fact that she was raised in a Christmas tree farm sounds like the beginning of a really bad Hallmark movie. Yeah, it's a tough life. She's having a hard time so far. Yeah.

[00:07:09] Some other things I found according to this New Yorker article, a lot of what I found is this on her background was from this New Yorker article that was written in 2011. But according to this, Swift said that she was exiled by her friends for an entire year

[00:07:22] because she was, quote, annoying. That checks out. Yeah, to me, that tracks a little bit. She also recalled a sleepover in seventh grade and what your friends were talking about sneaking out to go over to this guy's house because he had beer.

[00:07:36] But apparently she panicked and called her mom to pick her up. Oh my God. Christ, quote, my whole life. I've never felt comfortable just being edgy like that. Wow. Translated to your music perfectly. Yeah. Fucking narc. She is a narc.

[00:07:55] But her early exposure to music began with her grandmother, who was a professional opera singer. Man, could this get any more white bread? Probably not. I mean, it's bank presidents, financiers and opera singers. Well, she'd see her every week at church.

[00:08:09] So, you know, God damn it, you said the C word. I thought we banned that word on this podcast. Yeah, it's like it's worse from here, Hayden. Swift also cites as an early influence the music in Disney movies, claiming that apparently her parents were surprised at her ability

[00:08:27] to sing entire songs from memory after only hearing them once during the movie. Sounds like a little bit of a humble brag. Also don't believe that. Yeah. Yes. I don't either. I mean, say what you say, what you will about like more modern

[00:08:40] Disney movies, but you know, if your worldview and musical sort of background is shaped entirely about the music of those kind of movies, it's a little narrow, I think. Yeah. You think? But apparently Swift became interested in musical theater

[00:08:55] at the age of nine, performing in like a local group. I think I don't know if it was associated with her school, but at age 10, her mother began driving her around to karaoke competitions as well as voice and acting lessons in New York City.

[00:09:10] So that's probably like an hour, half, two hour drive. But what would happen is her mother would record her karaoke performances to use as demo tapes. What was her mother's name? You know, I'm getting a strong Julie vibes here. We'll just assume it's Julie.

[00:09:28] I didn't write it down. Julie Swift. You can go look it up if you want. I'd rather not. But Swift also cites obsession with country music, specifically citing Shania Twain, the Dixie Chicks and Faith Hill as sparking her interest in the genre.

[00:09:43] Swift apparently became convinced that she just had to move to Nashville to pursue a career in music. And that's because she saw a documentary about Faith Hill who moved to Nashville to get her career started. And here is where this story lands on a little bit of conflict

[00:09:59] according to what I found before you get the conflict. Her name is Andrea, which is kind of disappointing. Or is it Andrea? Maybe it's Andrea. Andrea seems to fit a little. A good detail here is that her father's name could not sound more like a bank president.

[00:10:12] Scott Kingsley Swift. Oh, wow. Christ, man. Yeah. Oh, goodness. Well, the narrative according to the Swiss and most of what you find about her because most of the press on her is positive. But the story is that Taylor convinced her mother to take

[00:10:30] her to Nashville during spring break to drop off her karaoke demo tapes to various companies on Music Row, the public where all the publishing and recording houses are in Nashville. Of course, trying to get a record deal. No deal came initially, but the experience apparently

[00:10:45] put it in her mind that she had to stand out by writing her own music because remember, all these demos were just her singing karaoke songs. I would love to be in the fucking room with the executive. They throw while they throw those away.

[00:10:58] Immediately tossing them in the trash after she leaves. It's shocking that even in her age, people still were like just driving to record labels. Like it seems like it seems like that that era has already passed by her time. Tom Petty infamously did that.

[00:11:13] He just drove from Florida to LA and just like, you're going to give me a record deal today and got one. Well, yeah, I mean, it's definitely different. I mean, imagine it's the early 2000s point. She's like 13 or 14. I mean, how many like blonde haired white girls

[00:11:30] were showing up with demo tapes to all these places in music row at that time? And still today, probably. They stop and take their photograph with the angel wings and the gulch. Oh, yeah. Well, she's got some of that in her promotion for later albums for sure.

[00:11:42] Of course she does, man. So she decided, you know, I need to write more music. But the story continues with her returning to Nashville to perform in a country music industry showcase, which eventually be landed a development deal with RCA records at the age of 13.

[00:11:58] So then the family picks up and moves to Nashville when she's 14. That same year, she signed a publishing deal with Sony, who also owned RCA, becoming the youngest artist the company had ever signed. So like a development deal and a publishing deal are kind of two different things.

[00:12:16] But it's always all under the same umbrella of Sony. But she later, this is what's fucking nuts. She later backed out of this deal, citing concerns that the development deal would essentially shelve her career for too long.

[00:12:29] A quote from her says, I generally felt that I was running out of time. I wanted to capture these years of my life on an album while they still represented what I was going through. Like, are you fucking kidding me? You're running out of time. You're like 14 or 15.

[00:12:43] Oh, my God. And you're mad that your career isn't going fast enough. Oh, God, I'm suppressing so many inappropriate things right now. Same. How hard it is for me right now. Let's just push through it. OK, so the break then occurs like her big break

[00:12:59] when she signed to Big Machine Records by a fellow named Scott Borchetta after he saw her at an artist showcase in 2005. Borchetta at the time was a DreamWorks record executive. Borchetta sounds like a kind of like sandwich meat. Yeah, Borchetta. But he was a big executive in DreamWorks

[00:13:18] and he was looking to start and form an independent label. So he started Big Machine with Swift as his first client. And a little side note, Swift's father put down $120,000 for a 3% stake in the company. Like you do. Throwing the bills down.

[00:13:34] I mean, that sounds like here's the money to make a record. That's a lot of money to make a record. When was your first one? It's probably not that much in today's money, but I don't know. Maybe 15, 16, 17 years ago, however long ago that was,

[00:13:47] that may have been just enough. For an unknown artist, it's a hell of a budget. Right, exactly. I mean, it helps that your dad's a fucking stockbroker. Kingsley. Kingsley coming in clutch. So however, this is where we kind of break from the established narrative.

[00:14:04] What most of these narratives about her early career tend to downplay is that very early on her parents hired a talent manager from New York, a guy by the name of Dan Dimtral. And Dimtral at the time was working almost exclusively with Britney Spears.

[00:14:20] So again, this would have been like the early 2000s kind of right before her big sort of public breakdown that the paparazzi forced her into. But he was a big player and he was able to get Swift's modeling and marketing opportunities with companies like Abercrombie and Fitch

[00:14:37] and Maybelline Cosmetics. Apparently, he also set up performances and meetings with record companies. So all those things about her showing up at showcases and getting her foot in the door with Nashville record people is probably due to this guy. This guy looks like a frat, bro.

