Latest / The Replay Room / 'The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore' - Taylor Swift (Reaction)

Transcript

'The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore' - Taylor Swift (Reaction) · The Replay Room

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome in to the replay room.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Sean Boyle, and joining me is a very special guest.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: It is the Jack of All Trades over on the Tortured Fans Department.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: He's making his debut on this channel.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: It is my good friend, Mr.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Michael Blum.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Blum, how are you?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, Sean.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm good.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Happy to make my first appearance on the replay room and happy to be back stateside as well.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, the man has just returned from a Euro trip which seemed to almost never end.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: He had some travel difficulties on the way back.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Blum, how was your experience overseas?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was awesome.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Highly recommend both London and Edinburgh if you'd never been.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Very cool places, very cool cities, a lot to do.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we had a great time.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very jealous.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I had gone as well.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: I've been dealing with the changing of the seasons here in Pennsylvania, and we still have some hot and cold days, and there's not as much to see as either of those cities.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: So we are left with just some new songs from Taylor Swift to talk about.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's what's on the agenda today.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: It is the encore of the life of a showgirl album for new Taylor Swift songs.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Blum, I I don't think we need to explain our credentials to everyone, but I think we should at least tell the listeners that we're both pretty big Swifties.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Is that fair to say?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think, yeah, Swifties is the right word to describe it.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Big fan of her music.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't as much follow the like the fan lore of trying to like hunt Easter eggs, but definitely a big fan of her and her music.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the game certainly passed me by in that regard as well.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think there was a time 10 years ago where I used to get pumped up about uh announcements and exciting little Easter eggs, but I was never good at picking up on them.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: I allow other people to do that for me.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a fan of the music.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think we're both on-the-court performance fans and the extracurriculars we could kind of take or leave, especially at this point.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think it would be easy for us to get on here today and react like most of the internet is reacting and just shit on these songs.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to try our best to provide a little bit more than that.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna dive in, give some context to what we like and dislike about each of them, and not just put a blanket on all four and say they all stink.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Before we get into the new songs, Blum, just tell me quickly, what were your thoughts on the life of the Shogirl album in general?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Were you a fan of it from the beginning?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: I would say from the beginning, I was.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I thought the songs were very catchy.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: I would call myself a very, I would say, just basic music listener in the sense that when I first listen to a song, I'm just all about like the instrumentals and the vibe first.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: If that's good, then you know, we'll dive into the lyrics later.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought from that perspective, you know, the album succeeded.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Very top-heavy, I think.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Fate of Ophelia and Opalite, I thought were two very good songs.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we can get into lyrically, but in hindsight, this album might be the beginning of the end in that regard.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, by no means would I call it a bad album, but um, you know, that's been over a year now, and I don't think any of these songs from that album have kind of made it into my rotation of daily listens.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think you summed it up pretty well in terms of how I feel.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think when it came out, I was excited about it.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Anytime we get new Taylor Swift music, especially an album, a full album like that, with a buildup, I was excited to listen to it.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was different.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: I thought there were some cool things musically in there that we hadn't heard before, which I appreciated.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I liked it a lot through my first listen.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then I listened again and again, and it's just kind of deteriorated over time.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, not a ton of these songs, if any, have made it into my rotation.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: I like Fate of Ophelia, I like Ruin the Friendship.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's just not a ton that I run back to.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's not offensive if any of them come on.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'll I'll tap my toes, bob my head.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not by any means my favorite work of hers, and specifically the songwriting.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: That is the big thing that took a downswing.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: We uh didn't really change that with these four songs that we're going to talk about today.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: I do think it's important to say as we review these four new ones, she has become a victim of her own success.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: We're judging her on a much stricter scale than we would judge a normal artist.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: She set the bar very high.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: We expect a ton from her, maybe unfairly, but that has raised our expectations for new music.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I just think we might have missed the mark a little bit with these.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start with Patient Zero.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what were your thoughts on the first one?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so this song, I think, first clearly Taylor wanted to give the most fanfare for.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it got the music video during the VMAs.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think tie ball game, Taylor wants this song to take the last shot, I would assume.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think it got the most, you know, press and publicity.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Very catchy song, I think.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's definitely a toe-tapper.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: The violin into the course, I would say, is the best part of the song.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: But again, like for a girl like Taylor that always prides herself on the bridge.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I I don't know what happened here.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like the disaster at the bridge, um, we love that violin in the opening.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds different.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's another one where I don't know if we've heard exactly something like this from Taylor Swift before, which is hard to do when you have over 300 songs.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's not an easy feat.