transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:07] Hello, and welcome to Every Single Album. I'm Nora Princiotti, and as always, I'm joined by my pal, Nathan Hubbard, whose wish was granted at Coachella Week 2 when Justin Bieber deigned to perform One Less Lonely Girl. Nathan, you're the one less lonely girl of this podcast. How does it feel?

Speaker 2:
[00:30] I was very happy. I was extremely happy. I mean, that shit started really late. It's the one thing I don't understand about the whole show is first of all, let's just say, I really think, I know this sounds crazy, but I really think that between Sabrina bringing up Madonna and Bieber bringing up Billie Eilish, that they shifted the balance of power at Coachella from Week 1 to Week 2. When you add in the influencer bullshit from Weekend 1, I think it's like Weekend 1 is for the brands, Weekend 2 is for the fans. And I think that ticket demand is going to shift accordingly.

Speaker 1:
[01:21] Interesting. Do you feel like there was an established paradigm that favored Weekend 1 beforehand?

Speaker 2:
[01:30] Yeah, because I think people wanted to get there and be the first ones there and you see the show. By the time the second weekend rolls around, people know what the general set looks like. And in so many cases, performers are spending as much as they get paid to play because it is now as big of a spectacle for an artist as the Super Bowl halftime show. Thanks, Beyoncé. Because artists just want to go present themselves in that way and the expectation of what that live event is going to look and feel like gets elevated even higher. And I just think now, if you're a fan, you know that you can go to Week 1 and see it first. Or you can go to Week 2 and that's probably when the artists are really going to give the good stuff.

Speaker 1:
[02:25] Yeah, that's interesting because I was thinking about this the other day, because I think last year, I think we covered Coachella after the first week. But I think we might have been thinking about covering it after the second and then felt like the buzz was after the first weekend and that was the right time. And I might be misremembering some of this, but that was my recollection of how we handled it last year. And then I remember thinking going into this year, like, does it make sense to wait until we've seen both weekends and seen what happened? And it really felt like no, because coming out of the first weekend is when everybody is really talking about it, because that's when the sets are fresh. But then this year, you're absolutely right. Like there were more surprises and the most memorable moments happened to the second weekend. And I do think that if I were buying tickets next year, I would have that in mind, particularly because if you have someone really good lined up for weekend one, it must set up a huge amount of pressure to top it. So like, of course, you save the best for last. Of course, you save Billie Eilish and Madonna for the second weekend so that there can be buzz building unless you feel like you can get two special guests who kind of have a very equal weight. So that's fascinating. Do you know, like, are tickets usually harder to get for the first weekend?

Speaker 2:
[03:52] Yes. And as recently as 2023, Frank Ocean was canceling his Weekend 2 performance. Like, you weren't even sure if you were going to get everybody. Listen, as recently as a month ago, I think people weren't sure Justin Bieber was going to play both sets. Like, could he actually get through it?

Speaker 1:
[04:09] People weren't sure Justin Bieber was going to play either set.

Speaker 2:
[04:12] No, and let's be clear, Saturday night was incredible. It was, in my view, a full order of magnitude above what his performance was a week ago. He was more comfortable. He was more engaged with the fans. He sounded just as good. And he fucking played One Less Lonely Girl and brought up Billie Goddamn Eilish, like the OG believer. It was the best.

Speaker 1:
[04:40] Truly. She looked like she was going to combust.

Speaker 2:
[04:44] Her legs stopped working.

Speaker 1:
[04:46] She turned to Jell-O.

Speaker 2:
[04:47] They literally stopped working.

Speaker 1:
[04:49] It really was amazing. I mean, it was just absolutely perfect. And I agree that he seemed so much more comfortable. Like he, it was funny. He looked, my impression of him after the first weekend was that actually relative to my expectations, he seemed pretty comfortable on stage because I was comparing it to the Grammys performance. And then he kind of took a similar step up again, going from weekend one to weekend two. And like, I don't want to be willing Justin Bieber back on stage regularly. I think that he should just do whatever feels is right for him and his mental health and his career and his family and his life and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it does make you think like, if he's just sort of getting back into the swing of this, he could be really, really good if he just, you know, the more reps he gets under his belt, because this was already so, so special. I just couldn't, I was so excited to text you after I saw that he'd done it, he'd performed your song, he sang along, he did One Less Lonely Girl, he had Billie. And then like, I think that you might have sent me and Kaya, it was like the text just kept coming. It was like we'd sort of, and you were like, I can't believe you did it. It was so good. Billie's legs were jello. She was going to fall down up there. This is the best thing ever. This is so awesome. And I just, I'm really happy. I'm happy for all of us. I'm happy for me. I'm happy for Justin. I'm happy for Billie Eilish. But I think most of all, I am happy for you, Nathan.

Speaker 2:
[06:18] I'm happy for Hailey Bieber, who took a big step up in my mind this weekend. Just getting Billie out there, definitely she could have taken that stage. No, much smarter to get Billie to go do it. It's more of a moment. And I really do think, and she subtly hints at this in her Instagram post about the weekend. I think it took a lot to make this happen. I don't think this was easy for Justin Bieber to do. And I do think the disparity between weekends one and weekend two, and in a great way, is an indication of how uncomfortable and unsure of himself he must have been going into this. And that, who knows what he read online, because there was definitely some criticism of the show. But I think there was enough love and excitement around what happened the first weekend that, man, he just came out with a 100-mile-an-hour fastball. It was terrific.

Speaker 1:
[07:15] Yeah, it really warmed my heart. Do you think that you're gonna, should we be getting you some road-glazing milk, or do you want one of the lip glosses? Do you want the phone case? Are you going full Hailey Stan now?

Speaker 2:
[07:31] I do not need any of that, thank you. But I do need to watch-

Speaker 1:
[07:35] A little barrier butter.

Speaker 2:
[07:36] The video of Billie stumbling up there and her legs just, like she just became like an invalid. She couldn't walk. It was great. I watched it probably, I have watched that video at least 50 times. And I understand that that is where I just like, it is very, it's this wonderful full circle moment because they met at Coachella and that great video of her not even being able to deal when during COVID, they're in the VIP little pit area. And it takes her about five minutes to be able to just like hug him. And then she's sobbing uncontrollably in the car ride on the way home, they captured for the doc. Like she tells the story of how like the more that she sobbed, the tighter he hugged her. And I think it's just a very sweet connection between two kids who were kids when they became famous. And the sort of connection that they have as a result. I just, that full circle thing to then have him bring her up and her still, this star, 10 years later after her career started, like she's done world tours, she's as big as they get, to still have that fan in her is the coolest.

Speaker 1:
[08:51] It's really cool. And it's really, I sort of, I tend to groan every time I say that something is like real or authentic, but I would say that actually across both weekends, the triumph to me of Bieber at Coachella is that it was very real. It was real in its most nervous moments, right? And even in some of its shakiest parts, I think there's something very true that people got to watch of his experience going up there on stage. And then in the second weekend, there is a realness to watching him take a step forward and to have this person that he has this genuine both personal and also, you know, professional in the sense of an artist and a fan relationship with and have that come through on stage just in such a human way. Like, it's really hard to do that in an environment where you're supposed to be putting on a show and making it shiny and glossy and spectacular for an audience that big. And, you know, there's probably some pros and cons to that in moments. But I think on the whole, it made it something really memorable and something that like felt like it sunk its teeth into culture.

Speaker 2:
[10:13] His streaming stats have exploded in the days following.

Speaker 1:
[10:17] Yeah, it made people care.

