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sold. Taylor

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Swift has had a very big

0:24

year. Her career-spanning Eras Tour is

0:26

on pace to become the biggest

0:28

and most lucrative concert tour in

0:30

history, and the subsequent concert film

0:32

set box office records. She re-released

0:35

two of her most beloved albums.

0:37

She's been streamed on Spotify globally

0:39

more than any other artist this

0:41

year, was named Time Magazine's Person

0:43

of the Year, and she

0:45

hard-launched her relationship with football player

0:47

Travis Kelce. Needless to say, she

0:49

was very present in our pop

0:51

culture lives in 2023. Today,

0:54

in honor of her birthday, Taylor

0:56

Swift is releasing the Eras Tour

0:58

concert film digitally to watch at

1:00

home. So we thought it was

1:03

the perfect time to revisit our

1:05

conversation about what made the tour

1:07

such a juggernaut. I'm Stephen Thompson,

1:09

and today, in this encore episode

1:11

of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour,

1:13

we are talking about the Eras

1:15

Tour. This

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2:42

For the love of Pete, it's something you

2:44

might say when your car gets damaged, but that

2:46

won't get you the help you need for your

2:48

car. What you should really say is something

2:51

that can actually help. Like a good

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filing your claim 24-7, whether it's on

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the phone, online, or on the award-winning

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State Farm mobile app. However you

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choose, like a good neighbor, State Farm

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is there. Joining

3:06

me today is NPR senior editor,

3:08

Balal Kureshi. Hey Balal. Hey Steven.

3:10

Also with us, Margaret H. Willison,

3:12

communications manager of Not Sorry Productions.

3:14

Hey Margaret. Hi Steven. And

3:16

rounding out our panel, Jordan Cruciola. She's

3:18

a writer and producer and the host

3:20

of the podcast Feeling Scene on Maximum

3:22

Fun. Hey Jordan. And Swifty, hello. Thank

3:24

you so much for having me. Yes,

3:27

your credentials also include Swifty. So

3:30

there are lots of different metrics I

3:32

could use to make a simple point.

3:34

The era's tour is very big and

3:36

it has already been very lucrative. Taylor

3:38

Swift toured the US and Latin America

3:40

and she's got nearly a hundred more

3:42

shows planned for all over the world

3:44

running well into next year. By the

3:46

time it wraps up, it'll almost certainly

3:48

be the biggest moneymaker in history as

3:50

far as tours are concerned, which is

3:52

saying nothing of the economic impact on

3:55

each city where it's stopped. It's been

3:57

five years since the last Taylor Swift

3:59

tour. her last scheduled tour to

4:01

promote her album Lover had to be

4:03

scrapped due to the COVID pandemic, and

4:06

in that time she's released eight albums,

4:08

including four older albums she re-recorded. Basically,

4:10

if you're a Taylor Swift fan, you're

4:13

being super-served. To talk Taylor Swift and

4:15

the eras tour, we have assembled a

4:17

crack assortment of Swifties, as well as

4:20

the Swift curious and a note, we

4:22

recorded this episode before the eras tour

4:24

concert film was released. Jordan Cruciola, I

4:27

so often come to you for enthusiasm.

4:29

Where do you stand on Taylor Swift, and

4:31

on a scale of one to one hundred

4:33

million, how excited were you to see her

4:35

on the eras tour in person? My

4:37

level of Swiftiness is that I have

4:39

a commissioned 24x36 painting of Taylor Swift

4:42

that hangs above my bed. So,

4:45

one hundred million is the answer to that question?

4:47

I'm gonna need you to text me a picture of that as

4:49

soon as we're off air. I love it very much. And

4:52

I had tickets to Loverfest, but

4:54

that friend and I maintained our plan

4:56

to see Taylor, so once eras was

4:58

announced, me and Angie were on the

5:00

chat being like, we're doing this, right?

5:03

And then I proceeded to not look

5:05

up a single thing for the entire

5:07

duration of the tour to its final

5:09

stops in LA. So everything was a

5:11

complete surprise to me, including that it

5:14

was three hours long. Wow. Best

5:16

surprise ever. So, like, obviously, I knew time

5:18

popped up, like, oh, okay, they're there with

5:20

her, and they're playing no body, no crime.