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm like, okay, here we go.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: We're back.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: We are back.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then we get into that first part of the bridge and the talk singing begins, and it's a disaster.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: When she says, so let's get into it, you gotta switch the song off.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you could do it beforehand, that's even better.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: You're quick on the trigger.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: It takes a turn for the worst in the worst possible ways at that point.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and up until that point, like I would even go as far as to say, like, it's a it's a decent song.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like you would call it almost- I think you could call it good.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like it's you call it like a B plus student, right?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, like the students just stops going to class and just fails every exam, and that's what that bridge is.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: And uh girlfriend broke up with them.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: He's sad now, he does he doesn't want to show up in class and learn.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, that's exactly what happened.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: We have taken a turn for the worse at the bridge.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Bridges are usually, like you said, a strength of Taylor Swift's.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: This is so far from a good Taylor Swift bridge.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, it's one of the worst she's ever put out, and it it honestly does try its best to ruin the entire song.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: You you can even go as far as to say it does ruin the entire song.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because there's not going to be a time where I put this one back on because I know I'd have to skip it two and a half minutes in, or whenever we get to that pre-bridge part.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like I don't know if there's a way in Spotify to like cut up songs where you only get like a first certain like two minutes or last two minutes.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: If that is a feature, Spotify, please let me know because I would love to chop up this song and add it to my playlist.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, instead of patient zero tailor's version, can we just get the patient zero condensed version?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Just the just the abridged, please.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: I I think we're both on the same page there.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: There's some good parts to it, it's just we did not land the plane.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: We we really took a turn for the worse.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if we picked it back up with the second track plum.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Cleveland is track two.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: I I thought it was a parody at first.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'll say that.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: I thought this was like a weird owl spin on an actual song.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the when I first heard it, I thought what it reminded me of is like an eighth grade play, like when you have the final song and everyone like in the cast like gets on the stage, they all have like their arms around each other and they're like you know, waving back and forth all happy.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's the vibe of the song where it's like you're concluding a grade school play.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we could get into like the lyrics in a bit, but like the vibe was just off from like the first few seconds.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: I knew this this wasn't gonna be a good one from the the click of the play button.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: I swear there are sleigh bells.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: I I it sounds Christmassy in some regard.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: It almost sounds like the intro to Christmas tree farm.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then you hear these bells in the chorus and in the introduction.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like them in this kind of way.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really think they fit.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think it just sounds a bit weird.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like it's a spoof, like I said.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then you mentioned lyrically, this is this is weak from Taylor Swift, a girl who has written some of the most beautiful, elegant songs of all time.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're now writing a song about Cleveland, which, okay, I guess we have to do that to honor Travis in some weird way.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't like the premise of it.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Taylor is the one who doesn't deserve Travis, is what she's trying to sell us.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: She's this insufferable monster that only one person in the world finds tolerable.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: You're Taylor fucking Swift.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: I can't, I can't get into that type of song.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: I can't believe that she believes that.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like you can look at it like two weeks, like you said, like she's degrading herself, and she says, like, oh, like I'm really rich, but like don't know how to dress myself, and like Travis only loves me because he took her to Cleveland, Ohio.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also funny because now she's bashing her husband for falling for a woman that she describes as a mess.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: So like there's no, it's just a weird, again, all around vibe to it.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then again, you get the bridge, we got some talk singing again.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: We just can't avoid that.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's just a staple in her songs now.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: So uh yeah, not not her best work with this one.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she's trying to be self-deprecating, which okay.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: She mentions the thing about her not being able to dance, which was a thing like a long time ago.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: You're really grasping at straws to pick flaws in yourself.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think we would all agree you dress just fine.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: You look great most times you step out on the town.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: So does Travis, they're both very well dressed.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're talking about dance moves from 10 years ago?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: Who who's bringing those up online every day?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Why why do we need to mention that?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think there's millions of people that find you the opposite of insufferable.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, they are like moths to a flame whenever you make an announcement or put out a song.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't pick up, I don't buy what she's selling.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that she's ever been to Cleveland Blum.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's not one distinguishing characteristic that she mentions.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: She just keeps saying heights, which is the name of the podcast.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, I knew that.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, she was, wasn't she courtside at a Cavs playoff game?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, but talk to me about that.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Mention a restaurant you went to beforehand.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: She mentions Travis's porch and the heights.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's all we get from Cleveland.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: If the song's named Cleveland, make it a little bit about Cleveland.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just picturing her like courtside and has the website like a notepad, like, oh, this will be good, this first song, like in her one visit to Cleveland.