Speaker 2:
[10:19] Yeah, they care. And if he wanted to go out and tour, he can do that now in whatever way he wants. If he wants to go do four-night residencies at MSG in Chicago and LA and Miami, he can do that. If he wants to go do drop it, whatever he wants to do now, people are going to come out and see it.

Speaker 1:
[10:39] Should Bieber do the Sphere?

Speaker 2:
[10:41] I don't think so.

Speaker 1:
[10:42] Okay, why?

Speaker 2:
[10:44] Because it's too much.

Speaker 1:
[10:46] It's just too, it's too Vegas, it's too big, it's too...

Speaker 2:
[10:51] It's the opposite of the show that he just gave. The thing that is going to get us through with Bieber is the connection to him and rooting for that redemption arc. And the Sphere feels like that's where the Backstreet Boys can go and do their thing. And Fish just played this last weekend, they did a super cool show. It's a highly visual thing. There's just, you don't need to stare at Trey Anastasia the whole time when Fish is playing. There is something about just the Bieber thing, right? The way she said, talking to somebody about, I think it was in Carpool Karaoke maybe or something, and they asked her about that experience, James Corden did. And she was like, I know exactly how Bieber stands. I know how he wears his pants. I know what his eyes look like. I know how he holds his body. And so as soon as I looked and saw that motherfucker stand, I was like, that's Justin Bieber. Didn't matter they had a mask on. Like I knew exactly who that human was. So you need to see that because that is and the evolution of that, which was very clearly on stage both these weekends because he was putting up the old little kid back there and you could see what has stayed with him in so much as everything else has grown. His music has changed and evolved. His life has changed and evolved, right? His body and the tattoos and all that stuff, his hair cut, everything. But there were still the mannerisms. There was still the hand wave on fucking my world. Like there's all that stuff that was that persevered. And that I think is at the core what fans can get behind and root for. I just think we don't really know how hard it was for him to do this. And I think he does not have a manager. He does not have an agent right now. As far as I can tell, both of those things are a person named Hailey Bieber. And they are closely guarding it and controlling it. And now they took the win. I hope they will sit on that win for a little bit. I think they can afford to do that, thanks to her business success for sure. And I think they probably will do that to just not like hammer the button over and over and over again, just because you're hot right now to try to extract it from the market. They've rejuvenated and saved his career. And now just take it slow. Go on his pace. We got into this situation by overdoing it and putting the kid out in places where he couldn't be expected to handle it. Now, just go at his pace because he's loved again. The punk ass kid stuff is brushed to the side. He's delivered a very, as you said, culture piercing moment. Everybody chill and let's make any time that Justin Bieber shows up from here matter a moment.

Speaker 1:
[13:40] I'm just curious because this is a question that's popped into my mind. Do you think the fact that he doesn't have an agent and doesn't have a manager right now, do you think that has more to do with feeling like he's been burned in the past and feeling like he doesn't want anyone who's going to push the pace like what you're just talking about? Or do you feel like it is more about wanting to hang on to as much, as high a percentage of revenue that's coming in as possible?

Speaker 2:
[14:06] I think it was about circling the wagons. I think they just brought everything in house. Because I think there was some danger in this. I don't know what that means. I don't know if he was a danger to himself. But he wasn't well in some capacity. And I think she and maybe the small group of people in their inner circle understood that they didn't need to be working with people who were incentivized based on a percentage of his income. That's how agents and managers get paid. And so what ends up happening in those situations is invariably they make decisions that are short-term cash-related instead of long-term equity value of an artist. Which is the way that artists should be made.

Speaker 1:
[14:51] Well, and they have an incentive towards volume, right? They have an incentive towards more dates on the tour, do it sooner, do it longer, do it bigger.

Speaker 2:
[15:00] And I think in credit to the folks at AEG who have been his touring promoting partner for a long time, my understanding is that they have been really supportive and been very patient and not pushed him in that regard. And I think helped out in some ways financially around the ways that they could. I don't have any of the specifics of it, but that's my impression from the outside. And I think they too understood that, hey, this is going to be a long journey if we stay in and support this artist, it's going to accrue to us in the long run. We'll be the eventual partner. And I think Coachella, which AEG owns, is the first step there. And I'm sure they'll make back their investment at some point. But the key now is to just don't overdo this. Just let him go at his pace.

Speaker 1:
[15:49] What did you think about Sabrina bringing up Madonna?

Speaker 2:
[16:00] Yeah, I loved it. I mean, look, we had an offline conversation last week where I was absolutely convinced she was bringing up Taylor Swift.

Speaker 1:
[16:10] Yes, you were.

Speaker 2:
[16:12] I mean, I was 95% sure.

Speaker 1:
[16:15] I know, you really, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[16:17] Some of it is like I just read too much Pooh Crave. Like I just saw all the bullshit. Like I just heard, you know, the rehearsal and all this, like I just was convinced that Taylor was going to do life with Showgirl, even though like intuitively stepping away from it, why the fuck is that what Taylor would do? Like, I guess because it's fun, and maybe because it injects a little bit, you know, more focus onto the album right now. But like, Taylor hasn't played Coachella. Like, is that really what she's, no, it's not.

Speaker 1:
[16:48] When was the last time, sorry, I'm putting you on the spot and putting myself on the spot here, but when was the last time when there was like buzz that Taylor Swift might show up at something like that and get on stage at somebody else's show that she actually did it?

Speaker 2:
[17:03] Tight end university.

Speaker 1:
[17:05] Okay, tight end university I feel does not count.

Speaker 2:
[17:20] That's what, that's the last time.

Speaker 1:
[17:21] Was it the 1975 show, and then Tide End University? Those are the last two times that-

Speaker 2:
[17:26] And she did it.

Speaker 1:
[17:27] Okay, and to my knowledge, she's not having sex with Sabrina Carpenter.

Speaker 2:
[17:32] Time, the Heim Show 2.

Speaker 1:
[17:42] When did she do, huh?

Speaker 2:
[17:43] I think she came out for gasoline, dressed as them.

Speaker 1:
[17:46] She came out for gasoline, and I just think that she didn't because she didn't do it at the show that I went to.

Speaker 2:
[17:50] Well, there you go. So, I mean, it's a thing that she's done before, but she's in a different place in her life and in her career, obviously. And so, whatever. I don't know why I thought it. I just got into the buzz like, oh, this is gonna happen. I think Sabrina bringing up Madonna was like a thousand times better, not in terms of the overall quality of the Madonna performance. By the way, the fact that she can still get down and kneel on stage. I ain't kneeling.

Speaker 1:
[18:19] I know.

Speaker 2:
[18:20] I mean, it's awesome. A very impressive physical performance from Madonna. But there was this anointing of Sabrina from the Queen of Pop that I think actually really mattered. And Sabrina showed very well. They fixed a few of the little tiny around the edges things that didn't go right in the first show. When she walked over this star, like a third or fourth star, there was a view from underneath that in Weekend 1, she'd already walked by, so you just saw the camera people following her. And in Week 2, they nailed that. They shortened the Gina Davis, Susan Sarandon's section. They shortened that a little bit. I think everybody's consensus, from a fan perspective, was that that was a little longer than it necessarily needed to be. But Madonna has anointed Britney Spears and I guess Christina a little bit in that MTV performance.

Speaker 1:
[19:21] But much more Britney and then now Sabrina.

Speaker 2:
[19:24] So I think it really, really matters. I don't know. Did you, as a student of this genre and female, did that feel like it mattered to you or did it just feel like a cameo? Because it was also this full circle moment. Madonna had come and done Confessions on a dance floor, right, at the dance tent at Coachella. That was the last time that she was on stage.

