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1:01

Welcome to Recode Media. Peter Kafka, that's

1:03

me. Today, we're talking about,

1:06

I was going to say one of the great cultural and business

1:08

phenomenon of the year, but I think it's the great one.

1:10

It's Taylor Swift and her record-destroying

1:13

Eras tour, which as far as I know, every

1:16

female between the age of 10 and 50, something

1:18

was legally required to attend this summer.

1:21

She's been generating $13 million a

1:23

night playing around the US, average ticket

1:25

price of $254 a pop. Now,

1:29

she's going abroad. By the time she's done, she's

1:31

estimated to have grossed $1.3 billion this year.

1:36

I get that's a lot of money, but I have some other questions.

1:39

Here to help me understand this is our pal

1:41

from Vox Media. That's Charlie Harding, host

1:43

of the truly great Switched on Pop podcast.

1:46

Welcome, Charlie. Hi. Thanks for having me. Are

1:48

we going to get $13 million per podcast taping?

1:51

Yep. Oh, great. Yeah, that's

1:53

great. It's all in Bitcoin, just

1:55

like Eric Adams' salary, and

1:58

the Bitcoin is in the mail.

1:59

If you got any problems, follow up with Jim Bankoff.

2:02

Charlie, am I the only clueless adult

2:04

man who doesn't fully get Taylor?

2:07

I'm sure that there are plenty of you in the weeds,

2:10

but you're one of the few who has

2:12

been brave enough to step forward and ask me to help you

2:14

out.

2:15

Okay, I mean, I also didn't love,

2:18

love, love Barbie, but that's a different

2:20

discussion, but maybe related, because that's the other

2:23

giant phenomenon of the year,

2:25

both business and culturally, and also aimed

2:27

at women. So maybe there's a connection.

2:30

But let's start here, Charlie. You are a great explainer

2:33

of all things pop music. And

2:35

I get that Taylor is a talented performer,

2:38

songwriter. Just put her in context.

2:40

Why is she so big

2:43

now? Why has she been so

2:45

big over the years? It's very

2:47

hard for me to think of anyone close

2:50

to her equivalent and modern

2:52

music stardom. Yeah, she definitely

2:55

stands out. I think there's a number of reasons why Taylor

2:58

is at the top of her game and why she's been relatable

3:00

ever since the beginning. To begin with, her

3:03

music stems from a very personal

3:06

place. She is the writer of her

3:08

song. This is fairly unusual in pop

3:10

music that the performer also has such a

3:12

heavy hand in the authorship of their

3:14

music. Plenty of others are involved,

3:16

but oftentimes, you'll find songs where it's just

3:19

Taylor, and within that, you have all of these personal

3:21

narratives. And of course, a lot of young people

3:23

really grab on to those personal narratives. She's

3:26

also way more than just a pop

3:28

star in this way. She's also an artist,

3:30

and I think people do connect with her on those

3:32

lyrical levels. One of the ways in which she

3:35

has maintained her relevance and

3:37

grown her audience is that,

3:40

as she's marketed in her tours, she has

3:42

many different eras. You

3:45

could have joined her long ago in her country era,

3:47

or her turn to pop music, or her

3:50

shift into folk, or now her return

3:52

into a dance-pop world in

3:54

her various albums. And yet, if you're a true

3:56

Taylor fan, you're going to hear

3:59

melodic similarities.

3:59

throughout.

4:01

I really like Taylor Swift because I can identify

4:03

her melody. She has a way of singing a certain melody

4:06

we call the T-drop that goes, bah

4:08

bah bah. She sings

4:11

this little melody and you belong with me.