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: God.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: So is this your least favorite of the four?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's that's a safe bet.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Safe for me as well.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: We'll move on to the third track, which is Pink Clouding.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Blum.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Another one that's different for Taylor.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Trying something new.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: It just sounds like someone held the gun to her head and told her to work in as many color references as possible.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I feel like, you know, next time we all get together, Sean, we'll take a drink every time she mentions a color.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's the new Thunderstruck.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's the new drink.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's that's not a bad idea.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, I would say this is of the four.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is in the top half for me.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: In the grand scheme of I think her catalog and music, I think it's fine.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's better than the first two songs.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it won't be a song that I'm coming back to often, but if it I'm out, I'm driving to the work at the radio, at the bar, it comes on, you know, I won't be mad about it.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: How the mighty have fallen, that you need to say this is of the four new songs she put out, it's in your top half.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what we're looking for.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: New Taylor Swift music.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't know, it's kind of between two and three for me.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think I actually might have a third.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's similar to Maroon in the way that it talks about shades of a color.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's just such a different and worse song than Maroon is.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I can't get into it, and I think it's once again an example of uh this is not the same songwriter that I fell in love with.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Lyrically, it's just not the same.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the same quality.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: On a side note, Sean, I know I mentioned I don't get into the Easter egg and the lore, but the one thing I did read is that there's a fan theory theory that Joe Alwyn, her ex, wrote Evermore in folklore, which would explain if she's handing the pen over to Travis, this makes a lot of sense.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know for a fact he wrote a few lines on that horrible song, uh, the track five on Life of a Shogir, I forget the name of it.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: He that it was the one like, I'm a bad bitch and this isn't Savage.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: That was all Travis.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe, maybe we've got Travis at the pen here again.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there was a credited writer, I think it was William Bowry, which was later found out to be Joe Alwyn on folklore and probably Evermore as well.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's oh God, I don't want to say that.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to give Joe Alwin any credit.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Taylor Swift can write better songs than Pink Clouding.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: It it's again, it's it's different, it's not horrible, it's just it's I'm not going back to it anytime soon, which is what you're looking for when you get new songs from one of your favorite artists.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: But thankfully though, Sean, if you want to transition, because I have some compliments for this next song.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Go right ahead and start us off with Babylon, then the fourth and final track of the Encore.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: So when I first listened to all four, I did just in succession, one after the other.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right away, I knew this was like my favorite of the four on first listen.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then I listened to it again, third time, fourth time, fifth time.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: After multiple listens, Sean, this song is a bop.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm willing to declare this song a bot.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's pretty good.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's pretty good.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: It saves it.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: It saves this project for sure for me.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because without this, if this wasn't a hit, I think we would have had four swings and misses at a larger.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: If you just zoomed out and looked at the big picture, it would be four new Taylor Swift songs that nobody was really running back to.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think this one is a song that could make its way on the playlist as something that has some staying power in the rotation.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: I like this one.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: It reminds me of Renegade a little bit.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think Renegade's slightly better still for me, but I think a bop's a good way to put it.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's catchy, it's got a good chorus, it's got a nice little bridge.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: I really do like this one, and I agree with you.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: The first time around, I was like, okay, this is the best of the four, but it's fine.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't super special for me.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: I listened to it a few more times today, and it's growing on me, which I appreciate.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, the chorus, it does a very catchy chorus.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: The Renegade is a great call out.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um didn't think of that before I saw that in the show notes.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's again very similar to that.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: A song I will be adding to my rotation.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I do think one of the reasons I do like it, I think it does have some of those like folklore evermore vibes, which are two of my favorite albums of hers.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so anytime it gets, you know, any song gets that comparison, that's always a good thing.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would agree.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think Babylon is by far the strongest of these.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's I think it's genuinely a good song, which I'm happy we didn't go over for.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: That would have been a disaster.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: So we needed, we needed this, Taylor.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Best for last.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's what she does.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: And if you hit 250 in today's baseball, you're half-decent ball player, you know.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Might be a clean up hitter on the Phillies.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: If you're gonna grade on that curve, all in all, not that bad.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Let's quickly put a score on these before we kind of transition to just a general discussion about Taylor Swift and where she's at in her career.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: What would you score the encore portion of the life of a showgirl?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so for these four songs, I kept going back and forth uh between a five and a six.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to settle on a five and a half, mostly getting carried by Babylon and the first two minutes of Patience Zero, um, or doing the bulk of the lifting there.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, I feel like I mean, in all the album reviews that you put out that I've listened to, I don't know we've had a number this low, Sean.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Correct me if I'm wrong.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: No, you're very much correct.