Speaker 1:
[19:55] Yeah, I thought it was wonderful. I thought it was really cool. I do think that like, it's fun for me to see Sabrina embrace her spot in that lineage because there was a moment in her career, several moments in her career, when it seemed like the mold that she was fitting herself to was not Madonna, Britney style.

Speaker 2:
[20:18] No.

Speaker 1:
[20:19] Pop star. But it really feels like this has been that mold has helped her come into her own, and is really the sandbox that she's having a lot of fun playing in right now. So I thought that was really, really cool. I love Madonna. I'm just thrilled to see Madonna. I thought the song sounded great. It made me want to dance, and that's the point.

Speaker 2:
[20:43] The astrology lesson you could have passed on.

Speaker 1:
[20:46] New moon of Taurus, and seven planets lined up in Aries. You know what that means?

Speaker 2:
[20:53] Here's what it means, people.

Speaker 1:
[20:55] Quick course in astrology, okay?

Speaker 2:
[20:56] Listen up. Actually, no.

Speaker 1:
[20:59] From those two, I'm fine with it. Great. Go off. Those two, and we'll talk about it in a second, but Olivia Rodrigo, also, I'm happy to take an astrology lesson from. My women in pop music, I think they can get away with it because I have a real soft spot.

Speaker 2:
[21:14] It was a lot.

Speaker 1:
[21:15] Well, sure.

Speaker 2:
[21:17] It made me realize how smooth Sabrina is because it almost felt like Madonna was just like, I need to say something, I need to go on. There was like, we were on the border of cringe when she just started talking for a long time.

Speaker 1:
[21:30] Sabrina is a really good.

Speaker 2:
[21:32] She's a fucking pro is what she is.

Speaker 1:
[21:34] She's a pro. She's an absolute pro. She has that Disney training. She keeps the train on the tracks. It's why you can trust her with Paul Simon or Madonna. Sabrina is gonna figure it out. It's gonna be fine. Sabrina's got it under control. I really love that about her. Now, the thing that I was gonna bring up is like, I do, it was one of those things that highlighted that a 35 year old and a 25 year old are gonna have a different experience with this moment. I think it's wonderful that some younger people just got a little lesson in their foremothers. And that's fantastic. And I think well worth the price of admission. I do think the, it was a little startling to me to see how much, who is this lady? I thought it was gonna be Taylor Swift, there was going around.

Speaker 2:
[22:27] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like.

Speaker 1:
[22:31] It's Madonna, guys. Figure it out.

Speaker 2:
[22:36] It's like my father used to make this fucking annoying joke that I now at least understand. I'm a little more sympathetic to. He'd always be like, you mean Paul McCartney used to be in a band before Wings? Like that was his joke. And that's kind of where we are with some of these people now. And that's fine. It's fine. And again, Sabrina like being a little bit of a time portal between old Hollywood, old pop and where we are now.

Speaker 1:
[23:07] I will say that even though I'm being a little bit snarky about kids these days, I actually think that if the price to pay for someone learning about Madonna is me being exposed to someone being like, who's this lady on stage? That's fine. It's great exposure that Sabrina Carpenter is providing the world.

Speaker 2:
[23:29] Just a great second Coachella Weekend. And let's talk about Olivia because I mean, I guess in retrospect, the Addison Rae set was of course where she was gonna come up. It was early, it was in the daylight. I wasn't fully familiar with the depth of the friendship between Addison and Olivia.

Speaker 1:
[24:00] I wasn't really either.

Speaker 2:
[24:02] Makes sense to me now, but I didn't know that.

Speaker 1:
[24:04] Yeah, yeah. No, I didn't see that one coming, and they did a very good job. To my knowledge, there weren't a lot of rumblings about that.

Speaker 2:
[24:14] No.

Speaker 1:
[24:14] Of course it does make sense that she would do that, given the timing of the single Drop Dead coming out, but that really snuck up on me, and that's fun. I thought it was really fun on stage. I thought Addison really sold it.

Speaker 2:
[24:29] Addison really sold it. I mean, she was all in on this.

Speaker 1:
[24:34] Are you all in on the song? Talk to me about how you processed it.

Speaker 2:
[24:37] Why are you? That's such a cop out. You don't like it that much, do you?

Speaker 1:
[24:44] Me?

Speaker 2:
[24:45] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[24:45] Oh, I quite like it.

Speaker 2:
[24:47] But do you love it?

Speaker 1:
[24:50] Yeah. Yeah. I think like... Okay. Hold on. That's a big way. I like like like like it.

Speaker 2:
[24:58] Yeah. That's what I do too. It took me a little while. First listen, I was like, okay, I really liked the karaoke thing she did. I thought that was awesome. The live stream karaoke.

Speaker 1:
[25:12] Yep.

Speaker 2:
[25:21] I definitely got, at the end, the Pisces in a Gemini stuff as it sort of builds. It didn't strike me. There was a lot of understandable chatter online that this sounded like something between Taylor and Chappell and not necessarily like what you would have expected from Olivia, but she's kind of sold it for me in the days that followed.

Speaker 1:
[25:57] I would even say that the song itself has sold it for me. I have listened to it a lot. I think it is like, and I am not sick of it. I also will say that last night, I was walking home and a car full of girls, like four women in a car together with all of the windows down, were blasting and singing Drop Dead. I was walking and there was a little bit of traffic, so they're coming down the block with me, and I was like, this is what is meant to happen. There are meant to be groups of people who are just like scream singing this together and that.

Speaker 2:
[26:41] That's why I was talking about the karaoke thing, because that's exactly what it felt like.

Speaker 1:
[26:45] Yeah, yeah. No, I think it connects in that way. I think for me, like to the extent that I had to kind of process it, it has more to do with the fact that this is, this upcoming Olivia Rodrigo album has been relatively long awaited, right? And it is something that we figured she was working on. She'd been seen going to the studio. There was some chatter that she'd done a lot of songs. And for a while, the assumption was that this album was going to heavily focus on her relationship. And then that relationship ended. And I don't know to what extent it is true that the end of that relationship caused delays in the timeline, some rewriting, some re-figuring of this album. But that is the chatter. And given that, when she announced that the first single was called Drop Dead, I made some assumptions about the content and the tone and the meaning vis-a-vis any sort of romantic or once romantic love interest in the song. This is a song about being in love.

Speaker 2:
[28:15] Yeah. And it's a little bit like when we thought Tortured Poets was going to be a filletting of Joe Alwyn and it became a filletting of Mattie Healy. I wonder if we're going to get some of the same thing here because then there's that, the video of this song, there's a version that got put out where she's doing the train, the Eurostar from London to-

Speaker 1:
[28:40] Taking that Eurostar to France.

Speaker 2:
[28:41] Right. And he's in the end of the video, right?

Speaker 1:
[28:46] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[28:46] So the presumption is that he took a lot of those shots. And I don't know what we're going to get. I think the song is fine. It's not driver's license for crying out loud. What is? It doesn't feel like Vampire to me, where you're like, whoa, bleeding me dry like a goddamn vampire. Like that was a, there's like a moment in that song.

Speaker 1:
[29:20] I don't know that it has a single moment quite as arresting as putting Famefucker.

Speaker 2:
[29:27] Yep.

Speaker 3:
[29:28] Bloodsucker, bleeding me dry like a goddamn vampire.

Speaker 1:
[29:37] In that song, I want to be fair and not do some revisionist history here, because I think she will be chasing driver's license in one way or another, probably forever, right? It's not fair and it's not right. Of course it is. It just looms so large. I don't want to give the impression that I'm less into this than I am.

Speaker 2:
[30:04] You sound into it.