4:20

Grace, Getaway Car, all kinds

4:22

of songs. No matter what genre she's

4:24

in, she's always Taylor Swift. How

4:27

long has she been at this? She's in

4:29

her mid 30s now, correct? Yeah, so I

4:31

think she just turned 33, I believe 2006 was the debut

4:36

album. So let's

4:38

say it's 2006 for Giggles. So that puts her

4:40

more than

4:42

a decade and a half into

4:45

superstardom because she was a big deal almost

4:47

from the jump. And it's

4:49

very very hard for me

4:52

and I'm a reasonably well

4:54

read music nerd, you're much more, to

4:56

think of acts that have been

4:58

that popular for that

5:01

long. There are mega

5:03

acts like the Rolling Stones, who

5:06

can, Rolling Stones, I can't be really talking

5:08

about that, who can, or the Eagles, whoever, who

5:10

can like go on tour year after

5:12

year, but they're playing the songs they

5:14

wrote 20, 25, 30 years ago. They

5:17

don't advance musically and they become

5:20

a nostalgia act. And then often when

5:22

they do try to move from the

5:24

genre they were initially popular into, into another

5:27

one, I can remember Rolling Stones with disco,

5:29

like maybe it works, but often it really doesn't.

5:34

Why do you think she's been this successful

5:36

for this long? Because there's lots of people who write their

5:38

own songs, lots of people who communicate

5:41

to their audience in a very specific way. Is

5:43

there some, what do you think the the

5:46

magic is?

5:47

Well I think beyond just her music, she

5:49

is, I should say, beyond

5:52

just being a great songwriter, she is expert

5:55

at crafting narratives. She's better at

5:57

media than you are Peter, and I think you're the best

5:59

person. and thinking about media. I feel like she-

6:02

I'm the Taylor Swift of media podcasts. I feel

6:04

like she knows how to capture

6:07

attention and weave

6:10

these master narratives. I think of it

6:12

as almost like the Taylor Swift cinematic universe,

6:15

that at any given point, there is some

6:17

kind of underdog

6:19

and antagonist relationship that she has.

6:22

Right from the very beginning, she launched a career as

6:24

a girl from Pennsylvania trying to go into country music

6:27

and was not accepted by the country

6:29

establishment. Then she decides, well, I'm going to go into

6:31

be a pop star. And you're like, wait,

6:33

no, no, no, country stars can't be pop stars. There's,

6:35

of course, all of the hassle that she had with

6:37

Kanye West at the award shows. And

6:40

now she is taking on one of

6:42

the biggest companies in the world. She's taking

6:44

on Ticketmaster. She's always got some larger

6:46

narrative that even if you aren't in Taylor

6:49

Swift's musical universe, you are involved

6:51

in her media universe because she's capturing attention

6:54

with these narratives that match

6:56

with who she projects as

6:59

a brand. She's this underdog just trying to be any

7:01

old person working in the world. And she happens

7:03

to be nearly a billionaire.

7:05

If you wanted to comp her, I mean, who

7:07

else in current era or

7:10

relatively recent era would you compare it to the

7:12

most obvious person I could think of as Beyonce?

7:14

Right. Is anyone else in that category?

7:16

Gosh, I'm even close to it? You're asking a question

7:19

that's the thing is there aren't a

7:21

lot of people that have made that transition

7:23

from the CD era,

7:25

right, like peak music industry,

7:28

through the sort of purgatory stage of music during

7:30

the beginning of downloading and illegal downloading

7:32

and now into just like the behemoth of streaming.

7:35

Not many have made that transition. I

7:37

think that Beyonce is the best

7:39

corollary and everyone else is probably

7:42

a legacy artist that started even before that.

7:45

So we've been talking about Taylor Swift as

7:47

a recording artist for this conversation so

7:49

far. No. Again,

7:52

I don't follow her that closely, but

7:55

my understanding is the news she makes about

7:57

her albums right now is that she's re-recording. Her old

7:59

album. She's in the dispute with Justin Bieber.

8:03

It was good of Ron. Ron, who

8:06

owns her masters. It's always do. He sold

8:08

them and made a bunch of money off of them. Yeah. Yep.

8:11

So she's been rerecording her old stuff and I get that that again is a really

8:14

interesting thing to have done, stirs up new interest.

