transcript

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
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Speaker 3:
[01:38] Hello, and welcome to Every Single Album. I'm Nora Princiotti, and I am joined, as always, by my friend, Nathan Hubbard, who, as a Californian, is closer to the desert, closer to Coachella than I am on the East Coast. So I guess he can be your vibes captain for the week, and just like he can tell us what it's felt like to be at least proximate to week one of Coachella, which is what we're gonna discuss today. Nathan, what have you seen? How did you consume? What happened to the first week of Coachella over the weekend?

Speaker 4:
[02:16] I cow-chell-ed the whole thing.

Speaker 3:
[02:18] You cow-chell-ed? I also cow-chell-ed.

Speaker 4:
[02:20] Yeah, and did you stay up for the whole Bieber set?

Speaker 3:
[02:24] No, I did not.

Speaker 4:
[02:25] Okay, see, so it was hard for me, but I mean, I was up at one plus a.m., California time, watching that. There's been a little bit of blowback this year on the influencers at Coachella thing, hasn't there? The sort of brand integration influencer thing they're getting pooped on.

Speaker 3:
[02:44] Yeah, they are. That's one way to say it, and I agree with that, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[02:49] I don't mind it.

Speaker 3:
[02:49] It's at Coachella for sure. Right, I would say that you could extend that to culture much more broadly. I think Coachella is an event where, particularly in the iteration of Coachella that I think starts with Beyonce, that turns it into a much more pop-focused festival than it had been historically, that dovetailed with the real peak years of influencer-dom, and it really made Coachella into a super influencer-centric event. And I think now there is starting to be a fair bit of pushback in terms of, one, just how effective influencer marketing is these days, two, just general sort of sociocultural frustration with constantly being sold to, and three, just the way that those figures have become so, so ubiquitous. There was the whole thing with influencers on the red carpet at the Oscars. There's, Coachella is always an event where I feel like the last few years there's always been some sort of discourse about how many influencers are there and whether or not that is good for the event as a whole. And I do agree with you. It seemed like other than a couple years ago, where there was that whole thing where they were doing Revolve Fest at Coachella and a bunch of people got mad because it was kind of a little mini Fire Fest kind of situation. This year seems to be one where those sentiments have not only been kind of bubbling beneath the surface, it seems like there is a full blown conversation about, God, does anybody really want these influencers here?

Speaker 4:
[04:36] Well, that's been the immediate vibe, but I think generally speaking, it was a pretty successful first weekend. I mean, I candidly wasn't exactly sure how the lower part of the bill was going to do, but the Jack White last-minute surprise show, I thought was great. The Geese performance, a lot of people had eyes on it. Geese doing Baby by Bieber was awesome.

Speaker 3:
[05:18] It was awesome. And by the way, has Cameron Winter ever sounded more like Christopher Walken than in the intro, like when he started singing that song?

Speaker 4:
[05:28] I know. They're like the It band at the moment, and everybody's just sort of circling them like vultures. And, but I thought that that set was great. Geared up for Sabrina, that was a massive set. I mean, there's lots to talk about on the Coachella front.

Speaker 3:
[05:44] Yeah. Well, can I start us with Bieber? Because I will say, if you came out of the weekend thinking about influencers, I came out of the weekend thinking about Bieber and his set and just how people received it, who watched it online, people who watched it online, but didn't watch the live stream, sort of consumed it via social media, and then people who were in the crowd. It brought me back to the conversation we had after the Grammys when he did that performance where he did Yukon and he's in his underwear and it was literally and metaphorically stripped down. And I think I asked you something like, is this what it's going to be like at Coachella? And we said, no way. And of course, it wasn't that. There were a few more bells and whistles and he also wasn't wearing under just his underpants. I imagine he was wearing underpants, but that's not really for me to say.

Speaker 4:
[06:49] Sounds like you were thinking a lot about Bieber coming out of the week and you got it.

Speaker 3:
[06:53] This is the first time the underpants have come up, but I was thinking a lot about Bieber. But then he gets up there and it was a very, very, very pared down show. The vast majority of the set list came from Swag and Swag 2. There's not a lot of bells and whistles as far as...

Speaker 4:
[07:14] Well, it depends on whether or not YouTube karaoke counts.

Speaker 3:
[07:17] Well, so I want to save that for a second, because that's what I really want to talk about. But just in terms of the... You know, he's not really dancing. There's not a lot, like, they shoot off some fireworks at the end. He does have a few special guests. But what did you think about the overall sort of minimalism of the show? Did it surprise you? Did you enjoy it?

Speaker 4:
[07:41] Well, it's hard to talk about without the without talking about the middle part of the show, because I think you either have to say, this was performance art and this was intentional. Or you put on your CineCat and you say, it was too much to make it a big show. He wasn't going to be able to do the enormity of a show like, I don't know, the massive thing that we saw from Sabrina Carpenter the night before. You could go even further on the cynicism and say, if he remains in debt, that perhaps the point was to not have a high production cost show so that he's paying back or making more money than you would.

Speaker 3:
[08:30] If he got paid $10 million for that, he gets to pocket a higher percentage of that, then I can't even imagine what that Sabrina whole shebang cost, but it had to be a lot.