Speaker 1:
[30:06] I think the dreamier elements of it, I think taking it in a little bit more of this dream pop direction, which I think I've seen talked about as some of what she was thinking about doing with New Music, and I think you can definitely hear it in the single. I'm into it. I'm thumbs up about it. I'm excited about it.

Speaker 2:
[30:28] Yeah. I mean, here's what I'm excited about with Olivia. She's not a teenager anymore. She's a 23-year-old young woman. I think she's been had this sort of fast track hyper exposure to the world over the past five years.

Speaker 1:
[30:44] Well, she's always been someone, right? She was never the type of teenager who wasn't going to drop an F-bomb or she was never precious about certain types of maturity signals.

Speaker 2:
[30:57] I think for me, my point on this is she's now really a young adult. She's not a kid. I'm really interested in some of the press that she's done around this to understand who she is better because it's always fascinating to learn about these human beings who get famous at a young age. We don't have as many who have been famous like she. I mean, Bieber is the obvious example. We discovered him on YouTube, right? Taylor. But someone who is so native to the internet and in her case, someone who is so native to the mobile device as the foundational platform for communicating with other humans and exploring their world. Seeing and learning more about who she is now that she has a better understanding of that. There's a lot of people who don't know who the fuck they are at 23. I certainly didn't. But she's had such a crash course in life because of her celebrity and fame and what she does for living, that she has just like Miley, just like Taylor, she has had to grow up faster and been-

Speaker 1:
[32:02] Yeah. Well, yes and no, right? Because you have to grow up faster in some respects. You have to be an adult in the ways where people really depend on you. You also get stunted in different ways.

Speaker 2:
[32:15] That's why I'm interested to see as a young adult. I think that's a completely unfair exercise as a fan or a critic of a teenager. Just fucking eat what they're serving. You don't ask about the ingredients and you don't criticize the fucking cooking. At 23 now, okay, now you're a young adult and I'm really interested. I have more trust and faith that she knows who she is and so I can take more seriously the way that she speaks about her art. There's very few who are the savant and can talk about their art as a teenager in a way that kind of resonates with at least an adult. I'm now really fascinated to get to know more about her and where she is in her life. She is incredibly articulate. She also is a lifelong performer and so just as we hold the contrived real sort of Damocles over Taylor Swift's head, I don't want to do that in a negative way. I'm just interested to see who she is as a human being right now as a part of this process because I think it will help us connect with what she's writing about, which it sounds like is this sort of portfolio of love songs that are going to be a little bit different than maybe what we expected coming out of the gate.

Speaker 1:
[33:27] Yeah, I would really love to know like, was this song always, did it always have this title? Like it feels like a purposeful red herring. I think that's very clever. But it also requires a really particular kind of timing to have had the song one way, but then to know that it was going to be perceived in a certain way because of what's going on in her personal life. Like I just, I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but I do think that that's a fascinating situation to have to navigate as an artist and also as a person. And I think the album as a whole will round out our impression of that. Outside of the personal narrative stuff, the thing that I just always appreciate with her and with Dan Nigro is like the songs have so many components.

Speaker 2:
[34:22] This one's wordy.

Speaker 1:
[34:24] It's wordy, but it also- You start with the verse, you have a really, really juicy pre-chorus chorus. But then you have the kind of spoken word, big chunk of it. And then you have the Pisces and the Gemini, like we're rocking out a little bit. And all of that just keeps your mind so engaged with the music. And I think that a lot of, they just don't coast, right? Like you could do a song with three of those components and just repeat them a little bit more. And then I think maybe I'm less into the song. Maybe the textures of it don't carry it. But because they do the work, they always do the work. This is always how I feel about the music that these two make together. And so I thought it was a really strong start. Have you gotten any real impression data-wise of how it's performing and how people are receiving it?

Speaker 2:
[35:39] Yeah, I think it's pretty big. I mean, about 35 million streams since it came out, that puts it below a Taylor Swift single. But we're talking six plus million streams a day on Spotify, that's a lot. And I think-

Speaker 1:
[35:54] And I think it'll have a long tail. First of all, I don't think if this is the biggest song from this album, it would be, I shouldn't say biggest because Driver's License is like a slightly different beast. But generally speaking with Olivia, she keeps something in the canister.

Speaker 2:
[36:12] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[36:13] She keeps something like Get Him Back, you know, like that stuff is being held on to.

Speaker 2:
[36:19] Yeah, I would expect this is not an album that's built around a single song to put out. So yeah, I think that like the 15 to 22 year olds are into this song and that matters. Because there is some Gracie-esque songwriting that maybe we should just call Olivia, but the sort of wordiness of it.

Speaker 1:
[36:44] Right. Is that Gracie doing Olivia-esque songwriting or is that?

Speaker 2:
[36:49] But whatever it is, it's resonating. Right? And it's a style that is connecting with a certain demo for sure. And so yeah, I mean, listen, it made me excited for the album. I still, part of why I went on that, like I'm interested to understand her as a human being better rant, is just because I in my own mind, and you and I talk about on this podcast a lot, think about the lanes that an artist occupies as a path to stardom. You have to sort of own and dominate a lane to really get into that upper echelon of stardom. And I think Sabrina we talk about has this like smart, clever, horny corner, like totally locked up. Chappell is the theatrical, right? She's, we sort of understand what that is. Olivia, Gracie I think has the diary, right? She's so many young women's diary. And she just speaks with a fluidity of language that she translates into her music that people just connect to. Over and above the melodies that she sings and the chords, like they're all, they're not irrelevant, but they're not the most important thing to her stardom. Olivia, what do you think it is?

Speaker 1:
[38:09] They're pretty important. Those songs are catchy as heck. And I don't think the words carry them if they're not.

Speaker 2:
[38:16] I think she doesn't have into the stratosphere hits yet that cross generations in the way that Olivia does, Chapel does, Taylor does, and Sabrina does. She hasn't written that song. And that's totally fine. I wonder if she even cares about that. She's going to throw up a second album with Aaron Dessner, it looks like. And those are very interesting, rich texts that don't have manchild on them. And that's totally fine.

Speaker 1:
[38:50] The Gracie Abrams record that has manchild in the middle of it would be.

Speaker 2:
[38:56] I'd like to hear it. Do you think of Olivia Rodrigo as having Elaine?

Speaker 1:
[39:04] Well, yeah, because I think that the pop punk, rockish, the legacy of Paramore, like that was a real, that was a corner that she controlled for a good bit. Now, she does seem to be not entirely walking away from it, right? Like there's the whole astrology section of the song is absolutely in that, is on that corner and in that lane. Does seem like she's tiptoeing away from that a little bit on this album. And so where that leaves her, I don't quite know. I would say that that is the thing that separated her within the last two cycles.

Speaker 2:
[40:00] Well, two things. First of all, on the manchild thing, just Amy Allen is a writer on Drop Dead.

Speaker 1:
[40:06] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[40:07] So these are big. It's not just her and Dan. Amy drops in on this one. But like I just think back to, there was a time where Taylor Swift associated herself with Olivia Rodrigo for Cloud. And it was before the legal stuff and whatever in the rewriting. And it seems like we saw them at the Paul McCartney concert. I'm sure it seems like they're okay. It's all good. But like there was a time where she was baby Tay.

Speaker 1:
[40:33] Was it for Clout or was it to showcase her legacy and magnanimity?

Speaker 2:
[40:46] Isn't that the conundrum of our dear Taylor Swift?

Speaker 1:
[40:47] If you want to tell me that's a distinction without a difference, it's fine.

Speaker 2:
[40:50] I don't think it is. I think that you're not mutually exclusive is what I'll say. Like so many things that Taylor does. They are incredibly magnanimous and sometimes self-serving.

