How Taylor Swift Won: A Farewell to the Taylor's Versions Era
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I'm Brian Hyatt. This is Rolling Stone Music Now. I have with me Brittany Spanos and Rob Sheffield, and we are here to talk about a major music news story that broke on Friday, something that maybe people thought would never come, but Taylor Swift brought back.

her masters. She has her albums back. You don't have to listen to Taylor's versions of songs anymore if you don't want to. We're going to talk about what this means and how it happened. Brittany, do you want to read Taylor's letter? All of it? In that tiny print? It was so hard to read. What actually happened with me is I tried to get AI to transcribe it, which...

By the way, AI is extremely good at transcribing just like an Instagram post that's in normal type. But in this particular case, this is how I learned that neither ChatGPT nor Claude can read cursive. And what ChatGPT did is it transcribed maybe a quarter of it and made up the rest very convincingly to the point where you had to look closely like, wait, she didn't say that about... It was terrible. Oh my God, that's so great. It was horrifying. You've got to share that robot...

Taylor announcement version. It was like, I'm going to make some improvements to this. I'm not feeling this. Brittany, I've dropped it into chat. I got it. Hi, I'm trying to gather...

Hi, Taylor.

But that's all in the past now. I've been bursting into tears of joy at random intervals ever since I found out that this is really happening. I really get to say these words: All of the music I've ever made now belongs to me. And all my music videos, all the concert films, the album art and photography, the unreleased songs, the memories, the magic, the madness, every single era, my entire life's work. To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it. To my fans, you know how important this has been to me.

So much so that I meticulously re-recorded and released four of my albums, calling them Taylor's version. The passionate support you showed those albums and the success story you turned the era's tour into is why I was able to buy back my music. I can't thank you enough for helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to, but have never owned until now.

All I've ever wanted was this opportunity to work hard enough to be able to one day purchase my music outright with no strings attached, no partnership with full autonomy. I will be forever grateful to everyone at Shamrock Capital for being the first people to ever offer this to me. The way they've handled every interaction we've had has been honest, fair, and respectful. This was a business deal to them, but I really felt like they saw it for what it was to me. My memories and my sweat and my handwriting and my decades of dreams. I am endlessly thankful."

My first tattoo might just be a huge shamrock in the middle of my forehead. Sure. I would like to see that.

I know, I know. What about Rep TV? Full transparency, I haven't even re-recorded a quarter of it. The Reputation album was so specific to that time in my life, and I kept hitting a stopping point when I tried to remake it. All that defiance, that longing to be understood while feeling purposely misunderstood, that desperate hope, that shame-borne snarl and mischief. To be perfectly honest, it's the one album in the first six that I thought couldn't be improved upon by redoing it. Not the music or photos or videos.

So I kept putting it off. There will be a time, if you're into the idea, for the unreleased vault tracks from that album to hatch. I've already completely re-recorded my entire debut album, and I really love how it sounds now. Those two albums can still have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right, if that would be something you guys would be excited about. But if it happens, it won't be from a place of sadness and longing for what I wish I could have. It

It will just be a celebration now. I'm extremely heartened by the conversations the saga has reignited within my industry among artists and fans. Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in their record contract because of this fight, I'm reminded of how important it was for all of this to happen. Thank you for being curious about something that used to be thought of as too industry-centric for broad discussion. You'll never know how much it means to me that you cared. Every single bit of it counted and ended us up here.

Thanks to you and your goodwill, teamwork and encouragement, the best things that have ever been mine finally actually are. Elated and amazed, Taylor.