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: And some of that is because we pick and choose which albums to review.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: When it's Taylor Swift, our favorite artist, we're gonna have to do all of them.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we're forced, she held the gun to our head in this regard.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: We're just we're big fans.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: We simply have to do it.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody's gotta do it.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be us.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you're far off at all with the five between a five and a six, five and a half, a very fair score.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was very close to you.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was at a 5.1.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I just kind of broke it down simply, like math speaking.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Babylon was good.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: I thought Pink Clouding had parts that I didn't mind, and I thought Patient Zero had parts that I liked, especially the first two minutes.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: So if you just did a percentage of these four songs in terms of what I liked hearing, it probably was around 50.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: I gave her the extra bonus point because she's my girl.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's not great.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's not certainly what we were expecting from Taylor Swift, but I guess we should just zoom out a bit and talk about her project in general with Shell Beck and Max Martin, the two producers from Sweden who worked on this whole project with her.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Did she need to put these four new songs out?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think people were clamoring for four new ones?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, I feel like her fans are always clamoring for new music.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: From my perspective, I'll just say yes because we got Babylon out of it.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, you know, I'm not as big of a music buff as you, Sean.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've never heard of Shellback or Max Martin before she, you know, went on, you know, podcasts and stuff and said, you know, collaborating with them.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: But um, I think the main story here is we need to issue a search warrant for Aaron Desner because he is much needed.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Gracie's got him working around the clock.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: He he can't not do a Gracie Abrams song, so that's probably where he's spending most of his time.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think Blum You would be very familiar with Max Martin's work if you saw some of it.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: He was around all the pop hits of the early 2000s.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Brittany Spears, a lot of her work was with Max Martin.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: He has a list of hits, certified bops, and I think it was an interesting choice in general for her to do this project with them.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: The whole album, if you look at it compared to the rest of her body of work, it is different and it sounds different.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's some really cool parts to it.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's written from this really happy time in her life with Travis, and there's some songs dedicated to him.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the uniqueness of it makes it good to have in her catalog.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I think overall, okay, you checked this box, you got away from Jack Antonoff and Aaron Desner, which you had been using and relying on for your last few albums.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: I just think I'm gonna say we didn't need these most recent four.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: It just feels like the horse was dead for me.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't need more Life of the Showgirl, and we kept beating it a little bit.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: I do like your point that we got Babylon out of it, so I guess I wouldn't trade it.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: I could easily skip the other three.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need to make them a mainstay in my life.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's just, I think overall, I'm ready to be done with this project.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: I would like a restraining order against the Swedes.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think we need to take pause.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it needs to be a forever thing, it needs to just certainly last a long time.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And like another thing, too, is you know, Taylor wasn't born to be a pop artist, in my opinion.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, she can't dance, she doesn't have the pop moves.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um obviously, like 1989 was a great album.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think you know, Blank Space is one of the greatest pop songs of all time.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, if this this Max Martin guy is strictly like pop and trying to bring Taylor back to that, that's just not her strong suit.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: I will say my favorite two Taylor Swift albums are Folklore and Evermore, and you talked about how you love those as well.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like we really found something there with that setup, with the lyrics, and kind of writing from a third-person point of view, and not writing about her own relationships and arranging the instrumentals in different ways that we're used to.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that was really creative and cool and different for Taylor, and I thought that was the sweet spot.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, here we go.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: She's learned so much, she's had the pop success, she's had the country in the beginning of her life, and now she's finding this like almost folky type vibe.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that was awesome.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't need I don't think she needs to do that forever, but I want more of that.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: I want things that more resemble that than this.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think moving away from Max Martin and Shell Beck will certainly get us closer to that.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: But it leads us to a larger discussion where I don't think either of us in ranking Taylor Swift albums are putting the life of Showgirl too high on that list.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that means it's been a while since we've had an album that we truly, truly love from Taylor.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think she is stuck creatively after having so much music out in the world?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's hard to find new ideas and inspiration.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think she's out of them?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to say she's out of them, but like to your point, like any musical artist, any TV show, any movie that's been around a while, like you risk being a product of overexposure, and you know, in her case, hundreds of songs, I'm sure another hundred more that were just never released that she just like writes and like stores away like somewhere.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: So again, being in the game for 20 years, like that'll happen.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just think she needs a little a little reset.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I would say, just creatively take take a break, you know, you're married, go enjoy married life, and then next time you're very sad about something, grab the pen and get to writing.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you see, a lot of these memes and gifts online are kind of hoping that she has a divorce just to get some good music out of it.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's too far.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want her to be unhappy.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of the Travis is getting killed.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Anytime Taylor puts out a bad song now, it's Travis's fault.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: He's getting smoked online about how his songs don't even come close to stacking up to the songs she wrote when she was with Joe and others throughout her past.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it's almost a really bad thing for Travis anytime these songs come out.