5:22

But when we were on Hour Two, and

5:25

I was like, we have so many eras

5:27

left to discuss. I

5:29

was like, how are we, is she just gonna

5:32

stop at a certain point? No, three hours. And

5:34

I went back to back night, so I had

5:36

two days of six hours of Taylor Swift. Wow.

5:38

That's like seeing Oppenheimer on back

5:40

to back night. Yeah, I Barbenheimer'd

5:42

the Taylor Tour. All right, Margaret,

5:44

same question for you. How excited

5:47

were you to see her on the tour? Okay, I

5:50

think, too, like your average passerby

5:52

on the street, I would be considered a

5:54

Swiftie like, I taught a class about Taylor

5:56

Swift this summer in professional writing, you know,

5:58

I've written about her in a bunch of

6:01

different places. I listened to her music a

6:03

lot, and I really, really love a bunch

6:05

of the albums. And I think that she's

6:07

just like an incredibly fascinating figure. But as

6:09

Jordan just so handily demonstrated, like that

6:11

does not make me a Swifty. Yeah,

6:13

you didn't even have her face tattooed onto your

6:15

face. And I'm happy with that. I am happy

6:17

to like stand on the

6:20

sidelines and like let the Swifties explain

6:22

to me wild fan theories.

6:24

And I was very excited to go

6:26

and see the show. My

6:28

experience of being at the show was even better than

6:30

I could have anticipated. There's a

6:33

lot of music from her

6:35

large career that like

6:37

I did not understand until I heard

6:39

it played live in a stadium. Chiefly

6:42

the reputation era stuff. That was stuff that

6:44

has kind of passed me by because I didn't

6:46

really like any of the lead singles from that album. And

6:49

you hear those things in a stadium and you're like,

6:51

I get it now, this slaps.

6:53

Oh, interesting. As any Swifty will tell

6:55

you, the lead singles are never the albums. No, I

6:57

know. I've learned this now, just 2017 me wasn't informed.

7:02

Gotcha. All right. I have not seen

7:04

the era's tour and I did not like

7:06

the album reputation. And now I

7:08

feel like I've been robbed of the experience of enjoying

7:10

it. Balal, you've been quiet. Well,

7:14

I mean, I'm just enjoying like hearing

7:16

from the members of the parish. I

7:18

mean, I went as a Swift curious

7:20

attendee. I have to now confess. And

7:22

partly because anybody who's interested in

7:24

culture, she has been obviously a figure in our culture

7:26

for such a long time. I'm

7:29

actually a very proud member of the Beehive

7:31

and I don't want to involve myself in the duel

7:33

here, but I felt like a stray bee that had

7:35

left the Beehive to go buzz

7:37

into this sort of stadium because I was very

7:39

curious what was going on. And I live in

7:42

LA, like when the era's tour came for the

7:44

six night residency to SoFi Stadium, which is insane.

7:47

Everywhere I went in my neighborhood, I heard somebody mentioning,

7:49

do you have a ticket? This is happening. The other

7:51

like hot take confession is that I did not have

7:53

a ticket for this and was not involved in any

7:55

of the, until an hour before

7:57

the show. And I was like, is there a

7:59

resale ticket? and we have like, I don't

8:01

know, dropped in price an hour before and it's

8:03

completely impractical to drive to a football stadium across

8:06

LA traffic with an hour's notice, but that's

8:09

what happened. So I found, you

8:11

know, I was alone, adult, male alone, sitting

8:13

in the crowd, feeling a little bit like

8:15

out of, you know, I was going to

8:17

be like spotted and exiled. And then that

8:20

was not what happened. It was an amazing

8:22

concert. No, it was a big tent. It

8:24

was a big tent and I felt so

8:26

included and participatory. And I still maybe

8:29

accidentally and maybe not have my LED bracelet

8:31

that was handed out to all of us because

8:34

I just felt like the inclusiveness of it and the

8:36

big tent of it was really amazing. And

8:39

other confession is I wasn't maybe as excited about the tour

8:41

when I saw the visuals of it, which seemed, I don't

8:44

know, technicolor, like Lisa Frank sort of vibed to

8:46

me at the beginning, which is fine. But I

8:48

will say that like, as a very big fan

8:50

of the Folklore Evermore albums, I was very curious

8:53

how she was going to relay that. And like

8:55

you, Steve, and I was at the Tiny Desk

8:57

Concert at NPR a couple of years ago, was

9:00

very much blown away by what she was doing. And then

9:02

I think she brought that and she

9:04

brought the technicolor with it. All of those

9:06

multitudes in one show, that was a lot

9:09

of show for last minute purchase. So I

9:11

was very impressed and very served. What

9:13

a cool experience for someone who has

9:16

five moves. Yeah. And

9:19

like four of them are rhythmic walks. Yes.