[00:14:55] I found his LinkedIn. All the fucking record executives are like they're either like gross trolls or like super fratty bro dudes. I'm going to share my screen while Josh talks. This Dimtral guy looks like. So Dimtral not long after her first record came out sued the Swiss.

[00:15:12] OK, and he claimed that they used his services to get Taylor's career started, but then ditched him once. Yeah. Oh yeah. Here's the. Oh my gosh. Look, so he's got a v-neck undershirt and a v-neck pullover. He's committed to the V.

[00:15:32] Just a little goatee action on the bottom of the chin. I hate that facial hair choice. Yeah, not a good one. No, no, no. So he sues them claiming that they didn't pay him for his services, essentially, because he claims that he basically started her career.

[00:15:47] The last bit of reporting on this lawsuit that I found where some articles around 2010 and 11. So this thing drug on for years, but it said that the judge threw out all but one of Dimtral's claims. And after that, there's really nothing.

[00:16:00] So my thought is you hear about a lawsuit like this and then there's like crickets. They probably settled out of court. It's one of those he said she said kind of things that it's difficult to really say whose story is true. It's probably somewhere in the middle.

[00:16:14] But one tidbit I found that was released by Dimtral's lawyers, they had this email exchange between Borchetta, who started the big machine record label with Swift and Swiss father. And so this is the quote. This is Swift's father writing to Borchetta. He says, enough with Dimtral.

[00:16:33] You asked me to break both his legs, wrap him in chains and throw him in the lake. I did. Coming in hot. Comedy alert. But I bring all this up to say like the thing with her mom driving around going to Nashville on spring break.

[00:16:56] I mean, you can find videos of her. She's singing the national anthem at the Philadelphia 76ers game in like 2009 or sorry, 2004 or something like that. She's like 11 years old. This is a like clear cut case of showbiz kid, I think. Yeah.

[00:17:13] Sarah, I'm sure as we as you kind of dive into like your songwriting critique later on. I really think that this girl has probably never lived any sort of real childhood or even adult life. 100 percent. That that's this kind of story just seems like evidence to me

[00:17:30] that the reason her lyrics are contrived and disingenuous is because she hasn't actually garnered any real life experience. Yeah, for sure. I want you to know, Josh, that I think my LinkedIn has been listening to the podcast because it is trying to get me

[00:17:43] to apply for a job at Oberto beef jerky factory. What sponsorship, at least get the latest jobs and industry news, Hayden X4 Rowland opportunities with Oberto snacks incorporated before long. You'll be getting the solicitations for joining the Flavortown. So oh man, speaking of Flavortown kind of stuff,

[00:18:02] did you all see I'm not going to talk about guy, I promise. But did you see that clip on the CNN of Ukraine where the Applebee's commercial came on while they were showing the bonds? Got to get your chicken fried. Colby. Fantastic.

[00:18:17] Yeah. If I was a suicidal before that. Well, speaking of things that will make you suicidal, Swiss first album, the self titled Taylor Swift was released. That's not funny, Josh. Probably isn't, but not going to cut it. Here we are. Here we are.

[00:18:32] It was released in October of 2006. So she is 16 years old at this time. This album debuted at number 19 on the Billboard 200. So this is like a country album by a teenage girl and it's debuting at number 19. This is not like a story of grassroots coming from nowhere.

[00:18:52] You don't get that kind of sales unless you've got some major marketing behind it. It sold consistently throughout its first year and it reached a million, so single platinum status in just over a year after its release. It is now currently certified seven times platinum

[00:19:10] and it had five singles on it, all of which were top 40 on the Hot 100. So of course they charted views on the country charts. But again, all of your singles from unknown country artists hitting the top 40 like the pop chart, that doesn't happen without some serious backing.

[00:19:27] Chris Gaines, hello. My local record store, if you walk by and like just glance in the door, you know, they have like some like cutouts of artists. Chris Gaines is one of them. So I see it all the time for some reason.

[00:19:41] Why have you not stolen that and taking it home? I'm thinking about it. I'm coming for you, Euclid. You've got Gaines on the brain. Chris Gaines in the membrane. The success of this album gives Swift one of her first first,

[00:19:55] which is to use the first solo female country artists who either wrote or co-wrote all the songs on a debut platinum album. She wrote three of them herself and the rest were concoctions of Nashville, a team of Nashville songwriters that she worked with.

[00:20:11] And a lot of people attribute the success of this album to Swift's interaction with her fans on social media. Specifically, here's a blast from the past, her MySpace profile. Yeah, she interacted with her fans like every day on her MySpace profile. Smart.

[00:20:28] And she's really the first country artist to rely heavily on social media to promote her music. She also promoted the album by performing as the opening act for much larger country groups, including Rascal Flats, George Strait, Brad Paisley, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.

[00:20:45] I hate the George Straits on that list because he's awesome. Well, I mean, you don't get on bills with these guys opening for these huge national touring acts again, unless you've got some financial firepower in marketing.

[00:20:56] Turns out not going to that boys house for beers was a good idea. Seems like. I wish I had a made similar life. She's also the youngest person to receive a Nashville songwriters association, artist of the Year Award in 2007 for her work on this album.

[00:21:14] And she was also nominated for Best New Artist at the 2007 Grammy Awards, but mercifully, she lost to Amy Winehouse that year. There is a God. RIP. Yeah. RIP. You did us a service by denying her her first Grammy. Hell yeah.

[00:21:30] So we move on to our next album, Fearless in 2008, debut at number one on the Billboard 200 and basically every album after this would do so. This one stayed there for 11 weeks. It was the top selling album of 2009 in the US.

[00:21:44] It is now certified Diamond, which I believe is her only record to achieve that status. But of course, that's because it's been around since 2008. What is going to be wrong with someone to get a diamond record and then keep making records after that?

[00:21:56] I would just vanish on my yacht after that. It's over. I'm not doing it. It's called narcissism. Oh, that's good. Bingo. She's just got to get all those feelings out, guys. Yeah. Oh, that's one emotion. It's fine. I'm checking out.

[00:22:11] Five singles again, all of which were top 25 this time on the Hot 100. The highest of which was You Belong With Me at 2. So she doesn't quite get that number one. The album of the year and Best Country Album, the 2010 Grammys

[00:22:26] in White Horse, another single would win Best Female Country Vocal and Best Country Song. So she's now racking up the Grammys. The song You Belong With Me would also win the VMA in 2009 for the Best Female Video, which led, of course, to the famous incident

[00:22:40] where Kanye West got up on stage and interrupted her to talk about how Beyonce really had the best video. Totally staged, by the way. Like all of that has come out. I don't know if you all know that. Was it really? Yeah.

[00:22:51] Like there's a Kim Kardashian leaked a recording or something of Kanye and Taylor talking for like an hour about him saying that he was going to do this and he was like, oh yeah, it'll be fine.