Speaker 4:
[08:42] If he's got some advances that he has yet to recoup on the touring side, that all played into it. I don't want to sort of speculate on that to be candid, but I will say we knew what this setlist was going to be X the YouTube portion of it, because he performed it pretty much verbatim at the Troubadour the week before. And people came out of that show and the show at the Roxy, like he had done these little pop-up shows prepping, I think. I was surprised to a certain extent that there wasn't any just attempt at all to pretend like he was doing anything other than playing the backing tracks. Like no music. But then when you step away, you're like, well, okay, but that's what a Bieber album is.

Speaker 3:
[09:37] I guess with the one exception of McGee at the very end for Daisies with the guitar.

Speaker 4:
[09:41] Right.

Speaker 3:
[09:51] I'm sure. Which was really cool.

Speaker 4:
[09:53] It was really cool, but it almost was weirder to not see the drummer bashing, going sort of head to head with McGee. It's fine, I think it's a reflection to a certain extent that this music is so much about him. But I'll say this, look, I don't know about you, the people of the younger generation that I know who were on the ground felt like it was a little sleepy. They felt a little bit disappointed relative to what it could have been. And I sort of understand it because the night before they, again, had an entire Hollywood movie set on stage, right? The flip side is, I don't know about you, Nora, but the guy was captivating, just watching him. And his voice was incredible. And it was a very sort of intimate, alongside him hanging out late on a Saturday night, as if you were at a, you know, on a couch, not just your own couch watching Coachella, but like on a couch next to him. And as that performance went on, I went from, is this it? To, man, I just am enjoying seeing this guy do his thing.

Speaker 3:
[11:13] That's how I felt. Now, I do wonder if that would feel a little bit different if I hadn't grown up with him in quite the same way, i.e. if I were 10 years younger, which is like a core person who goes to Coachella, I might not have the same sort of nostalgic emotion wrapped up in just seeing him do that and hearing, especially the songs once he did go into the YouTube set and was sort of going down that form of memory lane. That was really powerful to me. I did think that he sounded amazing. I also, and maybe this is also because I'm not 25, I'm not a bit, like, I would certainly go to Coachella and I'm sure I have a very good time. Festivals have limited appeal to me because I'm always worried I would be so tired. And so the idea of something that is a little cozier and a little more like we're just swaying with our friends.

Speaker 4:
[12:06] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[12:06] That is really appealing to me, but I can also very much put myself in the mindset of someone who, you know, it is approaching midnight on a Saturday night, and they think that they're at a big party in the desert, and Justin is sort of quietly with most of his face obscured behind a hoodie crooning. I can understand how that would land a little bit oddly. Did the people who said it was a little sleepy to you, did that comment feel tied more to the YouTube portion or to the other stuff or neither?

Speaker 4:
[12:41] Yes, to all of it, but I also think to contextualize it, this show was a hundred percent made for the people at home, and not hardly at all made for the people in the crowd. Now, all the cool kids came out for this show. There was a lot of buzz, and in the secondary market, access to the Saturday ticket went up through the roof because people were like, holy shit, Bieber is performing. It's Justin fucking Bieber. We gotta see this. But A, the fact that it was so late means most people who weren't on site saw this only in things that were fed to them online.

Speaker 3:
[13:19] Right.

Speaker 4:
[13:20] And there isn't, right? And then, so it was just, it was so late. And then B, I think it sort of was disadvantaged by the fact that because it was so late, very few people will get a chance to actually watch it start to finish. And I did think there was some flow to it. And he did sort of slowly, as the show went on, the hoodie came off, the glasses came off. He did more like, but this was, you know, he was looking directly into the camera more so than he was really performing for the crowd in front of him. And I'm, the tin foil hat might say that was a psychological mechanism to get him through the show, or it's also potentially just smart marketing because, you know, most of the people who consume this stuff are not the 90,000 people on the ground, but the millions of people at home.

Speaker 3:
[14:12] I didn't think he seemed as vulnerable as he did at the Grammys. And I don't know if that's a function of...

Speaker 4:
[14:22] You look pretty good.

Speaker 3:
[14:23] Yeah, and he just seemed a little bit more, you know, there's something very compelling about that Grammy's performance where you just felt unsure if it was going the way that he wanted it to for a while, unsure if he was even going to make it through, and then he sort of eased into it. And it was very cool, but it was... I found it jarring for the first couple of minutes because why is he in his underwear and what's going on and is this okay? I didn't feel that way watching this. He was quiet. He was clearly approaching this in a way that kept some boundary lines between him and the audience, between him and sort of what he is willing at this moment in time to give when he's up on a stage. Like, you could see that those had been very clearly drawn in how the performance was set up. But I didn't have that same feeling of, oh gosh, is he okay up there? Which I think for a multi-hour show is really good because I could handle and was even in some ways compelled by the vulnerability of it all, watching him just do Yukon on the Grammy stage and then be done. But that would not have worked over the course of an entire headliner set.

Speaker 4:
[15:49] Yeah, I mean, I'm with you that it felt a little more polished. There wasn't the moment where he walks off stage and then comes back and everybody's like, what the fuck's going on? There was kind of a moment though, when he sat down at his computer and started pulling up YouTube videos. Where I think there was a fragility there and I think some people were like, wait a minute, has he totally fallen down a rabbit hole here?