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we just need to stop running them by him.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if he likes it, it might be a bad sign because he's got a monkey playing cymbals upstairs.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: So if he's like, Oh my god, this is.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think you need to say that's a huge red flag.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: Let's pivot.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go back in the lab.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: Let's come up with something new.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think she's stuck forever.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: I do think we're in a slump.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe that's again us holding her to a high standard and being very harsh and critiquing every little thing.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: I admit that.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's just when your favorite artist is responsible for putting a lot of music into your life, and you get a couple of albums out of her most recent albums that you don't really run back to a ton, it leaves you wanting more.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, slumps happen, you know, like we're in playoff baseball season, like it's a long season.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like you just gotta tough it out and come out better.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I know our girl Taylor, we have faith in her.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, tough love as one of our favorite artists.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: We have to be honest with her, and that's what we're doing here is uh just tough love.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: She wouldn't want it any other way.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: She would not want us to hold punches.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think that we should wrap up with just a final question.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: TS13 is next.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's obviously her favorite number.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: That is going to be her next studio album whenever it's released.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: And like I like you said, I agree with you.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Take as long as you need.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm not gonna get on you like I was on Noah Khan about not having new music for four years, even.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Take a break, get it right, but I want to know what do you think she's going to have in store?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: And are you optimistic about what's going to be in store?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think for me, if I could go first, I think this is the first time in a long time that she's being met with some pretty unanimous public feedback in a negative fashion, at least pertaining to her work.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: I know she deals with a ton of shit online for other things.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Those people are idiots and trolls, and anybody that attacks personal lives, that's different.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: Usually her work is pretty widely well regarded.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this work is kind of the opposite of that.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's been met with a lot of criticism and she's been shit on a little bit in a different way than she's probably used to.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: There was another time in her career where this happened and she responded to adversity.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, a slump.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: The best ones, they hit their way out of it.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think she will hit her way out of this, but we do need to ditch the Travis content.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: Just in general, I don't want to hear the words Cleveland come out of your mouth again.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to hear wood.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm done with the remedial, bad bitch, savage, Travis era.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's beneath you, not the other way around, Taylor.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: Don't forget that.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody doesn't find you insufferable.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: We need you to start speaking about those fictitious people that came up in Folklore and Evermore.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: I need some ancient lore from something you read in a weird book a hundred years ago to be brought to life.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's the Taylor Swift we want to see.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: If there's nothing in your personal life that needs to be written about, don't force it, would be my advice.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I am the worst person in the world to listen to, so don't.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: But that's just what I want to hear personally.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I agree.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Just like she's obviously a very creative mind, no doubting that.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: But just when in doubt, Taylor, just make shit up.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like me wrote, but Betty was 2020.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: So six years ago, I think she was in grade school at that time.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm sure she's had her you know fictional heart broken in the last few years going through high school.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's right about that.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: So there's avenues that we could exploit here, Taylor.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Just again, stick to what you know, and most importantly, no more talk singing.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: No more talk singing, please.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Ban that ban it forever.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: I I couldn't agree more.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Make up more fictitious characters, create a whole universe like the MCU.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: I want a whole world of Taylor Swift heroes and villains and poor people and rich and all of the inner class struggles.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't need to be about you and your quartzide experience at the Cavs game.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't need to mention every shade of pink and red and fuchsia in these songs.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: I just I just want our girl back, and I'm confident we'll get her.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: I just think this is a detour on the road to being the best artist of all time.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, it's it's not all easy.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like you need to have face some adversity, and I think within her fan base, this is this is her big adversity.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, I have no doubts that she'll overcome it.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're buying any stock that anybody's willing to sell.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: So if you have Taylor Swift shares that you're looking to get rid of, you have two guys in front of you in front of you that would love to buy them up.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: Blum, thank you for joining me on the replay room.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was a great first appearance by you.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: It was short, so it's a very abridged version of this appearance.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get you back on for a full-length record soon.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think for four songs I held my own.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: So uh hopefully I did it good enough to get the invite back.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you threw 102, and that's why you only lasted four innings.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll hopefully, hopefully, you build some stamina next time we'll come for a longer album.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a good place to leave this one.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: We will be back next week with a couple more albums to talk about.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: Listeners, if you haven't done so already, if you could please like and subscribe on your way out, that would be appreciated.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: Until next time, take care of the video.