[00:23:03] And then I'll if anyone asks me about it afterwards, I'll tell them that, you know, we staged it. So. But she just twisted that into like some victim hood that she could use to fuel her shitty fire. I don't know about all that.

[00:23:18] I mean, I wouldn't watch that video again just because it's hilarious. But her reaction like deer in the headlights seemed pretty genuine. She just sat there not saying anything like for probably a minute after he got off stage before they cut away.

[00:23:31] Maybe she didn't think he'd actually do it. Maybe not. I mean, what's really dumb about that? Never doubt it. She won the VMA for Best Female Video and then later in the ceremony, Beyonce would win just for Best Video. So like his gripe was kind of stupid anyway.

[00:23:45] But, you know, it's a good good source of memes. So next album is Speak Now from 2010 to years ago. Her album titles suck. That her album titles and her song titles all suck too. This one again, number one, Billboard certified six times platinum.

[00:24:02] There's six singles on this one. I mean, it's we're getting like bloat here with how many fucking singles are all this thing. All of them again appeared on the Hot 100, the lowest of which was like number 41, the highest of which was three.

[00:24:15] So still not getting that number one. It was nominated for Best Country Album with the Grammys, did not win. The song mean won Best Country Solo Performance and Best Country Songs. Two more fucking Grammys. And this is also the first album for which she had sole writing

[00:24:30] credit on every song, and she also co-produced every song as well. Previously, she always had some kind of team behind her helping write the songs. Then we get into Red 2012. Again, another number one. The color. You look like the color.

[00:24:47] Like the color of rage I see in Sarah's eyes. That's very good, Hayden, and you're correct. Yeah, I'm having a terrible time. Just being reminded of all this. Yeah, that's because you get to listen to me talk now because of the subject matter.

[00:25:01] Yeah, a little bit of both probably. This one certified seven times platinum. Now we have seven fucking singles on this one. And she finally gets her first number one with We Are Never Ever. Getting back together. Again, all of them would somehow eventually appear on the Hot 100.

[00:25:19] Although one of the singles called The Last Time only appeared on the Hot 100 in the re-recorded Taylor's version that came out recently. Can we talk about that for a minute? What the hell? I always skim those headlines. What does she exactly do? Does she re-record all of them?

[00:25:33] She just take it away from Spotify? Is that the move? No, hold that thought. We'll talk about it at the end of the bio. I put a pin in as we say in the office. Hey, there it is. Office humor. Joke alert. There it is.

[00:25:45] This album, she hired a bunch of new producers and it's basically shedding most of what any like remaining vestiges of what could be considered country. Even though the album was still marketed as a country album, we are never getting back together.

[00:25:58] It was nominated for record of the year at the 55th Grammys, but lost to our our buddy Go T.A., somebody that I used to know. Heck yeah. Oh wow. It's a good song. Yeah. As we've said before, it slaps.

[00:26:10] As evidence in the song slaps, season one bonus episode number two. Listen. However, despite the the miss on that Grammy award, the next year Red was nominated again as an album of the year and best country album, but it lost to Daft Punk's random access memories.

[00:26:26] And then Casey Musgraves, merry go round. There you go. The Daft Punk thing was cool, but not the Casey Musgraves. Anybody but Taylor though, honestly. I mean, I'm a champion for anyone. I'm a big Casey Musgraves fan in this case, for sure.

[00:26:39] I mean, I thought you'd know who she is. I've heard this. I don't know if I could pick a song. I'm talking to you out of a lineup for sure. 1989, the next album comes in 2014. Again, debut number one. It is nine times platinum.

[00:26:51] Again, seven fucking singles and three of them were number one on the hot 100. Like this is freaking ridiculous. Get on that yacht. Tell me what's the matter with you? Damn man. She got nominated for a bunch of Grammys. Shake it off was nominated for three Grammys at Lausaw 3.

[00:27:09] But then the following year, the album itself won album of the year and best pop vocal album. This would give Swift the distinction of being the first solo female artist to win album of the year twice. It's just crazy to think about. It really is.

[00:27:25] Pop vocal also she can't she sucks like she can't seem good. I mean, there's a caveat there. Yeah, for sure. Well, blank space and bad blood, two of the singles are nominated for a total of four awards at the Grammys, but lost to Uptown Funk. Oh my God.

[00:27:43] And our cabbage eating friend Ed Sheeran's thinking out loud. She got funked up, you know? That's just that's just all they do. Man, we're coming on hot jokes today. Spicy. We slept in the knife drawer last night, you know, we're just real sharp.

[00:28:03] So I've got even more bad news, guys. This album would also give Swift the distinction of being the first artist period, not female or male, but the first artist period to have three albums sell over a million copies within their first week of release.

[00:28:19] So there's a little bit we'll start touching on this here, Hayden, but the Spotify stuff, as you said before the release of this album is she made a big stink about how Spotify and all the other streaming services didn't compensate artists fairly.

[00:28:35] So she pulled all of her catalog from both Spotify and Apple Music, but she eventually made a deal first with Apple Music right before the release of the album and then eventually with Spotify after the album to get all of her music back on the platform.

[00:28:51] So it seems to me that she was using the hype behind this album. And that's kind of what she did with a lot of these albums in the middle part of her career is this like slow use of social media

[00:29:03] of like leaving trickles and hints to get people really amped up about it. And so she knew that this album was going to be fucking enormous, regardless of what it sounded like probably. And so she was using that as leverage to probably get what she wanted

[00:29:17] from the streaming services. So again, and we'll talk more about this in terms of her recording pre-recording deal, but she says it's all about helping and compensating artists, but it's not, she's not even in the same league.

[00:29:31] I mean, this is she has more bargaining power than probably anybody in the music industry. So I think it's a little disingenuous to kind of talk about how she's looking out for the little guy or whatever. She's not looking out for Lagerhead. I'll tell you that much.

[00:29:44] No, she absolutely does not give a shit about Lagerhead. I barely do. I mean, to be honest. Hey, I'll take barely from you. That's very good. Look at on the bright side, Hayden. So moving on her next album, Reputation in 2017 again, it debuted at number one.

[00:30:04] This is only three times platinum, but the singles bloat has finally calmed down instead of seven. She went back down to six. Did you say bloat? Yeah. Cross man. You know, like roadkill on the side of the road.

[00:30:16] I mean, it's just not very common for someone to have half over half the album be singles, like usually get like three or four. And I think the reason she started to back off and how many

[00:30:25] singles she released on her records is because this is the first record that didn't have every single single appear on the Hot 100. So two singles, New Year's Day did not appear on the Hot 100. It did appear on the country chart at 33.

[00:30:40] And then there was a song Get Away Car, the final single from the album did not chart at all in the US. Get away car. Yeah. Never heard of that one. She had a number one with look at what you made me do.