Speaker 3:
[16:17] Well, that's my one regret of not, I mean, I was never going to do this. I would have had to stay up until like five o'clock in the morning, but for not watching it live, by the time I was seeing it, I knew what he was going to do and I knew what it was going to be. And so you lose that moment of, what's happening right now? And I'm sure that was an interesting thing to be a part of.

Speaker 4:
[16:40] Yeah. I mean, in the moment, I thought it was exciting because it was like, oh shit, okay. Well, first of all, I hope nothing weird comes up in his browser in his search history here. But second of all, like, okay, we're getting through this, he's going to go through and we're going to get a bunch of hits. There was this disappointment, I think, in that he was singing over tracks. And you realize kind of quickly his voice doesn't sound like that anymore. Those parts are extremely high and he's singing a full octave lower. Oh, right, he's not a 14 year old anymore. Like this is different. And then as you got through that, at least for me, I was like, right, and that's the point. We're all watching the little kid together, who was discovered on YouTube, whose whole life has been documented on YouTube. And he's going to take us through that medium in this nostalgia walk. But by singing over it in a lower register, he's also very subtly without saying it, telling us that he's not that person anymore.

Speaker 3:
[18:01] Well, it's both like he, right? He's not that person anymore, but he also is, right? Like there's an ownership element of it too, because I totally get what you're saying, but it's funny. I found myself thinking more, wow, here's Justin Bieber, who seems to have a pretty complicated, if not outright negative relationship with this era of his career. And with most of the people that he worked with and was discovered by, was mentored by during the time when he made those songs. But he's also standing there singing them, and you can see him, and you can see former him, and he still does kind of have that baby face. He doesn't have the bowl cut, and yes, his voice has changed, but the warmth of it is really recognizable. And it's almost kind of like parentheses Justin's version. There's a claiming of things that maybe he has conflict with people who have tried to take a certain type of credit for, that I thought was really like, I find him so easy to root for because he does seem so vulnerable. And I found that powerful because of that, and just very sweet and kind of poignant. Do you wish that he had like truly done it karaoke style where he was just playing the old versions or where he was completely singing and you couldn't hear the old voice?

Speaker 4:
[19:36] Do I wish? I don't know that I wish it had been done differently.

Speaker 3:
[19:41] Like where you say that there was a disappointment initially in it. I'm trying to figure out what that was.

Speaker 4:
[19:46] It's that he wasn't really playing the old songs. But if you're being honest with yourselves-

Speaker 3:
[19:53] Justin Bieber in this moment is not going to fully do a beauty in the beat. Or a baby. That's not going to be a part of his Coachella set list.

Speaker 4:
[20:15] Correct.

Speaker 3:
[20:16] In a normal way. Traditional way.

Speaker 4:
[20:20] Yeah. And I mean, if you're not going to do One Less Lonely Girl, you've lost me. Let's just be. There were so many opportunities. He went through all of these different videos, and we didn't get One Less Lonely Girl. Are you kidding me?

Speaker 3:
[20:48] I know. And he did Favorite Girl. But not One Less Lonely Girl. That was a surprise to me. He did that. He did the With You cover. He did a little bit of Never Say Never.

Speaker 4:
[21:29] Yeah. It was good. It was good, but it didn't feel so much like a performance as like a, I don't know, almost like a nostalgia. It was almost like he was teaching a course on Justin Bieber.

Speaker 3:
[21:51] Well, in a very literal sense, I think I had more universally positive reactions. I just watched the whole set start to finish, and I was a sucker for basically every moment.

Speaker 4:
[22:08] On YouTube or where did you get it?

Speaker 3:
[22:12] So I think they've been going, the other thing to me that's funny is that, I think there's been some, I think they've been taking down a lot of videos.

Speaker 4:
[22:20] Yes, that's what's happening.

Speaker 3:
[22:22] But I, through YouTube and TikTok, was basically able to see the whole thing.

Speaker 4:
[22:26] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[22:28] I wish that he would have done, or it would have been nice if he could have done, for instance, one song, like a One Less Lonely Girl or something, and worked that into his portion, where he was the core performer. That would have been a real moment. I just, you know, and I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. Is it just, it's painful for certain reasons for him to perform. He doesn't feel comfortable with it. He doesn't want to open that up. Maybe that's it. Maybe he just is more excited about the new stuff and didn't want to. Maybe he wants to see if it's possible for him to perform more in the future and is saving something. Like, I really don't know what the answer is.

Speaker 4:
[23:16] It does save a lot of those songs performed fully. If he was going to go do a residency somewhere or go, you know, any kind of a tour. I have a sense that he will and the promoter will need to actually communicate what it is in the future. Because again, this in and of itself is not a show that's going to carry arenas. People will probably pay for tickets.

Speaker 3:
[23:43] No, it works because it's a one-off.

Speaker 4:
[23:45] Right. Because we're sort of re-acclimating ourselves. We're just sort of, he didn't really reintroduce himself at all. But I came away still not sure the essence of your point earlier. I don't know if he likes that music, connects with it, like would enjoy performing it, or whether it's just a thing that's in his past and now he's making, you know. There's something to be said for almost every song that he performed being written or released after 2024.