9:22

Those are my favorite ones, the model

9:24

walks. I continue to

9:27

be just bowled over what a captivating presence

9:29

she is for someone who

9:31

doesn't move like Beyonce, for someone

9:33

who doesn't sing like Beyonce, but

9:35

is a generational storytelling and songwriting

9:38

talent who truly manages to make

9:40

the most intimate experience of a 50,

9:44

60,000 capacity arena. Oh, and I got to push

9:46

back against the whole notion of stan culture where

9:48

you have to pick one. You

9:51

have to be in the beehive or you have to be

9:53

a Swifty and never the Twix shall meet. Like we

9:55

all contain multitudes. You can love multiple

9:58

artists and you can experience. two

10:00

completely different kinds of stage shows, right? I think

10:02

I bring that up partly because I just think

10:04

that's been one of the like problematic

10:07

narratives around her and I felt like, and I think

10:09

what's really impressive about her, and I love that Miss

10:11

America on a documentary on Netflix that came out a

10:13

few years ago, because I do think, and

10:15

one of the things that tour does so well is addition

10:17

to all the things that you were saying Jordan about

10:19

one amazing compelling presence she is in a 70,000 person stadium.

10:23

I also think she's so self-aware of all those

10:25

narratives around her and I think the way that

10:27

she was pitted against not only Beyonce but other

10:29

kinds of music, other kinds of stands. And I

10:32

had a lot of friends messaging me as if

10:34

I had gone straight. They were like, you went

10:36

to a Taylor Swift concert? There is a

10:38

kind of tribalism around it that I think

10:41

I myself felt like a desire to overcome because

10:43

I think it's such a false choice. And yet

10:45

there has been this narrative

10:47

around her like, oh, she's kind of got this,

10:50

I think especially the reputation era was a big

10:52

part of that. She claims her, which is great.

10:54

I mean, she comes out with the snake slithering

10:56

and like the full surround sound. She marches in

10:58

with that walk and then it's

11:00

part of her multitudes. And I think that's what

11:02

I really like about what she's been doing these

11:04

last few years. So there's been

11:07

a lot of news coverage in kind of

11:09

the last few months about disruptive fans at

11:11

concerts. I wanted to get a sense of

11:13

what you felt the

11:15

vibe was among the fans

11:17

in the crowd. Was the

11:19

enthusiasm disruptive or was it

11:21

more kind of communal? What

11:23

was the feel? The two LA

11:25

shows I was at I did experience multiple views

11:28

because I didn't have any bracelets the first night.

11:30

And Swifties took pity on me and woman just walked

11:32

into while I was waiting in line for my chicken

11:34

sandwich and she was like here and it was a red

11:37

bracelet because I had my red tour tea on and I

11:39

was like, that's my favorite album. She was like, I knew

11:41

it was for you. You have to explain

11:43

the friendship bracelets like that whole culture.