8:17

Is she relevant as a new recording

8:19

artist? Is the new stuff she's making, does

8:22

that still have the resonance or is she someone whose

8:24

biggest impact now is sort of culture

8:27

plus touring?

8:29

I think that she's always been at the in-between

8:32

of songwriting, her music

8:34

and then everything else that's going on in her world. The narrative

8:36

right now is the tour, but the music is still

8:38

relevant. Her album Midnight's performed very well.

8:40

It broke multiple records. Oftentimes when she

8:43

releases music, her music will have

8:45

multiple charting positions on billboard in

8:47

ways that other artists don't. Even

8:49

her rereleases, songs that are very, very old

8:51

are going on billboard. So it's having commercial

8:53

success as much as it's having sort of just like larger

8:56

cultural buzz. But her as a recording

8:58

artist is still very important. While she's on this

9:00

era's tour, she has been visiting

9:03

Electric Lady Studios multiple times in New

9:05

York City. She is I think first and foremost,

9:07

a songwriter and a maker of music and

9:10

the narrative of this tour supports

9:12

that. This is her, all of her many eras. She's

9:15

touring four albums that didn't get

9:17

tours, right? Lover, Folklore,

9:19

Evermore and Midnight's plus

9:21

the three rereleases which are now available. The

9:24

idea of her many eras I think shows

9:26

that she's trying to show off her as a songwriter

9:29

as much as this larger personality.

9:32

Because

9:32

the touring narratives are generally

9:34

like, this is where you go to, in the old days,

9:36

this is where you go to promote, you have a new album

9:38

so you could tour and you'd play the new

9:41

album. You sort of the tour would support the new

9:43

album or vice versa. Then there's also

9:45

like, I don't have any more music that anyone cares about.

9:47

I'm just going to keep playing the songs you guys all

9:49

heard 30 years ago. That was the Vegas residency. Yeah.

9:52

And she's doing something that is none

9:55

of those.

9:56

Yeah, I mean how's the deal

9:58

of this unique moment? that she released so much music

10:00

during the pandemic. So she has all of this like

10:03

pent up music which hasn't been toured, but

10:06

she's also playing into this new

10:08

reality of mega pop star tours.

10:10

These aren't music tours as you

10:12

would know them even 20 years ago. These are

10:15

spectacles where you have almost

10:17

more of a like cross between a Broadway

10:19

show and Cirque du Soleil done through

10:22

a giant music video where there's

10:24

costume changes, constant choreo, pyrotechnics,

10:26

advanced lighting and video. This

10:28

is a spectacle that you're going to see and she's

10:30

not the first to do this, right? Like you two

10:33

have done this, Madonna have done this, Daft Punk,

10:35

certainly Beyonce and Taylor Swift just

10:38

happens to be doing it bigger than anybody

10:40

ever, that this is gonna be now the biggest

10:42

tour in history.

10:44

Were you remotely surprised to see the demand for

10:46

this tour or did you think, oh no, this

10:48

is gonna just blow the roof off and people are gonna be

10:51

attacking each other for the change of the ticket and

10:53

a lottery for tickets? I think

10:55

the one thing that Ticketmaster and

10:57

I have in common is that I underestimated the

10:59

size of this tour. I was lucky enough that

11:01

I just had some friends that had some spare tickets to go to the

11:04

last tour, the Reputation Tour. And

11:06

as a music journalist, I have not been offered any opportunities

11:08

to go see this tour. There was such high demand

11:11

and I can't find a ticket price that I think is worth

11:13

paying for. People are paying tens of thousands of dollars.

11:15

It's just not- Yeah, I mentioned $254 that came

11:17

from- Yeah, what is

11:20

that figure? The Shaw Bloomberg. That I'm sure

11:22

is the- That is bogus. Is the- Is

11:24

the- The hidden fee by Ticketmaster,

11:27

please, is over $200 oftentimes.