Speaker 3:
[24:24] Definitely, definitely. I mean, I think like some of these things, it doesn't have to be one answer, right? Like I think it's no secret that this is a person who has come back to performing after some real difficulties with being on stage, in part because of some financial need. And I think you can say that the economics of the type of show that he chose to put on can be part of the form that it ended up taking, as well as, it is an artistic statement about where he came from and the type of artist that he wants to be, as well as it appeals to a certain millennial audience that's really motivated by nostalgia, as well as, it is a emotionally comfortable way for him to go do that job. Like I think, you know, I find the takes that come from the cynical angles when stated as absolutes, like he did this so he didn't have to pay a bunch of backup dancers like Sabrina Carpenter, just really silly. I also don't think that there's absolutely no truth to that being one element of how this thing took shape, right? And I think that's fine. Like it's a job on some level. I wonder if, I guess the most hopeful take that I would have is maybe doing it this way helps him come back to terms with some of that older catalog. Maybe it's a way to kind of dip his toe in and see if he can get comfortable with it. I think some people didn't have a great experience with how this set went, but some people had a really, really good experience with it. It seems like it, it's not divisive in the sense that I don't think it's, like there's some discourse-y stuff online about, you know, could a woman get away with doing something this minimalistic? Look at Sabrina Carpenter. She's basically producing La La Land 2 in a single night. And like, I think that that's interesting. And I think a valid point of view, I also just think that they're really different performers. They're people at completely different places in career. And that explains the difference between their sets more than anything else to me. But just to go back to the point about how much this could translate to an arena show, I do think that this works for Coachella, because even if you're someone who went and felt like it was a little sleepy and maybe not everything that you wanted, it is a moment. Like it's being talked about as a moment. And so you can always say that you paid your, you know, if you spent $700 for a day ticket or $1,000 for the pass or more if it was secondary market or whatever, part of what you got for that is, hey, I was at Coachella and I was at the Bieber headlining set the night that he pulled out the laptop and went on YouTube. And I watched Justin Bieber stand there and be like, hey guys, this is the video of the time that I ran into the glass door, didn't see that door there. And right now, that is an incredibly scarce cultural experience. And so I think that is cool for people in a way that if you extrapolate that out over X number of cities and X number of tour dates, then it turns into, hey man, could you do a little bit more up there and pressing play on a YouTube video and humming a few bars over the chorus?

Speaker 4:
[28:26] Yeah. Do you think that there was like an artistic point to the YouTube component of it? Like showing how his life was basically captured in all of these moments and then it evolving into the like, Deez Nuts and Double Rainbow Guy and just like that he's like this creature that lives forever in the internet. And I want to get there.

Speaker 3:
[28:51] I definitely, yeah, I want to get there. I want to get there. And I do like, do I think that on at some point Bieber had the intention of showcasing a platform that is where he was discovered and that he is really, really native to? Yeah. Is the artistic statement as, rendered in detail as you just said about, you know, I'll show you kind of the devolution of what's happened and how I've been perceived. And I think that's probably a little, that's a little, little much also.

Speaker 4:
[29:30] But is the alternative that he was just like goofing around on the internet, like being a punk in front of 90,000, I don't, I don't know. There was, there was an intimacy to it. It just, it left you wanting, I mean, here's the good news. It did leave you wanting more. It did not, his voice sounds great, he looks great. If they put together an arena tour and publicize that they're doing some of the old songs in addition to the new stuff, maybe even with a live band, that thing's going to sell like crazy. That's not going to ever be his problem. His problem's going to be, can he get through it? Did you notice that there was a teleprompter? In multiple places all over the stage?

Speaker 3:
[30:14] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[30:15] That is not unusual, especially not for somebody who, as we were reminded in that YouTube section, has an enormous catalog. But he would have been one of the very few number of people at Coachella that had the teleprompter. So, I don't, like, that's a totally normal thing that happens in music. I just, I'm not suggesting that he is unique amongst artists to have a teleprompter up there, but it does, in conjunction with the simplicity of it, suggest to me that they were, you know, he was trying to get through it without having too much to think about in terms of the head steps.

Speaker 3:
[30:52] He had the bumpers up. Yeah. Well, and I don't think, like, I would love to see him get comfortable with the catalog, because as you point out, and this was absolutely one of the things that hit me the most, is just like, it was the same thing as when we did the Build An Album. Man, this guy has a lot of songs. It is a deep catalog, and there are more hits than you remember. I would love to see him get comfortable with that material to the point that he could perform it in a more performed way than he did on Saturday. I don't think Justin Bieber is ever going to do Bells and Whistles choreography, flash, spectacle, stage show. He's never going to do that again. I feel pretty confident in saying any show that he is able to do and take on the road is going to have... It's going to be Coachella in feel, not Coachella. It's going to have to feel like friends getting together and hanging out and singing some songs and jamming and feeling that... Like it's going to have to traffic in that intimacy rather than something that is shiny and fizzy and dramatic, because I just don't think that he's comfortable in that mode anymore, and it's too tied to some painful earlier eras. It's just, I just think it's an open question of if he's ever going to be able to find the middle ground. And I hope he does, but I don't know. And I thought for a show that was more about keeping him comfortable and finding ways to do it, I thought it was different, unexpected, interesting. Authentic and pretty emotional was how I received him. I thought his voice sounded really great.