Speaker 1:
[41:03] I'm just saying that I don't know that she wanted a piece of Olivia's spotlight. Just because the moments in which that was happening. I don't think, like Taylor didn't need the help. I think it's a little bit of a different dynamic than with Sabrina right now.

Speaker 2:
[41:19] But she definitely brought her in to the family tree.

Speaker 1:
[41:25] Yes. I'm just drawing a little bit of a distinction between, let me graft on to this young, this pop star from a younger generation of pop stars, to signal a type of lasting relevance versus, let me, when I am at the top of the world and everybody knows it, let me make a show of being giving and caring and generous to someone on the come up, out of genuine affection and a desire to help, and also maybe out of a reflexive, let me appear kind because these moments when I'm on top of the world are the moments when people get their knives out for me, and so the nicer I seem right now, maybe it's good for me. I'm just, I don't mean to belabor the point.

Speaker 2:
[42:29] No, no, no, it's fine. I mean, look, Sour came out in May of 2021. So that was pre-midnights. So Taylor in that moment was folklore and ever more famous and massively famous and had won the Grammy, right? So for album of the year, like let's not, she didn't need, but she was different level of famous then. I just, it, again, this is not a, she did anything wrong, but I'm just saying like, I asked you, we got on this because I really wanted to know what you think Olivia's lane is and you, and you did some explaining of it, but there was a time where it felt like she was the Tay daughter. She was the anointed Tay daughter.

Speaker 1:
[43:12] Yes, she was the heir apparent.

Speaker 2:
[43:14] Madonna just did that to Sabrina last weekend. It felt like, ding, the fairy godmother wand was placed upon her head, and then we got into the weird legal shit, and it wasn't, and it didn't really seem to hurt Olivia's career, and in fact, Chapel Rowan opened for Olivia and had the slipstream explosion J-curve that Sabrina had opening for Taylor. And by the way, Holly Humberstone, who we're going to talk about in a second, opened for Olivia and also opened for Taylor by the way, and sort of started, didn't have quite the same J-curve, but she became her own thing. This is a very important career-defining album that Olivia is going to put out because I don't think that you can declare the lane that she has. She is our surviving Disney star, right? And as she goes, in the same way that Miley went from, I'm making music that's being generated by me for sure, but helped out by a lot of other people because I'm a teenager. She's her own woman now, and she's got some of the same collaborators, which is great. She's got a lot less drama than Miley did, which is also great. And I'm just excited to see if this is a flag in the moon for her ultimately being Madonna, who's going to be in 50, or at this point, 40 years, 45, could she go back to Coachella with a legacy of the lore and ilk that Madonna did? This is kind of an important album in that regard.

Speaker 1:
[44:57] Yeah, or could she be a Super Bowl performer? Wasn't she your pick?

Speaker 2:
[45:02] Sure.

Speaker 1:
[45:04] Am I making that up? Didn't you?

Speaker 2:
[45:06] No.

Speaker 1:
[45:08] You did say that, that Olivia Rodrigo was your prediction for Super Bowl halftime. Okay, great. I have this thing where when I say something on a podcast, I kind of black it out, like it's involuntary, and then sometimes I wonder if I just dreamed things. The last thing that I'll say is, I agree with that. I do think that the Lane question with her is particularly interesting and a little hard to pin down because it's almost like she has two different fanbases. There's this whole thing with Olivia, and I think this has a lot to do with her coming up on these songs that felt so referential to the pop punk of the early 2000s to a band like Paramore, where there's always been this joke with her that Olivia Rodrigo is for 16-year-old girls of all ages, and so there's been this element of millennial women feeling a type of nostalgia through something that actually is contemporary. But then I also think that she has a, there's a huge part of her fan base that is concentrated in generations younger than the millennials and is less coming to her for that, maybe coming a little bit more for the ballads, maybe coming a little bit more for her version of the diaristic songwriting. And it is a bit of a balancing act for her. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[46:45] She's theirs. That's what we saw with Life of a Showgirl is that Taylor is 36 almost, or she is 36. She's not going to resonate with a 19-year-old girl in the same way.

Speaker 1:
[47:03] Yeah. I'm with you on that. And I agree that Olivia is theirs, but I also think that there's an oddly potent cohort of Livvys who are older than her and who bought in because some of her earliest hits, a number of her earliest hits, really felt referential to music from 2006. And the degree to which she hangs on to that or sidesteps it, like how she kind of navigated.

Speaker 2:
[47:40] Was Driver's License one of those songs?

Speaker 1:
[47:42] I don't think Driver's License was...

Speaker 2:
[47:45] They did an SNL sketch on that song. That's how fucking big it was.

Speaker 1:
[47:49] Driver's License was a unicorn. What I'm talking about is like brutal and good for you.

Speaker 3:
[48:01] Good, it's brutal out here.

Speaker 1:
[48:11] Like, Good For You in Particular, I think, is a song that like, it just, it did something for- Yeah, it did something for grown up Avril Lavigne fans. And I don't know, I don't-

Speaker 2:
[48:23] Like an Ashley Simpson fan, yeah, I got it. I understand.

Speaker 1:
[48:29] And I think she, I think that just complicates the Lane conversation is all I'm adding to that.

Speaker 3:
[48:36] Hi, Diva, it's Rachel.

Speaker 1:
[48:37] And Jordan, yeah, hi, quick question.

Speaker 3:
[48:39] Why are you not spending your Venmo balance?

Speaker 2:
[48:41] Yeah, we're concerned.

Speaker 3:
[48:42] You can like buy stuff with it. You love buying stuff.

Speaker 2:
[48:45] And earn cash back on eligible purchases. You love purchasing eligible things.

Speaker 3:
[48:50] So the money your friend sent you yesterday, that's today's ramen or ride share or eye patches.

Speaker 1:
[48:55] The skincare kind, not the pyro kind. Spend with Venmo and you can earn cash back with Venmo Stash. Venmo Stash bundle terms and exclusions apply. Max $100 cash back per month. See terms at venmo.me slash stash terms. ID verification required to use a Venmo balance. Shall we talk about Holly Humberstone?

Speaker 2:
[49:08] Well, I mean, shall we? The thing that I want to ask you, did you get a lot of DMs about this album?

Speaker 1:
[49:13] Oh my goodness gracious.

Speaker 2:
[49:15] Okay, so what is going on? Because I've become somewhat suspicious of this whole chaotic good conversation that's happened around Geese, which is super unfair because the band is great and all you gotta do is go see them live and it's real. But there's this article that got written about what's happening a lot in the music industry, which is happening with every brand and every bit of marketing in your whole world, is that people are being paid to accelerate chatter and conversation about things online, hoping that it sparks a moment, hoping to be the butterfly wings.

Speaker 1:
[49:49] Which, by the way, here's what I'll say, that sucks. Because most of it relies on disguise. Most of it relies on we don't make this look like what it is and we try to trick people.

Speaker 2:
[50:01] That's our social media right now. Go fucking touch grass. Every bit of marketing on every platform that you are on, so many of which you are not on, which means I have to talk to all of our listeners by myself because you're not even on the fucking platform.

Speaker 1:
[50:15] Nathan, because they're broken, because they're broken ecosystems where I am just as likely to be engaging with someone who's actually getting paid to try to convince me that something's cool.

Speaker 2:
[50:26] That's right. But that's every social platform that you're on. But there are some that are particularly worse.

Speaker 1:
[50:31] The only way to be completely aligned with you is to pin it on Geese is ridiculous.

Speaker 2:
[50:34] Yes, so to bring it back, whatever social platforms you still hang out on.