11:29

Yeah, and people are reselling them, et cetera. But

11:32

I mean, an average-ish person

11:34

could still get the tickets and it would

11:36

be their expenditure for the year, but it

11:39

is,

11:40

it's not priced to the point where it's

11:42

not accessible. I think that the issue

11:44

is that there's not enough tickets. Yeah, there's

11:46

not enough tickets. And certainly if you weren't in the presale

11:49

line and you were lucky enough

11:51

to get through all the Ticketmaster bugs that happened in

11:53

the sales process, you might have been

11:55

able to get a quasi-reasonable ticket that

11:57

would fit a middle-class income if this was your big splurge

11:59

of the year. Yes,

12:00

we've talked about ticket master a few times obviously it's

12:03

a kidding conglomerate that basically

12:05

controls all tickets in live concerts

12:07

It's it's a coa it's owned by the same

12:09

people own live nation who owned the concert business

12:12

the other half of the concert business If you want to

12:14

get really paranoid, it's all owned by John Malone

12:16

the libertarian billionaire who has many other things

12:18

There was a big ruckus earlier this year when people who thought

12:20

they could get tickets couldn't get tickets There

12:23

was an idea that because ticket master

12:25

had messed with Taylor Swift And

12:28

and her Swifties that they were going to be in

12:30

real trouble this time because periodically This

12:33

happens where where people can't

12:35

get tickets to a show and they blame ticket

12:37

master. Yeah And politicians

12:40

get behind it and then nothing really

12:42

happened. So what what did happen here with Taylor

12:45

versus ticket master? Well, I

12:47

Would say that Taylor had

12:49

a very serious level of misfortune

12:51

events in which you know She was required

12:54

to work with ticket master to tour many

12:56

of the biggest venues in the United States, right?

12:58

obviously, if you're telling sure if you're going this mega-era store,

13:00

you're gonna play the big venues and 70% of

13:03

the big venues in the United States have a locked-in

13:06

requirement to work with ticket master So this is not

13:08

Taylor Swift's choice Her team as

13:10

reported by it was reported that her team,

13:12

you know approach ticket master and said hey There's

13:14

gonna be a lot of demand you have to be ready when

13:17

ticket master finally launched the presale for

13:19

her tickets Many people encountered a series

13:21

of bugs causing very long

13:23

waits Many people couldn't get tickets that had pre-registered

13:26

and basically all the tickets that were available were

13:28

gone more or less instantaneously And

13:31

there was no general public sale. So many people missed

13:33

out Taylor Swift being great at narratives

13:36

Wove her underdog story and said hey,

13:38

you know, I'm just like any artist and it's true other

13:40

artists are required to you Participate

13:43

in this in the system. Hey, I didn't want to

13:45

do this. These folks weren't ready. They're a monopoly

13:47

It hurt my fans and so she took some pop shots

13:49

at

13:50

ticket master in the same time frame Even

13:52

Joe Biden went on the State of the Union and

13:54

said hey these ticketing hidden fees all

13:57

this junk stuff We gotta get rid of it due

13:59

to

13:59

I think a fortunate timing, the

14:02

Department of Justice announced that they are investigating

14:05

Ticketmaster for monopolistic practices.

14:08

It turns out that they've been under investigation

14:10

for probably at least a year. They

14:14

were not taking orders from Taylor Swift,

14:16

I think. This is what's being reported, but

14:18

this announcement came

14:21

out around the same time that

14:23

this hull bullet was taking place. And so many

14:25

see it as maybe Taylor Swift

14:27

having had a significant influence on the Department of

14:29

Justice, and I don't mean to make light

14:32

of it. It is an important issue, and I think that's one of the

14:34

things that she does well, is she does stand up for when

14:36

the music industry isn't being fair

14:39

to artists. She did the same thing when streaming launched. She

14:42

spoke out about unfair streaming rates. She's

14:45

here speaking out about unfair ticketing and

14:47

political reports that we might see a Department of Justice

14:49

investigation, or this might go to

14:52

court as soon as this fall.

14:55

I'm not going to carry water for Ticketmaster, but

14:58

I've had Michael Rapinoe who runs Ticketmaster

15:00

and Live Nation on a couple of different times.

