Back & slightly delayed with TGIF - a pop culture round up to lighten & brighten your way into the weekend, hopefully at least. I listened to a lot of things this week, which isn’t abnormal. I’m the annoying person who has a podcast on 24 hrs of the day. But usually I don’t love anything enough to recommend - truly I think everyone is doing so much consuming I don’t need to add to it. That’s NOT the case this week, so let’s get into what happened & the nice podcast pairing you can take with it, if you so choose.
Of course, unless you were living under a rock, you’ve heard that Taylor Swift announced her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, on Travis Kelce’s podcast. I did not commit 2 hours listening to this, I’m happy for those who did. I instead consumed clips online, as well as one of my favorite podcasts, Every Single Album. [honestly if you aren’t into the TS of it all, they have a great episode that Milly Cyrus was on that I recommend trying out] This podcast is great because one of the hosts has been in the music business for a long time, previously a C-Suite at Live Nation, so it’s a bit inside baseball happening which I always love.
What I don’t love is that Taylor chose her boyfriend’s podcast as the medium to announce her new album. It feels very pedestrian. I’m sure there’s a corner of the internet that would argue that’s her whole thing. & I guess it kind of is because her style strategy is very much the same. Like let’s be the ‘every girl’ - relatable so as to seem authentic. Of course now that every boy has a podcast, I guess it adds up that the every girl would announce her album on the show! OK so maybe I just made sense of it all.
I don’t want to be too much of a hater though, I’m actually like an OG Swiftie which might shock you by the way I’ve ranted about her. Back to the album announcement, by far the biggest news from this entire thing was that this album is written & produced by (Taylor of course but also) Max Martin & Shellback. This is like a big, f*cking deal. If you were alive in the late 90s - early 00s, you can pretty much attribute any pop song you love to Max Martin. Think Britney Spears, NSync, Backstreet Boys. & specifically this combo is responsible for many of Taylor’s bangers as well - the songs on Red that soft launched her pop career, I Knew You Were Trouble & 22, as well as most of 1989 are because of this trio. All to say this new album is going to be banger after banger if I had to guess.
I’m not sure if it’s because 2014, the year 1989 was released, was just a lighter time all around. I tend to mark 2016 as the year things really start to go down hill for America specifically. But the anticipation for music that is akin to Blank Space & Style has me really excited. I’m sorry if it’s a ‘had to be there moment’ but this visual from the BS music video will live in my head rent free forever.
Let’s not forget the Syndney concert moment where she uses a golf club to harmonize with herself - honestly you just have to love her. (skip to 3:01 to catch it)
So if we’re getting more of this from her, I’m here for it. The ‘Every Single Album’ episode muses that she’s looking for her own ‘Espresso’ - not to say she’s jealous of what Sabrina has done, more that she wants to prove she can still do it. & I would love to see her try.
The other thing that came out of this podcast was that maybe everyone should have Travis Kelce as a boyfriend. Listen I have too many negative thoughts on the topic to stay here for too long. I will say I’m not surprised to see people putting him on a pedestal. We’re at a time where the ‘male loneliness epidemic’ & rise in fascism has men very much hating women. It’s nice to see Travis be supportive of Taylor’s career & power, so yes please more of this. I will say I don’t think that a man being supportive of a woman has to come at the expense of being smart, which is very much what a lot of articles are implying. Just because Travis may appear to be d*mb doesn’t mean your boyfriend can’t be smart & also love you for being smart, but I digress.
I unfortunately have 5 meetings to go to now, for the thing that actually pays my bills, so I’ll leave you with my other recommendations for listening this week. All are worth it!
The most recent episode of The Cutting Room Floor. You can actually watch this too, as Recho does an amazing job with editing. She is extremely invested in this as more than a podcast. She is the only person doing content right IMO and this week’s episode is with Sue Chan discussing food culture in America. It’s such a great listen on layering experiential, fashion & food into one. love love love.
I don’t always listen to this next one & I actually don’t really love the guest’s content on IG l0l but she is much more nuanced here. The Rich Roll podcast talking with nutritionist Jessica Knurick - they discuss the MAHA movement and are critical of both sides, institutions as well as pseudoscience. They also do a great job breaking down how healthy went from left leaning, granola hippie type beliefs into the alt right thing we’re seeing now. It’s something I’ve wondered about A LOT since I am of the left leaning health type but have never been converted into the anti vax, raw milk pipeline. I loved listening to this very educated, grounded in facts conversation about our healthcare ecosystem so 10/10 recommend if you were wondering how beef tallow came into the zeitgeist.
talk to you next week :)