Yeah, there's a lot to talk about here. I wanted to start just by explaining what really happened here on a business level. Taylor is a great artist, but also has a very strategic mind and is very business savvy. So what she says is the passionate support you showed those albums and the success story you turned the Eres tour into is why I was able to buy back my music. Now, the reason that the passionate support you showed those albums is part of why she was able to buy back my music is that

The fans helped her make her strategy a success, which is that part of the strategy of making these robust Taylor's versions, not just a cursory, crappy re-record, but a robust effort to make great new versions of them, plus very compelling vault tracks. She...

successfully devalued the original recordings in the hands of anyone except her. She no doubt is the reason that Scooter and Scooter Braun, as people may recall, teamed up to buy the music. Taylor felt that she didn't get a real chance to bid on in the first place. She did want to buy them in the first place. She understood that she had to buy them. They weren't going to be given to her. Scooter Braun got them. Taylor launched a strategy and successfully, pretty clearly forced the hand of Scooter to sell it.

which then put it in the hands of people that she could deal with theoretically. But in the meantime, she vastly, again, devalued these original recordings in the hands of anyone else but Taylor Swift.

thus forcing the hand ultimately of Shamrock, the company that held these recordings to realize the best move they could make and really the only move. It's like a War Games thing. She boxed them out like in the War Games tic-tac-toe game, like the only move was not to play. They had to sell it to Taylor. So that's what happened. And then, you know, the heiress tour also gave her a massive influx of cash. She probably could have afforded it before, but it made it much more feasible for her to make this rather large purchase. So that's what happened. It did make her a billionaire. Yes, it made her not

Not to put too fine a point on it, but it made her a billionaire. So that's what happened on a business level. But there's so much more to talk about. Rob, first of all, I love your theory. Rob wrote a piece about what this means and what it meant to him and what it meant to fans. And I love your theory that the fact that she says she barely recorded Reputation TV means that it's about to come out. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Well, she's always ducking and dodging. When Taylor says, there's no way that this is coming out right now, it makes you wonder because she likes to do things like that. She likes to tease things in that knowing way. For instance, the great way that she spells this with 12 repetitions of the letter I, which was not the most subtle hint in the Taylor cosmology. For her to be talking about reputation and debut in such candid terms

as if debut is about to come out and reputation will never happen, which is something people are saying now, which is, I think, very doubtful. I love the idea of her making Rep TV anytime she wants to. It's certainly an album that she could hold off for a couple of years and make when she's...

40. But when Taylor Swift says full transparency, mark your calendars. Just for people who are not fully grasping the numerology, the 12 eyes is believed to be a reference to her 12th studio album, now believed to be coming sooner rather than later, in part because of said eyes and also because of this deal. Yes. And also the fact that she didn't mention it at all in this announcement.

Given the way Taylor works is we've joked about that great scene in the antihero video where they look at her will and they're like, she said this is her will. So her will must be the opposite of what she said. But just the fact that she made this announcement and didn't even mention TS-12 is tantamount to an announcement. Her website is literally just this letter right now. I myself believe her. I think about the representation.

Taylor's version because I feel like something was going on and there was a reason why we hadn't heard it until now. I kind of believe her. I think if anything's coming sooner rather than later, it's the Vault Tracks. I don't know what you think, Bernie. I actually think she will never finish Reputation TV except from the Vault Tracks because there really is no reason to now. Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating because literally, what was it, a week or two ago, the Look What You Made Me Do, Taylor's version was in The Handmaid's Tale. Oh!

And obviously for everyone just was assumed in the same way that she had done with Love Story. Which other ones did she do this with? She did with like a lot of the Taylor's versions where she sort of previewed before the announcement. Even if it's just in your eye of the street.

Wildest Dreams, like they were kind of in commercials or TV shows or sync, which obviously is a big part of the master recordings, right? Which is the difference between the publishing rights and the rights to the master recordings, which is the sync rights to these songs. You know, that was a pretty interesting use of that right before we were able to see that this deal finally went through. I think it'd be interesting if she did release the Taylor's version when Original Reputation is doing so well right now. It had its biggest streaming day since it was released.