[00:30:50] But I think maybe, you know, it probably doesn't look good for you when you just release a fuck ton of singles and you're used to all of them charting high and then all of a sudden, you're not. So you'll see the next few albums.

[00:31:04] She doesn't have quite as many singles. Awards wise, this one was nominated for best pop vocal album, but she lost to Ariana Grande. So this is sort of the passing of the torch of you're not like the pop

[00:31:16] queen anymore, the younger generation is kind of coming up after you. And that's really indicative in her next two albums. Love her. Yeah, the way granny, granny Swift. Oh yeah. Sorry, her final two albums kind of move away from pop, but love her from 2019

[00:31:32] is kind of her last big pop album. Man, her album titles suck. Yeah. Again, this debut at number one on the Billboard 200. It's double platinum and there's only four singles on this one. Today's subject me, which peaked at number two. And then you need to calm down.

[00:31:48] Also peaked at two and the other two were like 10 and 23. She did receive one Grammy nomination for this album and two for the song Lover, but none of them won anything. I have a question. Did you need to calm down come after me as a single?

[00:32:01] Do you know that? Yes, me was the first one. It was released before the album dropped. I'll bring this up later again when we talk about the song in the video. But you know what, I think that skit at the beginning of the video

[00:32:10] was intentionally to set up that next single drop because they have an interaction with the Britain Fraser guy about her need to calm down. Britain Fraser. Did you catch that? I bet that's not a coincidence. Oh, yeah.

[00:32:21] She does like to leave Easter eggs in all of her music videos and posts like that. Diagonal. And then for the Swifties to bite on. Is it still considered an Easter egg if it just smells like rotting sulfur? Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Methane. Absolutely.

[00:32:36] Speaking of eggs, what is your thoughts on boiled eggs? I've eaten a lot of boiled eggs. Hard boiled or soft boiled? What are you thinking? What's the difference? I just think the middle, the yolk is not fully hardened on a soft boiled egg.

[00:32:47] Why are we talking about this? Hard boiled. Oh, no, but I bet you got some weird poops. I know that much. That's going to be her next album title, Weird Poops. Weird Poops. It'd be better than all the rest of them. It'll be New Egg or something.

[00:33:04] So her last two albums called Folklore and Evermore, both released in 2020. Hurry up, Josh. This is getting real boring. I mean, this is her turn toward like indie folk kind of shit. Oh, OK, sure. They both debuted number one again.

[00:33:19] The newest one's only gold, but it's only been out for a little year and a half. Got number ones all over it. Folklore, one album of the year at the last Grammys. So now she's the first female solo artist to win it three times.

[00:33:32] So good luck anyone ever catching her. Critics absolutely lost their mind for these two fucking albums, particularly Folklore because of this more indie sound. She enlisted the help of Aaron Destner of the National to co-write and produce much of this album.

[00:33:47] Yeah, I'm actually looking at the credits right now. He is all over this. Basically, the National is the backing band for this record. And both of them, she even has a track with my favorite professional liner, Boni Bear. I thought you said Boni Bear.

[00:34:03] Is it like a bear that bones? No, the guy, the guy who's all the songs are. It's Boni Bear. That doesn't sound like him, but yes. Josh, we've had we've had many talks of the seasons, but you're not doing this exact thing you're doing.

[00:34:20] I mean, I agree that both these albums kind of have this indie sound and that they just put me right to sleep. There's a guy on this record credited with a bunch of guitars and stuff, but his name is Jack Antonoff.

[00:34:31] Yes, Jack Antonoff is a she's worked with him before, but he's like a big time producer. I think he I think he's like in fun. That band and a couple others. Like he's a big time producer. It's a funny name. It's like saying Hugh Jazz or something.

[00:34:49] I prefer Hugh Jorgan. I stole that from my buddy Matt Wiley. Shout out. Or Jack Meehoff. Yeah, God damn it. He's on fire. What's another good one? Bend Over. Bend Over is what I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah, Bend Over.

[00:35:06] But she also is, you know, bolstering her independent Bonifides with this last album. She's got Hame on there and more national and more Bonivar. This was also album. The last one was nominated for album of the year,

[00:35:18] so it's probably going to win that ceremony is not until April of this year. But that's basically it for her careers. It stands now. If you want to talk about the whole like re-recording thing we can. No.

[00:35:33] Because I mean, that's that's been the most recent thing in the news. I mean, I looked at her chart. She's got a hundred and sixty six songs that have appeared on the top Hot 100. But thirty five of those are Taylor's version, where she re-recorded these recently.

[00:35:48] And again, this is one of these things where she's like talks about a big game about like I'm doing this to encourage independent artists to take control of their work. But it's just a bunch of nonsense.

[00:36:01] When you when you're a new artist and you get a record deal, you're never going to get control of the recording masters. It just doesn't happen. And also when you're like a smaller artist, just getting someone

[00:36:12] to even agree to listen to 30 seconds of your song is a miracle. And they're not going to do it unless it's easily accessible as possible. Right. I guess that's just like so off base in so many ways. Or if if Kingsley threatens to break their legs

[00:36:24] and cover them in chains and throw them in a lake, you know, you might even listen to the whole thing. It's really funny you say that because I had this weird mental picture over that I suppressed of Kingsley, like behind Taylor Swift doing this and then growing.

[00:36:37] But growing angry when that one record didn't have all number ones and like pulling out the bullwhip, you know, like I didn't go on the tangent. But now I'm going to now I did because of you. Thank you. You're welcome. Basically, just to kind of summarize it,

[00:36:52] you have the publishing stream and then the recording stream. Right. So if you write a song by yourself and the record company owes the recording stream, every time that song plays, you get half of the revenue. So in her earlier albums, most of it's co-written with other people.

[00:37:07] So she's getting less than half, you know, so like if she co-wrote with one person, she's getting half of publishing, which ends up being 25 percent of the total. So what happens by releasing, rereleasing her old albums is universal.

[00:37:23] Her current record company, she gets full control of the masters. And I don't know if it's like 100 percent, but she now gets that 50 percent for the record. So or as previously, the album read every time it streamed, she would get half or less than half of the revenue.

[00:37:40] And now she's getting 75 to 100 percent of the revenue. So it's just really, I mean, she still gets if you go stream the original version, she still gets a cut of that. But if you stream her Taylor's version, she gets more. So it's just honestly doubling, tripling

[00:37:58] the amount of like revenue streams she gets from a single song. And to say it's about like independent artists is just a bunch of nonsense because she's, you know, a goddamn cajillionaire, probably off of all of her music. I'm going to find out how much she's worth.

[00:38:11] A lot too much. Three sixty five million, three hundred sixty five million. Yeah. Oh wow. That's a crazy number. I could change a quick anecdote here. I'm still obsessed with looking through these credits on the folklore record.