Speaker 1:
[50:40] Oh my God, and we didn't even talk about Olivia going out with Cameron Winter. We'll get there, we'll get there. Please make your point. It just was an important paparazzi photo to me.

Speaker 2:
[50:50] It'd be a fun power music couple, that's for sure.

Speaker 1:
[50:52] Totally.

Speaker 2:
[50:53] But we get all these fucking DMs, which are lovely, and it's very obvious when they're written by real human beings. And they matter. And like, they make us pay attention always. And then I hear stories about Chaotic Good, which is the marketing agency that was behind the campaign for peace. And there are lots of these things out there today. There are every record label is doing the same thing. And they're just they're trying to be the butterfly wings that start the sandstorm in, you know, in Egypt that turns into the hurricane. That's what they're just trying to do, spark these cultural moments, because we're still learning so much about how the human psyche interacts with all of this technology and new ways of interacting with one another. Anyway, my point is some of y'all made me think that maybe we were subject to a fucking nefarious.

Speaker 1:
[51:48] Oh, I didn't think that.

Speaker 2:
[51:50] To listen to Holly Humberstone.

Speaker 1:
[51:52] I didn't think that at all.

Speaker 2:
[51:53] We got so many of them. And the reason for me is I'm very protective of Holly Humberstone. And I'm very protective of Holly Humberstone because I have been on the Holly Humberstone bandwagon since 2021, at least. And I feel like one of those asshole fans who defend way early on, you know, like the early Swifties who are right and they were there before anybody else was. And when everybody else starts coming in and taking a piece of that artist, you're like, hey, I was here first. Get off my mountain. Like I was fucking here first. I don't want to share this earth with you. I don't want to share that.

Speaker 1:
[52:37] You're defending Holly Humberstone Mountain.

Speaker 2:
[52:40] But you have to, in service of helping your artist get there.

Speaker 1:
[52:44] I liked this Aeros Tour opener before she was cool.

Speaker 2:
[52:47] And so the entire reaction that I am having to all of these people saying, yo, I am listening to the shit out of this Holly Humberstone album, is have you heard any of the other stuff? Because the other stuff is so incredible. And it is like, I'm, I'm, what?

Speaker 1:
[53:09] I just want to say to our audience, I had an uncomplicated relationship with your DMs about Holly Humberstone. I thought they were helpful and insightful. And I was happy to receive that.

Speaker 2:
[53:21] Well, I'm happy to receive them knowing that you got them too. I didn't know that until now, because it makes me feel like I was not the subject of some sort of like fucking Iranian Psyop. So, here's the thing. I want to know what you think of this album, but I need to know how much time you actually have spent with Holly Humberstone, because you've heard me nattering on about her.

Speaker 1:
[53:47] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[53:48] The entirety of our interpersonal relationship. Have you spent a lot of time with her?

Speaker 1:
[53:54] I've spent time. I wouldn't say that I've spent a lot of time. I've spent a lot of time with Scarlett. Which I think is a great, great song.

Speaker 2:
[54:09] Incredible.

Speaker 1:
[54:10] And that was the song that got you in.

Speaker 2:
[54:14] I mean, I think The Walls Are Way Too Thin got me in. Scarlett got me in. Can You Afford To Lose Me got me in. I mean, that's the thing about so much of the way that her career has started is she made an EP that had, you know, a small group of things on it that are awesome. Friendly Fire is a great song from that EP. And then they retroactively mashed a bunch of the singles that she was releasing on her own, including like just this host of stuff. But they mashed all this stuff into what was basically a compilation album called Can You Afford to Lose Me. Can You Afford to Lose Me is an incredible fucking song. Like I flip out, I'm running through brick walls for that song. And the rest of the stuff that we just talked about, walls are way too thin. There's a bunch of other stuff on that record that is just like, holy shit, who is this person? And she released a song, London Is Lonely, that is amazing, but it's not on an album. And there's been all of these like things that she's been sort of dropping through time. She put out that album, Paint My Bedroom Black, which to me had two songs that moved me. It was Paint My Bedroom Black. It was Antichrist. There wasn't a ton of other stuff on there that made me flip out in the way that the early, early collection did.

Speaker 1:
[56:09] Okay, that's interesting, because I think when we've talked about her, I think that's where I've gone and dipped in. And I like her, I'm a fan, but it hasn't lit my world on fire. And I was really, really excited for this album. I really like it. I find it the most engaged with her that I've been. I don't know how much of that has to do with just the fact that I had a little bit more anticipation for it. But that was a question that I was going to ask you is like, from someone who has been really in on her since the jump, how does Cruel World, which is this latest record, like how does that fit into the entire picture for you of what really speaks to you about Holly Humberstone?

Speaker 2:
[57:02] Yeah, we talked about Lanes earlier. I saw her play the All Things Go Festival two years ago. And she played in New York on a rainy Friday night. And then she came down and played DC on a Saturday afternoon in the daylight. And the Friday night show was cold and rainy and it was stiff. And the crowd was meh and it was hard to be cold. Yes, but it lacked some energy for me. She hadn't played that many shows at that point. But so I was just like, she came down the next fucking day and did DC. And it crushed. Medium Build came out and sang on a song with her. Like it crushed. And so there has been for me this Jekyll and Hyde to Holly Humberstone. Because I felt like those first songs, well, Antichrist was on the second album. But again, Can You Afford to Lose Me, Scarlett, Walls Are Way Too Thin, Friendly Fire. London is Lonely. Like these are like really big, like this could be Phoebe Bridger, Bridges level big singer-songwriter things. And she has this, she's not quite goth. But as she says on this album, her sort of look, her dress code is like cemetery. You know, she, she has.

Speaker 1:
[58:35] Well, and in particular, I feel like the aesthetics of this album are interesting because it's not like a huge, huge departure from what she's done in the past. But it is like her, she's dyed her hair really dark. She's wearing this almost like pretty gothic clown makeup is what I would, like the cheeks are so rouge. She's so pale. There's a lot of sort of Victorian very flouncy clothing going on in the bell sleeves and the kind of lace up, you know, Victorian nightgown clothing of it all. And like the aesthetic, there's an aesthetic picture that I think has clicked here.

Speaker 2:
[59:29] She's like a moody ghost. She's like at a Bronte novel or something. My answer on this album is yes, I like it too. And in fact, it grew on me the more that I listened to it, which is, you know, I sometimes, you know, get strong opinions, strongly held when I listen to these things. It grew on me. I will also say that Outside of Red Chevy, which to me is a Pantheon song from her that I adore. That I can list you. I love that people love this album. And all I want you to do is go back and listen to seven or eight Holly Humberstone songs that predate this album. Some of the ones that we talked about, Antichrist, Paint My Bedroom Black, on and on.

Speaker 1:
[60:21] So you have a little bit of the, okay, everybody loves this album, but I want you to know that there's a little bit more than this feeling.

Speaker 2:
[60:29] Yes, yes.

Speaker 1:
[60:29] Okay, whereas it's funny because I have the experience with it that's maybe the normie side of it, where I'm going, oh, now I'm in on this.

Speaker 2:
[60:42] Yes, and I understand why people would feel that way. And I think it's really good. Like, and I want to hear your breakdown.

Speaker 1:
[60:50] I think it's great.

Speaker 2:
[60:51] Yeah, okay, good. Because, like, I heard Cruel World, I heard Dreams by Fleetwood Mac combined with This Must Be the Place by Talking Heads.

Speaker 1:
[61:02] And I was like, Combined with I'm in Love with You by the 1975.