15:04

Whenever we talk, there's some complaint about Ticketmaster,

15:07

and he'll admit that the

15:09

platform could get better, et cetera. But

15:12

basically what he says is, look, it's just

15:14

always a simple supply and demand thing.

15:17

You don't hear about people having problems for

15:19

shows that aren't white hot. The

15:21

first time I talked to him, Hamilton was the hot

15:23

ticket. He's like, it's a certain amount of space. There's

15:25

only this many tickets, and so there's always going to be people

15:28

who can't get tickets or can't buy tickets at a price

15:30

that are offered. Is there something fundamentally

15:32

different about the Taylor's situation? Well,

15:35

I think that's also just a piece of the story, right?

15:37

Ticket availability is certainly an issue right now. There's

15:40

a lot of pent-up demand from people

15:42

not having toured during the pandemic, so there's

15:44

more artists trying to tour now than there were

15:46

in the previous couple of years, and many fans

15:49

want to see them. There is an availability issue

15:51

both of venues and tickets, but

15:53

larger issues are there as well. Hidden

15:55

fees where oftentimes customers

15:57

are paying 30, 40 percent of their...

15:59

ticket prices are going to these fees

16:02

that just don't seem to add up. There's

16:04

the fact that the ticketing experience is

16:06

so poor. It's not just the Taylor Swift

16:08

tour. There's like countless examples of you

16:11

try to log in and everything just falls apart and you don't get

16:13

your tickets and you've been waiting in line. I

16:16

think some of those arguments that, oh, it's just supply and demand,

16:18

I think that's a bit of hand-waving to say, oh, we don't

16:21

actually need to provide a good service even when there's

16:23

high demand. Drew Bock Right. I guess the argument

16:25

would be, well, what if ... I mean, because basically there's a relationship

16:27

between the venue and Ticketmaster

16:30

or whatever the ticketing company is. It's not

16:32

like the consumer has any choice over what ticketing

16:35

agency they're going to use. It's a preset

16:37

relationship. Even if you

16:39

imagined, all right, if we allowed

16:42

multiple ... if you had the choice about

16:44

where you were going to buy your tickets from, would

16:47

that fundamentally change anything? I

16:49

guess we won't know because it's probably never going to happen. David

16:52

Schanzer Well, we'll see what's going to happen with the Department of Justice.

16:55

I think it's a piece of the puzzle that could improve

16:58

service quality. I'm not sure

17:00

we would see radical changes in

17:03

ticket prices. We'll

17:04

be right back after a word from a sponsor.

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18:36

And we're back. So what we've been talking about

18:38

Taylor Swift as a musician, as

18:40

an advocate, and I think part of the

18:42

appeal, you tell me if I'm wrong, is that a lot of people enjoy

18:44

the fact that there's Taylor Swift business person,

18:47

that she is actively involved

18:50

in the business, that she talks about that,

18:53

that there's a narrative around her being very

18:55

hands on to the point in which I think some of the narratives

18:57

are made up. Like there was a story about her walking

19:00

away from Sam Blankman Freed,

19:02

if I'm sorry, I may have missed it. Sam Blankman

19:05

Freed. Sam Blankman Freed and

19:07

FTX. I think at times before it actually wasn't

19:09

true. Is the idea of, first of

19:11

all, how true is your understanding

19:14

of Taylor

19:15

Swift business person? Is

19:17

it a business she is hands on operating

19:19

because usually artists don't

19:22

want to operate businesses because they're artists?