Speaker 4:
[32:49] Yeah. I think it did its job. It got people talking. It didn't leave people like, what the heck? There was enough controversy. And if he wants to go out on tour, people will buy tickets. Can I just say there was a moment where it felt a little Kanye-esque.

Speaker 3:
[33:12] Yes. Yes. Yes.

Speaker 4:
[33:15] And some of it where it was like walking the line between, wait, is this genius in art or is this guy just being a donkey and taking advantage of 90,000 people right now? Is there a method to this madness or is it just madness?

Speaker 3:
[33:31] But also even just in the pure aesthetics of it, the really minimalist stage, the oversized single color, streetwear influenced clothes. And all controversies in the current era of Yay aside, that is an artist who was at his influential peak in the moments that Justin Bieber was like, becoming a fully realized human being. So I think that I felt like that was very apparent and just sort of what it looked like, and maybe also in what it was from the line between performance and performance art and just taking advantage of people perspective as well. Shall we talk about a very different way to approach a headliner slot with Sabrina Carpenter?

Speaker 4:
[34:28] That was a big set.

Speaker 3:
[34:29] It was a big, big set. I mean, this is much more like in the broad strokes, this was much more what you would expect and unsurprising, but as it usually is with her, it's in the details and it's in the sheer quantity of punchlines and outfits and just moments that get packed into a show.

Speaker 4:
[35:01] Yeah, I was left just being like, God, it's really hard to follow these in successive years. And it's Beyoncé's performance, I think, that really did it because that became, as Jay-Z would say, one of the most important sort of cultural moments of the decade. And people just, I think, feel like they've got to basically put on a Super Bowl halftime show plus.

Speaker 3:
[35:28] I think we now, like, this was maybe even obvious in the moment because of how good that show was. But particularly now that it's been near, like we're verging on a decade, you can see how clearly that show changed Coachella and how centered pop has been since then and just what the expectations of what a headlining set looks like and should look like, particularly when it's coming from a pop star at Coachella. Like, it does kind of now feel like there was before Beyonce and after Beyonce for that festival.

Speaker 4:
[36:09] Yeah. And this was, you know, this was a pop star in a moment. I mean, what I liked about this show, and the special guests, you know, Will Ferrell is funny, and Susan Sarandon is Sabrina's interesting, and Sam, Sam Elliott is the opener.

Speaker 3:
[36:28] Sam Elliott, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[36:30] I'm just constantly impressed with the way that Sabrina manages to just stay above the fray. Like, she just stays on smart, clever, horny corner. She never leaves. At some point, she's going to have to broaden out from that. But right now, she's mining it in all of its glory and depth for just pure great entertainment. And I thought, like, there was a lot. If you just step back and think about rehearsing that show, there was a lot to it. I mean, it was a full on, you know, hour and whatever of a movie that she basically had to do. I was pretty impressive. It was not cheap, I imagine. And but you couldn't have walked away and thought she didn't bring everything she possibly could have to that performance.

Speaker 3:
[37:25] No, you can always tell that a lot of money has been spent. You can always tell that there were a lot of rehearsals. And it's a really, really different way of being an artist, being a performer, being a star than, of course, what Bieber is doing. And I think also, like, you know, we can talk about some of the geese and different ways of being on those stages that are a little bit more about having it feel a little grungy and authentic. Like, that's not what she does, but you just, she's incredibly reliable. I don't know if this was an entirely above the fray weekend for Sabrina, which I wasn't even gonna bring up, but like, I guess in the grand scheme of things, I feel like Sabrina has been more above the fray than she is in this exact moment, but it's fine.

Speaker 4:
[38:17] That's fair. That's fair. Look, my biggest complaint is that I'm such a sharpest tool, Stan. And I wanted it out of the set, but I didn't get it. But I thought it was smart to not play nonsense. Right, which was the last thing that she did before she, when she said she'd come back in headline to then not play it, I thought was pretty good. And there was a lot, there was a lot in this whole show. I mean, anything, yeah, let's see. I know nothing, but I'm most interested. I'm going to keep my eyes on next weekend.

Speaker 3:
[39:08] Fascinating, okay. I mean, she, one of the things that struck me from hers was that she is entering that zone of the catalog feeling a little deeper than it has in some of the last times that we've seen her, you know, go on tour and have big moments. And of course that is in part a function of putting out two big albums incredibly close together. But, you know, for instance, she hadn't played Sugar Talking, When Did You Get Hot, We Almost Broke Up Again, and Such a Funny Way, until Friday night. And I thought all of those sounded great. I thought they were all cool. I thought the particular staging, you know, it's really hard to fault any of the staging choices or anything like this because it was all so intricate and all so fun. But she has really quickly, and it's maybe a little funny to say quickly because as we often remind people, Espresso was not Sabrina Carpenter's first single. She's been working for quite a while, but there are starting to be a lot of songs that she plays. And I go, oh yeah, I kind of forgot about this one. I love this song. This is great. Like, I don't even think I listened to My Man on Willpower in a while. And that, I thought, really hit. And I have, I really liked that song when it first came out, but I think I just haven't, haven't gone to it in a little bit. And it reminded me how much I liked it. And like, she is, she is starting to have a very impressive collection of songs that you can do that with. And a set like this is a great opportunity to remind people that those things exist.