Speaker 2:
[61:14] Okay, so you can hear it there. You can hear on like Beauty Pageant, which is a good song and is doing pretty well from a streaming standpoint. It sounds like a Tori Amos song, like Hey Jupiter. You can hear some of the other things that didn't feel like I just, when I heard that sort of synth vibe for the first time, that the synth bass that grounded it, a lot of keys and the way that her voice just does the acrobatic work that it does to sort of express that gothic ghosty English countryside emotion. I think it's more contained here. I think from a chord progression and musical composition standpoint, there isn't as much here that feels new to me. What I think she did a really nice job on this album was sort of evolving herself lyrically. But I want to know, what did you love? What, how did this thing actually land with you?

Speaker 1:
[62:36] It's an interesting point because I think in part how it landed with me, someone raised on a lot of Jack Antonoff produced, or at least Antonoffian pop music sung by women, is that this felt, it felt pretty tailored to my preferences.

Speaker 2:
[63:00] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[63:01] It felt like she's pulling out a lot of the tricks that are pretty reliable. I think it was done, when that is the name of the game, what it's about is doing it well enough so that it's a feature and not a bug. And I thought that this album passed that test. But yes, no, I mean, my notes on these songs, including the ones that I love the most, are like, like To Love Somebody, Jack Antonov, Ask Gang Vocal Production. Cruel World reminds me of the 1975. Blue Dream reminds me of About You by the 1975.

Speaker 2:
[64:01] Sure, sure, sure, sure.

Speaker 1:
[64:21] Die Happy. If Die Happy had a weirder chorus, that's a Billie Eilish song. Like, I hear a lot of the references, but they're the references that I love. So I felt very fed by this.

Speaker 2:
[64:43] But it didn't feel like new ground for you?

Speaker 1:
[64:47] Did it feel like new ground for me? No, no.

Speaker 2:
[64:51] That's my only criticism of the album.

Speaker 1:
[64:53] The thing that I wanted to talk to you about was, like, we've been talking about Lanes, right, is I'm going, okay, this is so, this does everything that an album by an up-and-coming pop star right now, generally speaking, needs to do. So what makes it different? Like, what is the lane? Because I hear, okay, obviously, we're talking about a solo artist versus a band here, but, like, I hear a ton of Muna on this album.

Speaker 2:
[65:25] And she's collaborated with Muna.

Speaker 1:
[65:27] She's collaborated with Muna. Muna's also about to put an album out in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2:
[65:33] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[65:34] So Muna's there, right? Like, I can listen to the 1975 if that's what I wanted. Like, I can listen to Billie Eilish. I think that there's a lot of Taylor in this. There's a lot of Gracie in this. There's some Olivia in this. There's a ton of Chappell Rhone in this. And like, all of those people exist. And so what distinguishes-

Speaker 2:
[65:56] Did you ever watch Yo Gabba Gabba, the kids' show?

Speaker 1:
[65:59] No.

Speaker 2:
[66:01] Fuck. Every time we talk about Muna, there's this incredible character on that show called Muno, who is like, he's like the, I don't know what to tell you. He's like Merman was to the, he met, there's always one lovable loser on every single kid show. You have to have the total loser and that's Muno. So every time you say Muno, very briefly, it had the best music, cause it was like a live show, that the characters are not, it's not animated. They're like giant fucking costumes and they're weird as shit.

Speaker 1:
[66:40] Is this, did you watch this as a child or did your kids watch it?

Speaker 2:
[66:43] no, my kids did.

Speaker 1:
[66:44] Okay, I don't know. I don't know it.

Speaker 2:
[66:46] But that made I watch it.

Speaker 1:
[66:47] I don't know Yabba Gabba Goo.

Speaker 2:
[66:48] Yo Gabba Gabba had the best music of any kid's show. It was cool as fuck. Like the coolest musicians were the guests on that show always. Like seriously, like all the coolest, like hip musicians played that show. But there is this dude named Muno who has one eye. And every time, every time that you see, like the Killers, Weezer, Mykem, The Roots, fucking Solange Knowles, Erika Badu. Yeah, Flaming Lips. Fucking all of those people showed up. Yeah, with all these crazy, like human size puppets, including Muno, the giant tall, like people.

Speaker 1:
[67:26] Human size puppets.

Speaker 2:
[67:27] Cactus with one eye looking thing. And his name is Muno. So just one time, we might need to do an Every Single Album on Yo Gabba Gabba because what it means is that the music from the show was some of the coolest shit you've ever seen. Sorry. That's good.

Speaker 1:
[67:43] No, no. You know what I feel like? I feel like one of those kids who didn't know who Madonna was and I've been educated by this conversation.

Speaker 2:
[67:49] You're going to love this shit. Just give me one episode. Bootsy Collins is on this show all the time. It's incredible.

Speaker 1:
[67:58] Who was booking for Yabba Dabba Doo?

Speaker 2:
[68:01] Yo Gabba Gabba.

Speaker 1:
[68:02] Yo Gabba Gabba.

Speaker 2:
[68:04] I don't know, but it was the coolest. It was the fucking coolest.

Speaker 1:
[68:08] I promise. I promise that I will get involved with Yo Gabba Gabba at some point. I look forward to that. What were we talking about?

Speaker 2:
[68:20] Holly Humberstone.

Speaker 1:
[68:22] Sure.

Speaker 2:
[68:22] She's collaborated with Moona. Yes.

Speaker 1:
[68:25] Yeah. What I was saying was that it does feel very of a piece with a lot of artists that we know and love. And the love is part of that and the knowing it is also part of that. And so to the extent that we're having the lane conversation on this episode, it did make me question that. But I really enjoyed it. I just think the melodies are really strong. I think the dreaminess of it is really pleasant. I think that some of the lines like, and you know, the wear his t-shirt, hate his guts is a great, I'm always a sucker for those lyrics where it's just sort of like a pairing of two ideas or concepts.

Speaker 2:
[69:15] I'm gonna shake my non-existent ass to the shitty song. Like it's great.

Speaker 1:
[69:27] The first time I heard that, I was like, what the fuck? And then the second through nth times I heard it, I was like, okay, that's funny. I'm into it.

Speaker 2:
[69:34] But then there's like Peachy where that song actually is as close to Can You Afford to Lose Me? Like it has that like go, go, like almost the law and order kind of low ass synth bass thing.

Speaker 1:
[69:56] And it does have a totally different texture from anything else on this album.

Speaker 2:
[70:00] And that song in particular has a lot of Can You Afford to Lose Me in it, but like, Don't Put Your Faith In Me. I believe her when she sings that. Like that's a, she just grabbed me by the throat. And that's what I'm going to say about her in this lane, which is I think Scarlett is a great song. I don't know that Holly Humberstone's job is to write bops. Her job is not to write like man child and be up on stage dancing and have a whole bunch of numbers. Like she's more Sharon Van Etten or she's more Florence than she needs to be fucking Chappell Rhone.

Speaker 1:
[70:48] And this is an interesting album from that point of view though, because I think that explains to me. And I, I don't know, I'm just a sucker for something super catchy. So I think to love somebody might be my favorite, but Red Chevy is like a really, really close.

Speaker 2:
[71:01] Are you with me on Red Chevy?

Speaker 1:
[71:03] I'm with you on Red Chevy. And Red Chevy, when you mention like Florence, and that really clicks around that song. With that exception, this is an interesting album from the perspective that you're talking about. Because I think that this, this album seems at least bops curious.