[00:38:26] Aaron Deser is credited with having a field recording on the record, which is not, you know, not that abnormal, but being this Wikipedia and they link everything. If you hope for overfield recording, it shows a picture of a guy

[00:38:38] looking very like destitute at a weird fifty seven microphone with a bunch of cow staring at him in a field in the middle of nowhere. What? I don't know. It's just a really funny picture. I'll put it on social media.

[00:38:49] Like all these cows are just staring at this like angry looking dude, like holding a fifty seven. Like get the fuck. Which I was going to use as a segue into burger talk, but I also suppressed that. Damn it. Add it again.

[00:39:01] All right, so some specifics about the song now. Swift shares writing credit with vocalists, Brendan Urie, as well as a producer, Joe Little and the song, like I said, was the lead single of the album Lover. The song debuted at number one hundred on the Hot 100,

[00:39:17] but it hit its peak of number two the next week, which makes it the largest single week jump in the chart history. It also has a distinction of being one of the many songs that probably would have been number one had it not been for Old Town Road.

[00:39:32] Guys, just move on past that. We don't have time. Keep on trucking. The song also broke Amazon Music's record for most first day and first week streams. As of today, the song has over 626 million streams on Spotify. The song we're doing today does. Yes. Jesus Christ.

[00:39:51] And there's not a whole lot about the background of this song. But if you go watch her documentary on Netflix called Miss Americana, no, there was a whole segment of her and Urie in the recording studio working on the song and also making the music video.

[00:40:07] But you see that it was first conceived as like a slower piano based ballad. But then it obviously gets transformed into this like bloated. Again, there's that word Hayden overproduced bubblegum pop that we know it does. Gross. So at this point, I'm going to let Sarah take over

[00:40:25] and just get all of us super angry. So I mean, however you want to do it, if you want to just talk about Swifty in general, I've got these clips ready whenever you want to go. So take it away.

[00:40:38] Well, first of all, have y'all ever wished that you were an octopus so that you could slap someone eight times at once? Because that's that's where I'm at, you know, mentally and emotionally. So, yeah, I guess just moving on from that imagery. This song says nothing.

[00:40:59] There is it is hollow and it is just like, I mean, well, they do say I, me or my 61 times the last time that I counted. It's not even an octopus. It's a cuttlefish. Yeah.

[00:41:12] Oh, hey, I would like to know what the stats are for how many times she says I, me or mine throughout all our music. Well, now I'll think about the Harrison track. I really wanted to find that too, but I just I couldn't count them all

[00:41:25] because there isn't just like a list. It's all just all of these people feigning and just loving all of her stuff. So it's actually kind of hard to find stuff like that. But it really is. Yeah, it's like, I guess Kingsley's got a hold of that, too. Kingsley.

[00:41:41] Lot of broken legs out there. Yes, my sweet. Would Kingsley be played by Jack Nicholson if they were a movie? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Someone that looks like they have a sex doll named Mother, I think would be a good actor or Kingsley.

[00:41:59] Like Lord Farquaad meets someone else creepy, I think. That's good. But yeah, like in an interview, she said that this song was about celebrating individuality and it should make listeners feel better about themselves. But I don't know, I would rather not celebrate individuals that love this song.

[00:42:22] It doesn't. Yeah, it also most into your point, it also just doesn't say anything other than that like blatantly, I'm me and nobody's like me. It doesn't actually articulate on what that means at all. Yeah, it's very frustrating. It's like a Sesame Street level. Exactly.

[00:42:38] And it just it makes me so angry. The fact that this song is probably made so much money. Words are hard to find when the rage sets in and like the overselling of it. She's trying to give this gift of like a lesson of self care.

[00:42:50] But like the box is just all of the already used tissue paper that like your aunt couldn't bear to throw away at Christmas. Like, oh, he's a slider of stored in the hall closet for eternity. Yeah. I'm sorry, mom.

[00:43:04] Well, I was going to say when you have like lyrics that generic they're not saying anything about you as an individual. I mean, maybe you as an individual is terrible. I mean, I don't doubt that.

[00:43:15] Maybe you should like if it's just like, oh, it doesn't matter who you are. You're great. No one's like you. But like if you're a dog shit person, maybe that's not the best message to send to somebody. I'm sorry, are there people that aren't dog shit people?

[00:43:27] Not in my opinion. Yeah, me either. We're a disgusting race. Or species rather. And race to also race. Here we go. Sorry, Sarah, continue. We have fun here. I don't know. And then there's like the overreliance of the of like the vocal fillers, like the

[00:43:48] he he he and who who who and all of that nonsense. Just don't make the song like just just leave it alone. And there is that one clip that I have of like I was telling Josh, I don't really know if this is an accurate comparison

[00:44:04] because honestly, my brain is just disintegrated from researching and listening to this song. So I don't really trust my choices at this point. But I do think that it sounds a bit like that Emily Sandy song next to me. So yeah, I'll play that clip real quick.

[00:44:27] Oh, wow. That's just me. It totally does. No, I'm with you. OK. Next to me. Fuck, I knew this is a verbatimie or something. You're dead on that. What's really interesting about this, you sent me. I'd never heard the song before and you sent me this song.

[00:44:47] And so I decided to look it up like how's there not a lawsuit? And there's a lot of chatter and, you know, people on YouTube who's pointed out. But there's also a clip of Emily Sandy performing it live with Taylor Swift. Like you can go find that collusion.

[00:45:03] You can go find that clip on YouTube. I mean, it's probably one of those things where like Emily Sandy or her team were like, hey, we could definitely sue you over this. So why don't we sort of have a mutual like handshake to help promote me?

[00:45:19] Yeah. Let's be rich people together in hand in hand. Yeah. So I mean, that's I mean, as we said before, like these kind of lawsuits drag on forever and usually end in out of court settlements.

[00:45:30] But again, I don't there's not a whole lot of details about this other than, yes, I don't think you're crazy, Sarah. This is clearly a that song came out in 2012. You know, so that's seven years prior to this.

[00:45:43] So who knows what the story is, but no, you're absolutely right. That totally tracks dead on. And then like, I just don't think that she can sing good, which is a big problem, probably my main problem of her existence.

[00:45:59] Because like, I don't know, like Adele is worth 190 mil. Beyonce is worth 440 million. And the fact that Taylor is worth three hundred and sixty five for just not being good. It I don't like it. It makes me really angry. Well, you've got to pay Kingsley. Yeah, exactly.

[00:46:21] King's cut is huge. Kingsley cuts 85 percent. Even on this track in particular, there aren't a lot of times where she's just singing like by herself. It's very layered. That's super auto tuned intro. Yeah, it's just I guess it would be more OK with it if she was considered

[00:46:39] an entertainer for those people that are entertained by that bullshit. But like a singer to me, like if you were a singer, you should be able to fucking sing. I don't know. A crazy thought. Get out. Like even in her like live performances and shit,

[00:46:56] like there's hella backup singers just kind of like cloaking her shit voice. And I just I don't support it. Yeah. And you have we'll play a clip of her performing the song live from the Billboard Awards. So that's that's this right here. I'm Taylor. I'm Brandon.