Speaker 4:
[41:01] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[41:02] Did you have any particular little moments that were your favorites?

Speaker 4:
[41:07] In the Sabrina show? I don't know.

Speaker 3:
[41:11] I thought the dog people from Man Child was particularly funny. Like that fucking poodle guy, like, kicking his legs out.

Speaker 4:
[41:19] The dog people were interesting. Yeah. The dog people. It's a little left sharky. Like who's in the dog costume?

Speaker 3:
[41:28] He's a little left sharky.

Speaker 4:
[41:30] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[41:32] She's always been a little left sharky. And I think it stands out, especially I think in an environment like that, because when she really broke and got big at first, I think it felt very tied to the eras tour, not in terms of the fact that she was blowing up, but it just like the moment in culture when that happened was around the eras tour. Like that was just sort of in the musical ecosystem and what people were thinking about. And that's a very choreographed show. It's a very showy show. It kind of puts you in this place where your assumption about what happens when people get up on stage is like, it's a little corny in moments. There's a ton of choreography. There's a ton of production. But not all of the aesthetics of pop music and the music, like it's not always like that. And I think when you have something like Bieber as the counterweight to it, like some of the corniness to me pops out even more of here's Sabrina over here doing kickball change. But like I don't, to me, that's a good thing. It's like it gives her a real particular character.

Speaker 4:
[42:58] Yeah. I mean, this was, there was a very choreographed in a good way, I think, sort of set of touch points with Sabrina this week, right? She did, they released the house tour video.

Speaker 3:
[43:10] Yep.

Speaker 4:
[43:11] Which whatever, it's just a good time. I'm not, I don't need, somebody died in it. You know, it's all good.

Speaker 3:
[43:17] She is always murdering a man.

Speaker 4:
[43:21] She did, she did it yet again. Then there were, there was like the photo shoot with Sabrina with dark hair, which people have been doing on the internet using AI for a while now. And so she actually did it. She did that. And that all sort of led into this performance. So there was, if you step back and look at the, just the data points, there was, there was a, it was sort of a little bit of a second campaign for Sabrina this week.

Speaker 3:
[43:51] Here's one thing that I think I'm probably making up, but I'm curious about, is she involved in the Devil Wears Prada 2 in some way, because when she went out there to do Go Go Juice, that was a sweater in a tone that I only recognize as she's Cerulean and the Cerulean that is discussed famously in the original Devil Wears Prada movie. And I know it's like she can wear a blue sweater and it doesn't have to be related. And maybe this is, maybe no one else thought this, but when she got up in that sweater for that performance, I was like, is this a Devil Wears Prada 2 activation? Is that what's going on right now?

Speaker 4:
[44:34] I don't believe that that's the case, no.

Speaker 3:
[44:37] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[44:37] This is a very hard working-

Speaker 3:
[44:39] That's good, I didn't want it to be.

Speaker 4:
[44:41] Busy human. I mean, the thing is, she just played down South America, a totally different show. So, I don't know exactly when, I mean, you said this was rehearsed a bunch, it definitely looked like it was rehearsed a bunch, but I just think if you map out her time, this could not have been, she didn't have that much time to pull that show that we saw together.

Speaker 3:
[45:03] Somebody had to rehearse. I mean, you know, the dog people were rehearsing, I hope.

Speaker 4:
[45:07] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[45:08] I imagine.

Speaker 4:
[45:09] Yeah. It's just like when and where could that possibly have happened given her schedule over the last, so I say all that because as she's saying, she's a busy woman and I don't think she's in Devil Wears Prada 2.

Speaker 3:
[45:23] Okay. That makes me happy, not because I wouldn't enjoy seeing Sabrina Carpenter in the Devil Wears Prada 2, but because I don't want to be too precious about brand activations while sitting here talking about Coachella.

Speaker 4:
[45:39] Right.

Speaker 3:
[45:40] But sometimes marketing goes too far.

Speaker 4:
[45:42] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[45:43] And I liked the set so much that I would have had a little bit of like a, does everything have to be about selling something? But I'm willing to accept that she just wore a blue sweater and I think that's fine.

Speaker 4:
[45:56] What was it? Susan Sarandon. How did you receive that?

Speaker 3:
[46:00] Great. Love it. Love Susan Sarandon. How fun. I don't have any more complicated thoughts. I just was like, great. Let's go. That is also how I felt about Will Ferrell.

Speaker 4:
[46:16] Yeah. I mean, Will Ferrell, he's life of the party showing up. The Sarandon piece-

Speaker 3:
[46:23] Will Ferrell actually oddly, Will Ferrell and Sabrina Carpenter feel like they were the same people in a past life somehow.

Speaker 4:
[46:31] Right. Sort of constantly playing a character, but you're in on the joke with them.