Speaker 2:
[71:20] Yeah, Paint My Bedroom Black is bops curious. Like that song itself has a really cool groove and like you can put it on and you can drive and your head and neck will move. But it's not like a dance party kind of album. Sure. So it stopped short of that. And that's, we need artists like that. There's more credibility and there's a different way to emote through those kinds of songs, which is exactly what Holly Humberstone does here. My only criticism is a few of these songs sound like some things we've heard before. And structurally from a chord progression standpoint, don't seem to break new ground. But all of that talent is there and it's a great listen through and through. And when you tap into some of the songs that preceded this, you're like, holy shit, this is a powder keg. Like how do we explode it?

Speaker 1:
[72:09] Well, and I think some of the earlier songs are more, they lean more towards what they're interested in doing is piercing you right through the heart and pulling out your internal organs emotionally. Whereas this feels a little, this feels a little bit more interested in being able to be, not party music, but like pre-game music, like girls hanging out music. You're not gonna be, like a lot of these songs, even the, you know, she's doing a fair bit of heartbreak on the dance floor, like white noise, but it's not, it's still fun. Like it's a pretty peppy, for someone who's talking about, you know, Gothic cemeteries, this is a pretty peppy album.

Speaker 2:
[73:03] Yeah, I just, I think she is a singer-songwriter, not a pop star. And I wonder if her experience in touring the earlier stuff, which my experience was depending on the weather and the energy of the crowd, it can either be flat or a really impressive set, made her go, I wanna try to have some more down the lane, you know, like you said, Bob Curious Things. And I think she does an okay job of that here. I watched both the Coachella sets. She's moving more. You can see they're trying to put some energy into it. Did you watch her Coachella set?

Speaker 1:
[73:40] I watched some of it. I watched clips of it.

Speaker 2:
[73:42] She's got a cool-ass female drummer. She's got a guy in a kilt standing right behind her on a riser that looks like he's on occasion depending on the...

Speaker 1:
[73:54] Yeah, the kilt is good.

Speaker 2:
[73:56] But is it though?

Speaker 1:
[73:57] Pro-kilt.

Speaker 2:
[73:58] On occasion, I was like, is he on her shoulders depending on the camera angle? I think they just decided they needed to try to liven up the set by putting more energy and visual around her. And sometimes it feels like they're trying too hard. And I just want her to be the artist that she is because it's fucking good enough. They do need to figure out they. She needs to keep just getting more performance reps to figure out how to play some of these mid-tempo or slower songs that are transcendent compositions of music to a Coachella crowd. That's just hard in some ways.

Speaker 1:
[74:35] That's a hard thing to do.

Speaker 2:
[74:36] To keep that energy up. And I understand it. It's why she's done a number of covers that are interesting. I think she played I Would Die For You and a few other things. It's all good. It's all here. She's only 26, right? So she still feels not quite raw, but she's still an artist in development. But man, all the tools are here. And my only reaction to this album was, yes, yes, let's keep going. It feels like she could make the leap. But I do think she's going to be more Phoebe or whatever, a traditional singer-songwriter than, I don't want people to push her to be Sabrina or even Gracie in that regard. She doesn't need to be a massive pop star.

Speaker 1:
[75:27] I don't get that there's sort of any world in which she's pushed to be Sabrina Carpenter. It's Gracie. It's because pop star who is actually singer-songwriter in a post-Taylor Swift universe, that's a crowded field right now.

Speaker 2:
[75:47] Yeah, it is.

Speaker 1:
[75:48] But there are different ways to do it and different, you know, is it 80-20? Is it 20-80 the other way? Is it 60-40? Like, playing with the balance of that, I think, can go a long way, and I do think that that is sort of the challenge of it. But I think that she is really talented. I think these songs are great. I think the catalog, as you're expressing, is really strong, and having a moment that brings a lot of people in is important, and it feels like this is that moment, and I think the music totally, totally stands up to it, and I get why we're getting a lot of DMs. I mean, we've been getting, there's been like a trickle for a couple of years, because we've just like never had a great moment to talk about her, and at least at length. And so we've gotten every once in a while the like, hey, what do you think of Holly Humberstone? Do you think that you would ever talk about her? Like, I really like XYZ. But then with this one, I, you know, I...

Speaker 2:
[76:55] No, no doubt. She's on the map.

Speaker 1:
[76:57] Just really, clearly she's gotten there to people.

Speaker 2:
[77:01] I think she should stay more 1975 curious, right? Like, I mean, then if anybody's pressuring... And this album doesn't make me suspect that she's getting pressured to be Sabrina Carpenter at all. There's no connection. It's not. I'm just saying, like, I think it's enough.

Speaker 1:
[77:21] You're just a fan. You're just nervous. You're just like, I love it so much.

Speaker 2:
[77:26] It's enough to be an indie singer-songwriter who writes the songs at the tempos and with the melodies and the instrumentation that she does. So, that is a big enough... That's big enough. You are enough, Holly Humberstone.

Speaker 1:
[77:44] Was there anything on this that you did not like?

Speaker 2:
[77:51] Did you have something that bummed you out? I mean...

Speaker 1:
[77:54] I just don't like the stupid opening thing.

Speaker 2:
[77:56] You don't like the opening, so it starts.

Speaker 1:
[78:07] But that's all, you know, sun rises in the east. Other than that.

Speaker 2:
[78:12] Nothing pissed me off.

Speaker 1:
[78:14] Lucy, Lucy has a folksiness that I am either happy to receive or completely allergic to, depending on the day and my mood.

Speaker 2:
[78:22] Yeah. It's got a little bit of love yourself vibes. The Ed Bieber song a little bit.

Speaker 1:
[78:43] I think it's sweet though.

Speaker 2:
[78:44] It is sweet. So is love yourself.

Speaker 1:
[78:47] Yeah. Yeah. No, totally.

Speaker 2:
[78:50] There's nothing on here that I wanted to eject, but there have been a couple of songs in 2026 where I have just rewound, rewind, listen again, rewind like the way I was watching that fucking Billie Eilish, Justin Bieber thing. I just like tattoo it into my brain. And I did that with dopamine. Like, just give me all of the fucking dopamine you possibly can. Give me all of the Red Chevy. All of it.

Speaker 1:
[79:38] Nathan's repeat playlist.

Speaker 2:
[79:39] Kiss me like you fucking mean it. Yes.

Speaker 1:
[79:41] Red Chevy by Holly Humberstone, Robin's dopamine, and One Less Lonely Girl by Justin Bieber.

Speaker 2:
[79:49] Nightingale Lane. By Ray and One Less Lonely Girl x 50 to finish off the playlist.

Speaker 1:
[80:06] Now, that's a Jim playlist.

Speaker 2:
[80:09] And then finish it with Steal My Girl.

Speaker 1:
[80:15] I will finish this podcast with this. This is the last question that I have to ask you about this album. And I have to ask you this question.

Speaker 2:
[80:21] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[80:24] Did we just find out what happened to Bev? Did Bev get transferred to the backing vocals from White Noise?

Speaker 2:
[80:40] I heard Bev. Look, there are lots of-

Speaker 1:
[80:43] Bev is the most Bev-ass thing that I've heard since Bev.

Speaker 3:
[80:47] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[80:48] Bev, listen, Bev is not a one album artist.

Speaker 1:
[80:53] Bev lives, Bev moves, Bev is everywhere.

Speaker 2:
[80:58] Bev is now an instrument in her own right, and Bev will show up wherever, listen, Bev is available, Bev can be booked on an hourly basis to come and go, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[81:14] It's like she said somebody I used to know, and it's totally Bev.

Speaker 2:
[81:18] Yes, it's like they didn't want to do that song, so I think that's what, I'm guessing they lifted a little bit from that song and distorted it or something.

Speaker 1:
[81:28] Thanks Bev.

Speaker 2:
[81:29] Thank you Bev.

Speaker 1:
[81:30] Good to hear you. Thank you Bev. 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.