[00:47:14] Welcome to the Billboard Music Awards. I'm at hell. Yeah. That guy makes me sick. I'm a striker than the one to three. I promise I'm gonna find another life. It's just right when. Yeah. I was so in without me.

[00:47:40] Brandon sounds like he's like screaming in a car with zero suspension, like like it's going off the rails. I want you to see this picture of Brandon. Let me get it. Let me get it zoomed up and just look at his face. Oh, that's him.

[00:47:59] He is satisfied with himself for sure. Yeah. I mean, I agree. I most of the criticism she's gotten in the press like it's negative at all is, you know, people saying that she's not that great of a singer, but like couching

[00:48:14] it with immediately saying her talents lie and songwriting. And I don't agree with that either. So what's your thought? Incorrect. I that's absolutely incorrect. I mean, like I guess she had a couple of gems, but it just it doesn't warrant the the Christlike fandom of it all.

[00:48:35] It's almost like a Dylan-esque level of praise that she gets in the press. It really is. It's a heart that blows my mind. And I don't like like the blind following of it. And then also, you know, she has like one of those

[00:48:47] fan bases where like if someone shit talks like the masses, you know, are unleashed upon them. Yeah, we're all getting docks now. Yeah. Well, no one listens to this podcast, so it'll be fine. Yeah, it's good. That's a good thing.

[00:48:59] I don't know when I did find this one slate article that had a great excerpt from it and it says, me a brittle blast of synth pop that drew immediate comparisons to Timberlake's infantile Trolls theme song can't stop the feeling.

[00:49:13] Her duet partner, Panic of the Discos, Brandon Urie sings his best Ed Sheeran impression brings all the passion of a marionette and if Swift's venomous reputation as a bad girl sometimes felt forced, this song feels like a punishment. Ouch. Nice. And I can't help but agree.

[00:49:31] And you know, if you all think that just a song is bad, the music video is worse. I was going to ask you about that. I kind of think the music video is awesome. I can you expand on that please? No, I'm just I'm just trying to.

[00:49:44] OK, great. Well, I'm already there. Sorry. I'm just trying to provoke you. I'm there. What's your least favorite part of the video? Because I have a very distinct one. Probably the fact that visually it looks like if Lisa Frank and Mary Poppins got together and snorted

[00:50:03] some Molly Lace pixie sticks and just got weird with it. You stole my poppin's thunder. I was going to say when Brenda Frazier comes in like the point extra Mary Poppins. The court I found from a review of the video

[00:50:17] is this is Matthew Macaulay from the spin-off rights. Willy Wonka reboot cosplayer Brendan Urie really put out all of the stops to try to ruin this one. Yeah, I mean, it really feels like like those scarabs

[00:50:32] from the mummy are like crawling under my skin back to the mummy. Yeah, yeah. In comedy, we call that a callback. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so there's a little nugget there for you in the office. We say circling back to. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's a good one.

[00:50:45] I'll get that one. Yeah, I don't work in office. Josh does though. You want to talk about it? Oh, God, no. But yeah, that that documentary that I mentioned earlier, the Miss Americana they talk about, you know, they show the production of the video.

[00:51:00] And the idea is that I watch the segment on this part of it just to kind of get an idea. But the whole concept of the scenes with her and the scenes with him

[00:51:10] are all about like, let's make what makes us like put all our stuff in there that's me. So Taylor Swift's like, you know, cowboy boots and like unicorns and shit. And then like she's like in for you.

[00:51:20] It's like, you know, emo guy kind of like, you know, bannered blah, blah, blah. I was like, God, these people make me sick. Where is the emo guy in that? I don't know. I mean, don't don't get me started on emo

[00:51:31] because I will spend half an hour screaming about how much I hate this guy. And I know you said you like panic at the disco, but like. I did. I did. I used to.

[00:51:42] I mean, we can't all make good choices all of the time as as clearly shown by, you know, this song and music video. But so you're saying you don't like this anymore? Damn it. You take a clip of the spelling is fun kids thing.

[00:51:59] I don't have that clip. No. God, but we even pay you for. We can we can definitely talk about that. I mean, that's actually the part that received the most criticism. I got a couple of quotes about that bridge. Candy Salomo from the Daily Telegraph writes,

[00:52:15] the low point might be Swift shouting, spelling is fun, kids, like a manic summer camp counselor because she's noticed that you can't spell awesome without me. Alice Webland, all of the spin off rights. I was prepared to like the song until Taylor yelled spelling is fun.

[00:52:32] And from that point in the video, I felt a little bit sick. What if she's saying that you can't spell awesome without me? But she's talking about herself. She's not talking about like other people telling themselves that they're awesome. She's just like, no, it's me, me, Taylor.

[00:52:45] I'll also point out that the spelling is fun line has been removed from the streaming versions of this song and only remains in the music video. And of course, the kids bop version, which is exactly the same.

[00:53:00] I think that speaks to like a lot of underlying insecurity in most of her music. Like I think she knows that what she writes is mostly disingenuous nonsense. So she'll just do whatever it takes to avoid any kind of criticism.

[00:53:13] People like blew back on this spelling is fun thing. And it's like, you know, critics don't like something about the song. Let's just fucking change it. It's like you did it, Taylor. You put it in there for a reason and whatever that reason was, it was horrible.

[00:53:25] I want to talk about whatever underlying condition makes you continue to listen to kids bop this podcast. Well, I just wanted to see if there is a matter with you. There's a number on at this point. This song is a kids bop song already.

[00:53:38] This would be twenty four. Is that it? There's only 24. I thought they were like at least 80 at this point. Episodes. No, no. Regular season 24. Yeah. So something like that. No, I'm no of kids bop like. Oh, good God, who fucking knows?

[00:53:54] Yeah, I was just thinking about how many times Josh has listened to kids bop, which is 23 too many. Well, the only difference in between the kids bop version and Taylor Swift's version is, of course, the children singing it, which is only slightly less annoying than Brandon Urie's voice.

[00:54:08] That they sound a lot better. Yeah. And they say, you know, instead of lame girls or lame guys in the lyrics, they say lame kids. There are a lot of those out there, though. So I mean, all of them.

[00:54:21] Don't get me started on pop erosion control talk, because I'll do it. And confirm. All right. What else you got, Sarah, that this makes this song like the nails on the drywall from earlier? I don't know. Like, there are a couple of of scenes

[00:54:33] like the the incorporation of the marching band. I saw this in a couple of reviews that some people think that it's like a malnourished stealing of like Beyonce's Bechella performance as it were, which then that led me to trying to find like the exact scene from that.