11:45

Yeah, the friendship bracelets have been a

11:47

hang around like Taylor Swift sort of

11:49

unifying fan item. Since like Fearless

11:52

speak now and Taylor used to wear a lot

11:54

of friendship bracelets when she performed like that was something fans

11:56

would mirror back and then like the trading of friendships became

11:58

like a sort of community. at a Swift

12:01

concert and that came back for the Aeris

12:03

tour and it was really beautiful to see

12:05

people like swapping their stuff around and to

12:07

see the the costuming at the Aeris tour

12:10

was so phenomenal to see like which era

12:12

did you pick but my favorite costuming choices

12:14

were either the Junior Jewels reference to the

12:17

Taylor Swift You Belong With Me

12:19

video because anybody can make that

12:21

shirt and also any Jake Gyllenhaal

12:24

t-shirts. Any Jake Gyllenhaal t-shirts were

12:26

hilarious. The number of like Jake

12:28

was like a caution axe through

12:30

him and like where's the

12:32

scarf Jake shirts like those to

12:35

me were my favorite fan nods. My

12:37

experience of the fan response was

12:40

a lot like Jordan's where it

12:42

was exclusively positive. I just had

12:44

like such a strong emotional experience

12:46

of being in a stadium with

12:49

that many people and all of

12:51

us connecting as deeply to the art as

12:53

we were that came up for

12:55

me like a couple of times. Phoebe Bridgers

12:57

was the opener at my show and she's

13:00

a very popular artist

13:02

but like not on the stadium

13:04

scale yet and getting to

13:06

see a whole stadium like everybody came in

13:09

and people were super engaged in her opening

13:11

performance and that was really emotional for me

13:14

because that's something that I've kind of

13:16

had beef with Taylor Swift with over

13:18

the years is when she collaborates prominently

13:20

it's often been with male artists and

13:22

that's really changed in the last couple

13:24

of albums and it's so exciting to

13:26

see but like the moment above all

13:28

others where you're like wow this is

13:30

a church is when she starts playing

13:33

the 10-minute version of All Too Well. I

13:50

mean the set goes away and it's truly

13:53

her guitar and sparkly

13:55

cape period. And the existence

13:57

of that song in and of itself. is

14:00

evidence of like the Swifty community. There

14:03

have been rumors of the long version

14:05

of All Too Well for years.

14:08

Like this was fabled. And to be in

14:10

a stadium of like 55,000 people and

14:13

just have all of us wrapped, singing

14:15

along to that song and like,

14:17

we've all had situationships, right? Like

14:21

you can hear the heartbreak behind it. And I

14:23

was just like, what

14:25

a cool space to be in. What

14:27

a cool way to just see the

14:29

career this woman has built for herself,

14:31

right? By like just being unabashedly

14:34

honest about her emotions, even

14:36

when people keep telling her she should make them

14:39

smaller. I mean, I will say that during

14:41

that All Too Well performance, especially the new verses that

14:43

were added and the longer we record that are particularly

14:46

cutting and brilliant, you know, the singing along was

14:48

much louder than I've ever heard it make answered.

14:50

Like people aren't just singing along to us. They

14:53

are like howling in pain. They're howling in pain

14:55

to you. And so everybody around me, from the

14:57

parents to the kids to like, you know, another

14:59

guy who was next to me who was also

15:02

kind of like, should I be here? So

15:04

like everybody kind of got wrapped up in here.

15:07

["All Too

15:14

Well", by The

15:16

Bachelorette plays in

15:19

the background. But

15:22

I will say that the thing that was really

15:25

remarkable was that performance where

15:27

she comes out, as you said, solo and

15:29

like beyond the friendship places are these like

15:31

wearable tech that are handed out to the

15:33

show that turns the entire audience red in

15:35

that moment, you know, surprise, surprise. And that

15:38

happens with just her alone on the stage.

15:40

And I was just really blown away by

15:42

the stage craft of like the transitions of

15:44

these eras because it's not chronological and it's

15:46

not bi-album. But the way that it happens

15:48

that she does the like folklore

15:51

cottage set and then it disappears. And

15:53

then she comes back to do a couple

15:55

of like solo things. She performed part of

15:57

Evermore, you know, just on the piano by

15:59

herself. I think that these kinds

16:01

of shifts being done so seamlessly and

16:03

so compellingly, and she's inhabiting all of

16:06

those eras as per the title, and

16:08

I think that all too well performance,

16:10

I think what I recall, came right

16:12

in the middle as the centerpiece feeling,

16:15

and it was just really an amazing moment

16:17

that also grounded you in like you are in

16:19

the middle of something amazing, and then I don't know,

16:22

but snakes or something must have appeared

16:24

right in the middle of something.