Speaker 3:
[46:36] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[46:39] The Susan, the Susan Sarandon piece ran a little long. I was like, wait, what, how long is the show going to be? But it was interesting. And I like, you got it right away. You're like, oh wow. She's doing a very good job. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[46:56] I didn't think it went too long. What did you think about the gong?

Speaker 4:
[47:01] You know, I love a gong. I mean, she, look, Juno is the best part of the show. I think of the regular arena tour show, it's like the highest energy moment. It's the song, I still wish, I mean, I wish it had been its own single and whatever, but it's still, I think, is my favorite song from that album. And yeah, you know what?

Speaker 3:
[47:31] But you know what's satisfying?

Speaker 4:
[47:32] I appreciate she did something different.

Speaker 3:
[47:34] Right, right. She did something different. And you know what? Both of the songs on both of those albums that I think you and I have both felt like, okay, do we get on one level why you're not making this like the single, the song? Yes. But man, is this a great one? Our Juno and House Tour. And you basically have your opening moment and beginning your closing sequence.

Speaker 4:
[48:03] It was great.

Speaker 3:
[48:04] By the way, I brought this up in a sort of tentative way a couple weeks ago. I have accepted Taylor Swift and her bullshit back into my life.

Speaker 4:
[48:14] What do you mean?

Speaker 3:
[48:15] I just mean that like I'm not having the reflexive like, uh, uh, uh, uh thing that that really was. I don't wish it upon myself or anyone, but like my truth is that that was going on for a while. And I don't regret it. I don't think it was wrong. I just like something has changed. The seasons have changed.

Speaker 4:
[48:37] Was there some thing, is it just because it's 80 degrees in New York today or?

Speaker 3:
[48:41] Yeah, I think it's just warm out.

Speaker 4:
[48:44] Okay. Okay.

Speaker 3:
[48:47] I just like, I don't know, I see the demois photos and I go, I like that skirt. I put on Life of a Showgirl, I go, ah, this is fine. I'm having a nice time. Like I just, my attitude just has shifted and I don't know. I just, I'm just trying to be honest with people.

Speaker 4:
[49:01] Well, that's positive. I, any positive body language I'm going to do.

Speaker 3:
[49:05] I'm not, I make no promises it won't turn. I'm just saying that's how I feel.

Speaker 4:
[49:11] How do you feel about this rumor that's flying around LA that she's getting married at MSG?

Speaker 3:
[49:15] That's insane. This is the most insane thing I've ever heard in my entire life.

Speaker 4:
[49:20] It seemed crazy to me too, but-

Speaker 3:
[49:24] So, and is this tied to the whole thing where it's going to be July 4th weekend in New York City?

Speaker 4:
[49:29] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[49:31] I mean, to be in a tin cylinder in Midtown over July 4th weekend in New York City, that is one of the most unpleasant combinations of things that I can fathom as a human being.

Speaker 4:
[49:48] It seems crazy to me.

Speaker 3:
[49:50] What woman would want her wedding to be in a space that is devoid of natural light?

Speaker 4:
[49:58] I don't know what to tell you.

Speaker 3:
[50:00] I understand that money can accomplish a lot of things. Are they going to do it on the roof? They could get married on the roof?

Speaker 4:
[50:10] I'll just tell you, Rufus de Sol is playing there four nights, June 25th to June 28th. There is nothing scheduled at MSG until July 7th. Bon Jovi. Now, that is strange, because Madison Square Garden usually has more than 365 events a year, because the circus will come in, or they'll have something in the afternoon and then something at night. And I'm looking at the posted events on MSG. Now listen, there's a break between May 6th and May 10th, too. Some of that is, I think, around, like, Knicks games and all that. But the NBA Finals, the hockey season, is over by July.

Speaker 3:
[51:00] Do you think there's... Is there anything more to this rumor other than there's a break in the MSG calendar? Like, is it coming from any other...

Speaker 4:
[51:09] I'm the only one who I think has gone and looked at the MSG calendar. Nobody told me about that. I heard the rumor running around LA and then went and was like, there's no fucking way. Let's put this to bed. Let me go look at the MSG calendar. And I'm looking at the MSG calendar and there's 10 days that are not booked.

Speaker 3:
[51:30] Could they be getting married somewhere else? And it's like...

Speaker 4:
[51:34] That's what I'd do if I was her. Create a diversion.

Speaker 3:
[51:38] Oh, I wasn't even going to say that. I was going to say, maybe they're going to live stream it from the garden for the people who don't... Maybe it's somewhere really small. And so all the people who don't make the cut for the real thing.

Speaker 4:
[51:51] It's like the love story, John Jr., Carolyn Bassett, Cabin in rural Georgia, but they're going to live stream it in New York, say, maybe that's an interesting idea.

Speaker 3:
[52:01] That would also, by the way, that is also an upsetting possibility to me. This is like... It's actually... I take offense to me being like, Nathan, great news. I've accepted Taylor Swift and her bullshit back into my life, with open arms, and you've been like, well, what happens if she gets married at Madison Square Garden?

Speaker 4:
[52:21] That was the point of me bringing this to you.