[00:54:53] And then I just got so much more frustrated because Beyonce is so much better than Taylor Swift. And it just I just got really stuck on that for a little bit, except like her marching band people are are pep the bismol like color, which very distinct color.

[00:55:10] Yeah, which is what I needed after after watching a music video. Well, that's that's one of my least favorite things about this song is the marching band Horn Line in the background. It's so milk toast, so lame.

[00:55:25] It's very interesting that that was like after having just come from Mardi Gras and hearing like very unmilk toast marching bands for six days. Listening to that song really stood out. Yeah. So what I've prepared is here I'm going to play the chorus

[00:55:38] and you can kind of listen for the horns. But then I just did up a little bit and you'll hear those horns a little bit better on the second go round. Great. Fantastic. Basically, just kind of follow the melody. Yeah. And, you know, there's it's they're there.

[00:56:02] That's what you can say about them that they're there. And they're just inoffensive enough to go mostly unnoticed. It sounds like a kid who's just pressing like single buttons on a casio key, which is exactly what I did when I made this. Excellent. Major improvement, I think.

[00:56:29] Honestly, no syncopation, no like real counterline to it. And then it ends on that last note without a resolution and just feels horrible. Now, much like my head right now. Yeah. I've got one more thing that I hate about this song

[00:56:50] that I can demonstrate, Sarah, unless you've got something else specific. You want to hear for it? So as I've said, I really fucking hate this Brennan Urie guy's voice. You know, the whole affected, whiny emo kind of voice is just something I'm not into.

[00:57:07] And it really stands out on the portion of the chorus melody that is literally just it's not even a melody. It's just two notes going back and forth rapidly. This is the moment that I'm talking about here. And then.

[00:57:27] So aside from his voice just being really grating to me, it's a non melody, you know, and Hayden has mentioned this before on the podcast where you can kind of judge the strength of a melody about by what it

[00:57:41] sounds like when you just play it on a piano. And if it sounds stupid on the piano, it's probably not a good melody. So here it is on the piano. You rushed that second one a little bit. Sorry, I'm super angry.

[00:58:00] And the thing is, it's like it falls directly like on the downbeat of the measure right on the chord change, which just makes it sound really kind of lame. Even if you had just like had like a pickup note into it,

[00:58:12] like on the upbeat before, it would have sounded a little less rhythmically stupid. But it's there and whether she's singing it or he's singing it or they're both singing it, it's just a non melody in my mind. Yeah. And lazy.

[00:58:27] I mean, it seems nothing if not it's just consistent with the with the hollow emptiness of the entire bit. You know, I mean, so at least it's on brand, which is just like my soul. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hayden, do you have anything specific

[00:58:40] about this song that kind of sticks in your craw? I mean, Sarah already really pointed out exactly my beef is just to re-evaluate a little bit like I get that it's promoting individuality and self-positivity and like that's a difficult thing to shit on.

[00:58:52] But but she's not saying anything about it. There's like there's just like so little substance to the song. Both like the song has a lot of lyrics to say absolutely nothing. I don't know why they bother having as many as they do.

[00:59:06] They could just it can just be a chorus at this point. Like it's not really a song at all, in my opinion. So I just I hate it. Yeah. Yeah, I really do. And I like a lot of Taylor. So it is a discomfort.

[00:59:20] I like a lot of her songs. I was I had some like some reservations about shitting on her, to be honest with you, because she's like just seems to bring a lot of people some happy a little bit of happiness.

[00:59:29] And that's like, you know, pretty important with how fucked the world is these days. But man, this song really does suck ass. I mean, is there anything even salvageable in it? That's the hardest question. I honestly, I don't think so. No, I don't either.

[00:59:42] Because I mean, I tend to agree with Hayden again. I don't know much of her catalog other than I tried to listen to a fair amount of it this week. I would say that the songs on 1989 are probably the least offensive to me.

[00:59:54] Yeah, there are things in that that are pretty decent. But again, it's like, like you said, Sarah, her vocal performance is not very convincing on pretty much any of it. I just can't believe that she's won awards for her vocals

[01:00:07] that I need to speak to those judges personally. Five minute back alley with Kingsley. Flipping a butterfly knife back and forth. Yeah, I'll tell it to their face in cursive. This ain't OK. All right. Well, if there's nothing else specific about the song,

[01:00:26] it might be time for Hayden's YouTube corner. So I'll tell you, it was very difficult, as we already discussed, to find anything funny at all here. Like everybody takes this shit so seriously. Like why do they take Taylor Swift so seriously?

[01:00:40] Like I get I get like in her. I do a lot of her songs are catchy. I get that she's a decent role model. But like the obsession that's going on here is very Christlike, like Sarah said earlier in the episode.

[01:00:51] So there's really like this like you can't. There's nothing funny. Everybody's like constructing serious like paragraph arguments. There's no there's no like funny quips, really. But I have a couple of small things. I always said couldn't find enough on YouTube alone.

[01:01:05] So I kind of went all over the Internet just trying to find like somebody who wasn't like pretend like they're writing a dissertation in defense or attack. But on the YouTube video, Emma says, I got so many goosebumps at the end of the song.

[01:01:20] What song is she listening to? I get that it's a happy bop. And maybe if it makes you feel good, that's awesome. But goosebumps on this track, where? When? Like no matter how much you like the song. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's that riveting brass section.

[01:01:40] Maybe that just really does it for. Yeah, I guess. Also on the YouTube, Lexi has to say, and this is in reference to Tay and Brendan, the platonic chemistry is awesome. I'm sorry, Lexi, there's no such thing as that. They definitely banged in a trailer on set.

[01:01:58] I want everyone to know that I know for an explicit fact they had rough sex in a trailer on set of that video. Allegedly, allegedly. It looks like a real soft fuck. That's just me. Do you think that when he like is having sex, he goes, I hold.

[01:02:14] Oh, yeah. Yeah, probably with a tasteful peppering of some whimpering. Soft fuck. He leaves his checkered vans on. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, checkered vans never come off. I went I went digging through Reddit a lot too, which was a mistake, but.

[01:02:34] On the rant tag of Reddit, there's just one. There's one guy wrote this really long-winded rant that's boring and I read it and it wasn't funny at all. So I went through his comments and they are all boring and not funny.

[01:02:47] But this one person just kind of summed it up pretty perfectly. You're all dumb. All these pop stars aren't even real people. They're corporations. They make boring music to keep people enslaved to stupid music and ideals. Fuck off. Just man. I bet that guy's a really funny parties.

[01:03:02] Yeah. Oh, I can. Also in his defense, the asshole who wrote the original rant that inspired that talks about how much he loves the luminaries. So fuck him. Oh, well, it's good to know at least one miserable bastard out there who's worsted me.