16:26

But it was a pretty remarkable

16:28

whirling around and so well done

16:31

in a sequencing way. I think you

16:33

hit on an interesting point about the

16:35

concert experience, which is 50,000 people singing

16:39

in unison is incredibly moving

16:41

and sort of

16:43

inherently on key. One

16:48

person singing along

16:51

is jarring and potentially

16:54

ruining. The way she locks into

16:56

everyone in that stadium

16:58

is... It's her superpower. It's incredible. I

17:00

felt like everyone was having a personal experience

17:02

with her and an audience with her, and

17:04

that's very different from even I would say

17:06

the Renaissance tour, which is a

17:09

bit like having an audience with a

17:11

sort of deity that has landed in

17:13

a spaceship, and then you may get

17:15

sucked into the spaceship, but it's a

17:17

very different feeling than this kind of

17:19

extremely personal sense that she creates with

17:22

everyone. That's crazy to do

17:24

in a stadium. I don't even know how that's done. The

17:26

era's tour is like seeing your best friend

17:28

married. You may not get a lot of

17:30

individual time with her, but you're just there to witness something so

17:32

beautiful in her life, and it's incredibly moving, and you're like, oh

17:35

my god, she made it. This

17:37

is great. And it's so fascinating what

17:39

Taylor's with, because obviously people have had

17:41

parasocial relationships with singer-songwriters since before we

17:43

knew to call them parasocial relationships. What

17:46

I think is shocking or unique

17:49

about Swift is how she

17:51

can make the size

17:53

of her audience still feel like it

17:55

is not a parasocial relationship. There

17:58

is a friendship there. It's like we... We

18:00

know each other. We care

18:02

about each other. We care about the

18:04

same things. Your victories are

18:06

my victories and vice versa. But

18:09

it is so, so cool just to

18:11

get to see what that looks like live. Yeah.

18:14

The one I hooked most for that I was almost certain

18:16

I would hear and I did was Long Live. I'm

18:19

so jealous. Like Long Live is

18:21

if either one of or her like favorite song

18:23

of her catalog and to see her perform it

18:26

live is really special because it

18:29

embodies that somehow at the worst of times it

18:31

was sort of like the biggest sort of thing

18:33

you could wield against her but in the best

18:35

of times it's like something that in beers or

18:37

two you tour so much as like somehow

18:39

Taylor Swift manages to maintain the energy of

18:42

an underdog even in the middle of the most

18:44

profitable tour perhaps of all time and

18:46

that used to feel like something that could be

18:48

leveraged for like sympathy but now it feels more

18:51

I think consistently like something where it is a point

18:53

of connectivity between her and her fans in that sense

18:56

of what Margaret was saying of like I

18:58

don't just know you you know me and when

19:00

you hear her sing Long Live she puts

19:02

this special emphasis on the

19:04

like all the mountains we moved and

19:06

had the time of my life fighting dragons with

19:08

you and when she says you she's saying it

19:11

to every single individual in that

19:13

stadium personally. Such a good line.