19:24

Yes, I mean, you've hit on a very important point that she

19:27

isn't just an artist. There is

19:29

a term that I like called the artist brand panned

19:32

by Leslie Meyer, who wrote a book called Popular Music

19:34

as Promotion. I think it sort of describes her. You could also

19:36

say the personality CEO

19:38

and she like Beyonce,

19:40

Dolly Parton, Martha Stewart. Like she

19:43

is exactly that. And it's

19:45

a role that is not unfamiliar

19:47

to any performance artist who oftentimes, as I said, other

19:49

performing artists are often working with other songwriters who are

19:51

writing their own songs and then they have to sort of play

19:54

them off as their own. I think that being

19:56

both the artist and the business person is another one

19:58

of those relationships. Oftentimes,

20:00

those relationships are extremely

20:03

guarded by strict NDAs. I've

20:05

tried to talk to people on her team without going

20:07

through her PR one time, long ago, and I

20:10

just stonewall, stonewall, stonewall in a way that I don't

20:12

get in the music industry. I

20:15

do know from having spoken with other journalists

20:17

who've interviewed her and spent more time with her and been around

20:20

her in her business that, yeah, she's extremely hands-on.

20:22

She knows what's going on. She calls a lot of the shots,

20:24

whether they are creative shots or business shots, exactly

20:27

what ones are going to be impossible to understand.

20:29

You're not going to pierce those NDAs.

20:31

But do you think that is part of

20:33

the brand? I mean, is that a core part of her

20:35

brand that she is the performer

20:38

and the person backstage making it happen

20:40

in a way that people are, even if they don't know the details,

20:43

they're sort of aware that she's a,

20:45

you know, I'm not

20:48

going to say it. Okay. Girlboss.

20:50

Sure. Is that part of the pitch?

20:52

Oh, well, you know, I think that, as

20:55

I was saying, I think of Taylor Swift as like a cinematic

20:58

universe where there's so many different narratives that are

21:00

happening at any given moment. And I think for some audiences,

21:02

that is important, right? I think for maybe some of the

21:04

older Taylor Swift fans who've been with her for a very long time

21:07

who might be working in business, yes, that is an

21:09

important detail to her. I think for

21:11

my young cousins who are 10, 11, 12 years old

21:13

who love her for her songs

21:15

about who she's dating, I think this is a very different kind of relationship.

21:18

For me, I love her as a songwriter. I

21:21

really do. I think she is a great songwriter, and that's what most

21:23

interests me and what she does because

21:26

I don't know

21:27

what role she has in her

21:30

business. It's hard for me to

21:32

follow that as closely.

21:33

But yeah, I think it's an important piece. It's

21:36

just there is a Taylor Swift for everybody.

21:38

I swear, Peter, there's a Taylor Swift for you

21:41

and the CEO role, maybe one of

21:43

those roles that they're important to her brand. I

21:45

remember liking Black Space. I'm not anti-Taylor.

21:50

It's interesting to me that

21:52

Taylor is unique

21:55

among most of her peers and

21:58

relatively unique among most of her preneers. in

22:01

saying, I've got a beef with Apple or Spotify

22:03

or the music industry or Ticketmaster. Like

22:07

almost everyone else in popular music,

22:10

Steer is really clear of politics. And

22:15

I would imagine that if she wanted to, she could probably

22:17

have real impact in

22:20

all kinds of political arenas if she wanted

22:22

to. She slash her team

22:24

has clearly made a decision not to,

22:27

I've seen a clip of a documentary where she's

22:29

arguing with, I guess, her father because she wants

22:31

to get involved in something involving reproductive

22:34

rights and there's a real debate about it. Do

22:37

you think that that sort of apolitical

22:40

stance is just going

22:42

to be what we should expect from all artists

22:44

sort of indefinitely or do you think

22:47

that's eventually going to have to break down and

22:50

people are going to demand some sort of political

22:52

affiliation with their artists one way or another? Well,

22:54

Taylor Swift for a long time was quite apolitical.

22:58

I think that stems from her coming from the world of country music.

23:01

Nashville has this very uncomfortable relationship

23:03

that its core cultural product is often made by very

23:05

liberal people made for oftentimes very

23:07

conservative people. Does not mean that

23:10

country music is a monolith, but if you look

23:12

at the moment that

23:14

we're in in country music, it's actually more

23:16

hotly political than it has ever been before.