[01:03:18] So thanks for bringing that one in. Hey, yeah, I also just did a general reddit search for Taylor Swift sucks. And let me tell you, it generated a lot of fake porn links. So we fired again. Yeah, thanks, Tay. Right. Yeah, it's it's almost concerning

[01:03:35] how hard it was to find dirt and to find bad things. It's like the whole internet has been whitewashed of like 100 percent. It's a very craftily controlled image, I think. You know, again, we go back to that sort of showbiz

[01:03:49] Kingsley thing like yeah, it has been very good. It seems to be very calculated from the beginning. You know, it's who knows who the real Taylor Swift is. I'm starting to get like a look some conspiracy theory

[01:04:01] vibes here about this, like not the more we all talk about it. Like how? Why can't we find this stuff? Yeah, I mean, I didn't think that that was possible. I've had varying degrees of success, you know, doing this and actually finding funny stuff.

[01:04:13] But like this is the biggest strikeout by far. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there was a there was a couple. There was a big lawsuit with the Shake It Off lyrics that's been have been going on for a while, but wasn't nearly as interesting

[01:04:25] as any of the other lawsuits that we've talked about before. You know, the New Yorker article that I mentioned earlier, it's where I found that quote from the email about Demtrial about cutting off the legs and throwing in the lake. And that's really it.

[01:04:37] There really isn't very much at all. I mean, everything that even the videos about how next to me seems to be the genesis for Taylor Song Me. Like even those videos are all like kind of have this wishy washy language of like,

[01:04:52] well, you know, it's tough to write something incredibly and uniquely original now. Well, whatever. You got you got more. Yeah, I was going to close it out with like after I literally spent two hours to find this one little bit of idiocy that Kingsley missed.

[01:05:08] And this is on a Rolling Stone review that gave one of her stupid records four stars out in the road when it was in the comment section of the Rolling Stone review. Green Boomerang says, I give it four poops instead. Which I'm not sure is an insult,

[01:05:24] depending on what's going on with you at the moment. Yeah, if you're not very regular, that might be just what you need. It might be it might be a lifesaver. Green Boomerang had a bunch of boiled eggs, soft boiled, I imagine.

[01:05:38] Well, I want to give before we wrap it up and ask throw this back on Sarah because Taylor Swift and her music is not meant for me and Hayden. You know, you were probably in that demographic of the tween girl

[01:05:53] back when Taylor Swift released her first album and you probably had friends and new people who were super into this. What do you think it is that makes some people be into her and then people like yourself just viscerally hate it? Yeah, a little question.

[01:06:07] I mean, I'm I'm from Jasper. Don't tell anyone even though I just said it out. Jasper Jasper in that area. I mean, like it would stay pretty basic. I mean, like don't get me wrong. I know you don't like Rascal Flats, but some of those harmonies dog.

[01:06:23] Shit, just mainland those right in me as a singer. I love you with that. Also, a quick side note. I don't know if you all know about Yallternative, but the God bless the broken road in Yallternative version is just gets good. What is Yallternative? Color me intrigued.

[01:06:39] It's a little circle back to that one, but I don't know. Like at the time, it was just like whatever was popular is just what people liked because people just didn't know how to form their own opinions at that point.

[01:06:51] And like at that time, it had been a year or two since a friend of mine had given me a burn CD that had like brand new in the format and some bony bear, you know, some some good good crying stuff

[01:07:06] that went well with my straightened hair and angst. And so I just I don't know. I just I sniffed the the narcissism on this chick pretty early on. I was like, oh, you think you're hot shit, don't you?

[01:07:21] Well, you look real dumb and I ain't listening to it. And so pretty good way to solve this to it. Can I ask you a question about Jasper? If you must. What's the deal with the sushi restaurant? Everybody talks about the gas station. Is it legit? Oh, shit.

[01:07:37] Yeah, no, it's real good. Fuck yeah, I want to go. I've always wanted to go to Jasper for that reason. It's really the only reason to. Yeah. What's it called? Do you remember? I can't remember what it's called. I honestly have never heard it by its Christian name.

[01:07:48] I only know it as gas station sushi. Hell yeah. But they got a main po boy too. Really? Yeah. Don't sleep on that po boy. I'm making a point to do this. Yeah. My only experience with Jasper is my dad used to take

[01:08:00] his boat to get worked on there by a fellow named Squirrel. Oh, dude, yeah. Yeah. Squirrel. I probably I probably met him, honestly. You know, they were like, I can't remember what other songs were out at that point. I think Carrie Underwood was big too.

[01:08:17] Like when her first when Taylor Swift's first album came out, which at least Carrie Underwood can sing, you know, like she's got a range even like on her live performances. There there isn't like that shitty shaky vibrato that that Taylor has in her voice.

[01:08:34] And she can at least hold notes. I don't know. Maybe Taylor Swift should go into jazz where, you know, Josh, you don't have to hit the right notes. I don't. Don't you put that? Don't you wish that evil on me?

[01:08:44] I mean, she it would make about as much sense as she transferred into jazz is like whatever excuse for country that she had going on. So I'll predict she's going to do it when she's like 50. We'll see it. But you did.

[01:08:58] You did send me a clip of one of her original songs, I think is sort of a dig on her quote unquote songwriting prowess. Yeah. So I can play that now to end up the episode. So yes, it was going to be my favorite part of the show.

[01:09:12] Remind the listeners here, of course, that this is a girl from pencil fuckingvania adopting this country type voice. So you sent this as the original lyrics. And I have a feeling that there is a changed version and you're going to hear why. Yeah, that age well.

[01:09:49] Yeah, it's real well. Two thousand six. Kingsley Kingsley won't stand for that potty talk. Yeah, her mouth needs an exorcism. I can't think of a better way to end the episode than her mouth needs an exorcism. So thank you guys, Sarah,

[01:10:08] for joining us to try to figure out what the hell's going on with this girl. Tell us again, Ferg, where people can find your art and commission you. Correct? Yes, they can give me money and I will make them pretty pictures and things of the like.

[01:10:24] They can visit SL Ferguson design dot com to view some again, very outdated work because who has the time when you're listening to so much Taylor Swift? So yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, well, thanks for coming on. We'll have you on again soon.

[01:10:40] I don't know if we'll find something as visceral as Taylor Swift for you to talk about. But it's going to be tough. It's going to be tough. Maybe maybe we'll do it panic at the disco song and you can come in

[01:10:48] and defend it while I lose my fucking mind. Oh, yeah. OK, good. All right, Hayden's ready to log off. He's already he's back on his office. I was looking up Sarah's website. Excuse me, Josh. Oh, everyone else should too. All right, guys, thanks. We'll see you next time.

[01:11:07] I love y'all like a cold sore. Goodbye. We did it. We really did it.