19:26

And she always ends that song with a little bit of like

19:28

a moved like gesture to the crowd

19:30

like wow like we did move

19:32

mountains and there's just something deeply emotional and

19:34

it's like to see that and hear the

19:36

tens of thousands it was like this is

19:39

the Swift experience to me condensed into a single

19:41

song. I do want to say one thing though

19:43

about the idea of like the U component which

19:45

is the U as consumer part of this too

19:47

and like how much all of us have paid

19:49

to be the U in that room or the

19:51

efforts that we had to make because I definitely

19:53

find myself thinking about how expensive both

19:55

of these stadium tours that we've discussed it or just

19:58

concerts in general have just gotten and like. I

20:00

think I've actually felt recently in going to certain

20:02

shows that it's like a lot of things make

20:04

me feel like they're not worth it And I

20:06

wasted my money or like was this really? Worth

20:09

the effort and these being some of the most expensive tickets

20:11

people I paid for I haven't heard a single person You

20:14

know echo any of that regret And I

20:16

think that is what's really remarkable is that

20:18

the show being as big as it is

20:20

and covering so much ground and offering Something

20:22

for everyone and there's so many on ramps

20:24

to the show like it also really feels

20:26

like you get your money's

20:28

worth But I do think that you know the

20:30

fact of like it being more than three hours

20:33

like almost three and a half hours I think

20:35

and and feeling like it covers so much and

20:38

you the you get everybody has something that they

20:40

take away from it So I think that you

20:42

know that felt like wow how many

20:44

shows happen where somebody doesn't give you what you

20:46

paid your ticket for? The fact of

20:48

it of the cost value element

20:50

is like pretty significant here Yeah, I don't

20:52

want to I don't want to defend

20:55

exorbitantly high concert ticket prices

20:57

But like nobody really

20:59

talks about how much like sports fans To

21:03

see like big games If

21:06

you pay a thousand dollars to see your team lose

21:09

It can be a completely miserable experience I'm

21:11

sorry like if you're paying a thousand dollars

21:13

or however many God knows how many

21:15

dollars to see Taylor Swift live She's at

21:17

least gonna win the game and What

21:20

I would also say is just in terms of

21:22

fan participation It's like me 19th is when I

21:24

saw Taylor Swift at Foxborough And

21:27

then I followed everything that happened on her

21:29

tour So it's like you know like I

21:31

know that in Philadelphia in the middle of

21:33

bad blood She like stopped to like chastise

21:35

a security guard who was like hustling a

21:37

fan It was like no she's fine And

21:39

then I know at the next night of

21:41

the Philadelphia show that people were making little

21:43

bracelets initials for what

21:45

she said in the middle of that

21:47

break in bad blood Because there

21:49

were all these people recording things on

21:51

tik-tok the algorithm figures out

21:54

real quick that it can just keep throwing

21:56

Taylor content at you and they were all

21:59

gold So even

22:01

though I didn't get to see all the

22:03

later concerts, you got to experience so much

22:05

more of it than I've ever been able

22:07

to experience of a similarly exclusive live

22:10

event situation before. I

22:12

guess what I just feel like listening to all of this

22:14

makes me think about is like, what happens to concerts next?

22:16

I mean, if this is sort of the new, like, if

22:19

that is what sort of becomes not only the

22:21

gold standard, but she's like, just changed the game

22:23

in such a huge way with this tour. And

22:26

obviously, like, it's making records already. Like, not

22:28

everyone can also pull off a show like this, but I'm sure we're

22:30

going to have a lot of like attempts

22:32

to do similarly, like way

22:34

too big, like Marvel movies

22:36

style, certain people who

22:39

shouldn't be doing tours like that. But it's like,

22:41

are we all spoiled now from the shows? I don't

22:43

know. I went to a figure Ross counselor this week and

22:45

it was like, I mean, I'm not trying to compare these

22:47

two at all, but it was, I was definitely ready to

22:49

go to bed, like within the first half of

22:52

that show. And I'm like, am I spoiled now?

22:54

Am I too much in need of

22:57

like a major rush? And again, they're

22:59

not comparable at all, but they were

23:01

very different experiences. I'm imagining a Beyonce

23:03

versus Taylor Swift, like arms race. Her

23:07

live arrangements of her music

23:09

are actually phenomenal. She

23:11

does such a good job at giving you

23:13

what you know with just enough of what's

23:15

different to make it feel like a fresh

23:17

experience, especially with her back catalog. She does

23:19

an excellent job of arranging her archive for

23:21

life stuff. One small thing that was a special

23:23

moment in the LA first night was that she, I

23:25

think it's in every show, she gives her hat to

23:28

somebody in the audience. She gives her 22 hat away.

23:31

Thank you for this, specifically. But in the LA first

23:33

night, she gave that to Kobe Bryant's daughter who was

23:35

in the audience. And I think that for LA was

23:37

like this, you know, one of those like very special

23:39

moments. And I think people feel like each show has

23:42

a special thing that happens. And that was one of

23:44

those special things in LA. Yeah. So

23:46

we have barely scratched the surface. We

23:48

didn't even get to talk about the

23:50

surprise songs. Jordan and I didn't

23:52

even get to talk about all of

23:54

the ways the shows are gay. It's shocking. Yeah,

23:57

I didn't even say Taylor till right now. I

23:59

know. we thought it in now. Follow

24:01

the breadcrumbs, Lucy. All

24:06

right, well, we want to know what you

24:08

think about Taylor Swift's Eras tour. Last

24:11

I checked, people had opinions. Find

24:14

us at facebook.com/PCHH. That

24:17

brings us to the end of our show.

24:19

Margaret Willison, Bilal Qureshi, Jordan Cursiola, thanks so

24:21

much for being here. Thanks for having

24:23

me, Stephen. Thank you so much.

24:25

Thank you so much. It was really great to

24:28

be here. We want to take a moment to

24:30

thank our Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus subscribers. We

24:32

appreciate you so much for showing your support of

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up yet, want to show your support

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and listen to this show without any

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sponsor break, head over to plus.npr.org/happy hour

24:43

or visit the link in our show

24:45

notes. This episode was produced by Hufsa

24:47

Fathima and edited by Mike Katzis and

24:49

Jessica Reedy. Hello Come In provides our

24:51

theme music. Thank you for listening

24:53

to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen

24:56

Thompson and we will see you all tomorrow.

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25:40

With Barben Heimer and both Taylor Swift

25:42

and Beyonce on tour, it was a

25:44

lot of cultural news to keep up

25:46

on this year. Hollywood actors have gone

25:48

on strike. The Prince's memoir, Spare, is

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