23:21

Having come from that world, people in country music

23:23

typically don't talk about politics. And she took a

23:25

long time to say anything about politics. I

23:27

think a lot of fan base were upset about her not

23:30

taking a stance in the Trump administration early

23:32

on and in his presidency. She did

23:35

come out and start making some

23:37

political statements around that documentary,

23:39

Miss Americana. She was supporting some

23:42

local politicians in Tennessee. So she has

23:45

made some statements. About

23:47

your larger question though, how

23:50

are artists going

23:52

to represent their politics in this moment? I

23:55

don't feel like I have a good answer for it because

23:57

I think that there are both the... the

24:00

retrenchment of corporate America from

24:02

making political statements, while

24:05

at the same time, I think there has been a cultural

24:08

leaning into making more overtly political

24:10

statements. The number one song in the

24:12

country at this moment makes jabs

24:15

at Richmond, north of Richmond,

24:17

while also shaming ...

24:19

It's all over the map politically.

24:22

The Republicans have adopted it, and then he told them to

24:24

actually don't adopt it. Right, right, right.

24:26

Okay, but nonetheless, it's in there. A

24:28

few weeks ago, there was a song, number two, that makes

24:30

allusions to lynching, that song

24:33

Small Town. So

24:35

how she's going to play it, I think she's going to lean into more

24:37

of the liberal identity, which she's established, but

24:39

I don't think we're going to see her as the ... I shouldn't

24:41

speculate too far.

24:42

So, she's going to end this tour, having

24:45

grossed more than $1.3 billion, shattering records around

24:49

the world. What do you imagine

24:51

she does next as she goes, all right, that's it?

24:53

We're done touring for a couple years, or

24:55

I'm right back at it next summer. How

24:58

do you think she ... And then I'm

25:01

only going to record, or actually ... How do you think

25:03

she is thinking about the next

25:05

era of her

25:07

career, unintended? I think like

25:09

any artist who has such a big moment, she will go

25:11

into a moment of hibernation. That is the natural

25:13

thing to do. She's been more available to the

25:15

public recently than she had been for many years. And

25:18

so what ... Because is there an argument now that says actually

25:20

in the streaming era, you kind of have to be on all the time

25:22

and continuing to make new product,

25:25

and actually no one cares about your last album.

25:27

They just want something new from you this month.

25:29

I think that's true if you don't feel that you have a dedicated fan

25:31

base. I think that she has clearly established

25:33

herself as one of the strongest fan bases that are going

25:35

to wait around for her, whether it's going to be a year or five.

25:38

Probably if I were to project what I want, I

25:40

think she'll go back into just more songwriting. That's

25:43

clearly the thing that she loves, and I've spoken

25:45

again with many journalists that have spent a lot of time with

25:47

her. I've not got to spend time with Taylor Swift, but

25:49

it's clear that her deepest love is writing songs,

25:52

and she clearly ... It seems to

25:54

be enjoying being on tour, but I

25:56

don't know anyone that truly loves

25:58

always being on tour. It's an ... exhausting

26:00

and difficult to life to

26:02

be moving around that much. Obviously

26:05

she's doing it in absolute luxury, but

26:07

it's draining.

26:08

It's real work. Charlie, I hope talking to

26:10

me about Taylor Swift was not work. I

26:13

mean, I happen to be at my place of work,

26:16

but I love talking about Taylor Swift. I

26:18

love talking to you about Taylor Swift. And anything else you

26:20

want to chat about, your podcast is

26:23

switched on pop. You should go listen

26:25

to it right now since this interview is

26:27

over. Thank you, Charlie. Thank

26:29

you, Peter. Thanks

26:31

to our sponsors for bringing this show to you for

26:34

free at $0. Still the

26:36

same. Thanks to Travis and Jelani

26:38

for editing the show, producing the show, and thanks

26:40

to you guys for listening. See you next

26:42

week. Support

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for this episode comes from Amazon Web

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27:32

Johnson. My

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name is Colin, also known as Trash Colin.

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