Speaker 3:
[52:23] I love the garden. There's no other place for me to see an event where I'm more excited about specifically where it is, other than I've always wanted to go to Red Rocks, and I've never been, and I want to do that at some point. So I guess there are other examples. Whatever. I love the garden.

Speaker 4:
[52:39] I just don't think it's a good place for a wedding. There's no way she's getting married at MSG.

Speaker 3:
[52:43] So they would put the aisle and the dance floor and everything on the floor, and everybody sits around, or do the guests sit in the seats? But do they take the Harry Styles banner down?

Speaker 4:
[53:00] Imagine being her, though. The guest list can very easily get out of control, right? So maybe she and Travis were just like, fuck it, let's do it.

Speaker 3:
[53:13] I think there are other places to accomplish volume. First of all, I don't think they need to seat 12,000. I don't either, but 12,000 people.

Speaker 4:
[53:30] We've already talked for too long about this. Do not put this shit on the internet, everybody. I'm just telling you, I heard this crazy rumor. I looked at the schedule. There's no way she's getting married at MSG.

Speaker 3:
[53:41] The July 4th thing is already bananagrams to me. Everybody leaves New York July 4th weekend because it's an unpleasant place to be. It doesn't smell good. You don't want to be on the subway. I know she's not on the subway. Don't get me wrong. But it's not where everybody flees.

Speaker 4:
[53:59] But wherever they go, this is going to be one of the highest profile weddings, American weddings, in a very, very, very long time. Wherever they go, they're going to be pursued relentlessly. There's going to be drones in the air that they have no control over. They're going to be people swinging from the chandeliers to try to get the imagery of this wedding. So if I'm her, some place with the roof that is used to security and has known entrances and egresses and is used to protecting high profile people is not the worst place. Like her Rhode Island house, what are you going to do? I mean, TMZ will float. There'll be more drones than are flying over the Middle East right now, going after that wedding.

Speaker 3:
[54:49] I mean, so what do you do? You tent the living daylights out of it.

Speaker 4:
[54:54] But you still got motors hovering overhead. And you have to get in that tent.

Speaker 3:
[55:03] How do we turn into a Taylor Swift wedding podcast? She could tent from her house into a tent if she wanted to. I mean, or like, this is why I go back to Yellowstone Club, Lake Como.

Speaker 4:
[55:26] Yeah, get the fuck out. I want her to have whatever wedding she wants to have, but I don't know that she can have a normal wedding if they sort of pre-announce where it's going to be. The only place she could have a normal wedding is, by the way, everybody leaves town that weekend in New York City. That's probably part of the appeal for her.

Speaker 3:
[55:48] Right. No, no, no. Yeah. I think that's true. I just mean that it's not, it's hard to gather the, ooh, so romantic, oh, it'll be so beautiful. Like it's hard to get that over midtown on July 4th at the garden. But again, you know, her level of resources can be transformative. So I hear you that if it were purely about security, that is a space that you could lock down.

Speaker 4:
[56:25] I think that once a week we should have a little corner on this podcast called Have You Really Fully Accepted Taylor Swift and All Her Bullshit? And I will bring you scenarios like, is Taylor Swift getting married at MSG? Something that you can accept with all her bullshit.

Speaker 3:
[56:45] The world's most famous arena. Yeah, that's a trying one for me.

Speaker 4:
[56:50] Until she gets married, you're going to have once a week to try a new scenario on for a size.

Speaker 3:
[56:55] I've said this to you and Kaya, that I think that we should start a side podcast called Taylor Swift Therapy, where people present to us their Taylor Swift related emotional issues and we talk through them. And like, maybe this will be mine.

Speaker 4:
[57:09] Isn't that what this podcast is?

Speaker 3:
[57:11] That's true, that's true.

Speaker 4:
[57:12] It's what it is for me anyway.

Speaker 3:
[57:14] Can I say one more thing about Coachella and then I'm just going to end the podcast before you tell me that like, she wants to get married at the Javits Center?

Speaker 4:
[57:22] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[57:23] I thought Slater was great and I see everybody's DMs about Slater.

Speaker 4:
[57:27] Yeah. Slater was great.

Speaker 3:
[57:30] It was 3 p.m. when that set was happening and it didn't feel like 3 p.m. It felt like it was the middle of the night. It felt like it was, it had intensity and people seemed captivated. And that album is two weeks old and clearly people knew it and were into it. And I thought that was very cool.

Speaker 4:
[57:47] A little something happened in there.

Speaker 3:
[57:49] Definitely a moment. Okay. Well, I'm going to go think about various austere spaces within the island of Manhattan.

Speaker 4:
[58:00] You're just pissed that she's going to get married, that you didn't think of this for your NYC wedding.

Speaker 3:
[58:06] That my wedding is not at Madison Square Garden. Look, I'm getting married in New York City. I'm very excited about my New York City wedding. I just, I love the garden. I just, it's a bridge too far, okay? And do they have to take the Harry banner down?

Speaker 4:
[58:22] They'll cover up the banners.

Speaker 3:
[58:25] This has been Every Single Album. As always, I'm Nora Princiotti. He's Nathan Hubbard. Thank you to Kaya McMullen for producing this episode and to you for listening. We'll talk to you next week.