It could end up being kind of a weird situation to have two versions of the albums when the first one is like people are finally able to stream it. And it was interesting to have so many fans that came into the fandom after Lover or who are younger, just never listened to Reputation before and never listened to Debut. They weren't listening to these albums until now. I do believe a lot of them didn't listen to it until this moment. I have a question about that, which is even by Taylor's own rules, weren't you sort of quote unquote rules?

weren't they really allowed to listen to those since there weren't tellers versions of them? Like she didn't actually ask people to ask not to listen to albums that she hadn't rerecorded yet. This episode is brought to you by progressive insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money. When you bundle your home and auto policies, the process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket.

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Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting because obviously there's a big reputation portion of Eros Tour. I'm sure many people left Eros Tour wanting to listen to Look What You Made Me Do, which, you know, I was listening to Reputation after I left Eros Tour. Like, I had to. I was like, I forgot about how great this album is.

I never forget how great reputation is. Actually, that's a lie. But yeah, I feel like the people who refuse to listen to albums that weren't even re-recorded yet, they're like the ultra, ultra observant Swifties making up rules that weren't even in the rules. And it was interesting in the Taylor class, like a lot of students asked me why we were listening to the original versions in the class. Because it's like, we can't talk about Fearless just listening to Taylor's version in an academic setting. Like you have to listen to teenage Taylor singing 15th.

When you're somebody tells you they love you. And also listen to the re-recorded version later. How dare you, Brittany. The unethically sourced. At some point, Scooter Braun might have gotten .0001 of a cent because of your heresy. But I will say what's nice is that we were half right. We were convinced that she had already recorded...

reputation and debut. And at least it did prove true about debut for apparently, you know, what seemed to be complex reasons, assuming again, that we take her at her word and not, it's always a possibility as Rob said, that it's a double reverse uno or whatever, but.

Assuming we take it or a word that she had issues about re-recording. And I actually always did think that that was a particularly... I think 1989 was a really hard one too because it's so... Max Martin. Yeah, it was so sonically particular. And for me, everyone differs about this.

The 1989 Taylor's version never worked for me. It was too distracting hearing the reverb tails of the snare were in my head so precisely. I found it distracting. Like there's a lot that, you know, obviously with the Max Martin, the lack of Max Martin on the production, it was more noticeable than like the lack of like Nathan Chapman on the production of the country album. No offense to Nathan Chapman. I think he's very talented. There is something great that sort of

Jack Antonoff and Aaron kind of added to those like country and also like just the fact that her voice is older and more mature and kind of hit a bigger sort of stronger stride and like you know Fearless I think for a lot of people the re-recorded Fearless is so great to listen to because her voice is just so much stronger now in those ballads and so just like so much more depth to them and how she sings it but yeah I think the Max Martin production obviously was a sort of

a point to a lot of people that, you know, not having him return for the production of 1989 made people really worried about Rep in that way because his production on those songs is so...

and so specific. But yeah, my theory is that she's going to release Vault tracks. I think we're going to get a deluxe reputation. I think we're going to get TS-12 very soon. And I think we're going to get for the 20-year anniversary of debut next year, the re-recorded version. And potentially the re-recorded version of Reputation just for the hell of it, which is also the 10-year anniversary next year. I think 2026 is going to be the closing of the re-record chapter. But I definitely think we're going to get 20th anniversary re-recorded

debut with all the vault tracks, all those like great early release Taylor songs that everyone's been waiting for her to finally put out and rerecord. I think debut is something that people were actually looking forward to hearing. That one I was most excited about. Because it becomes a genuine artistic project to take your, you know, your teenage singing and redo it as

As a grown up who not only sings, frankly, better, but also, you know, as we've seen live, she can bring a whole new and also on the other early albums, Fearless, etc. She can bring a new emotional tenor to these songs that sing them as an adult. I'm genuinely fascinated to hear that. And also, I think we're also curious about the accent.

I'm definitely looking for the accent. I'm skipping ahead. When the first thing it, as soon as I hear it, the first thing I'm doing is skipping ahead to the chorus of our song. Cause I want to hear how she hits your mama. Don't know on a scale of one to 10. Cause the original version like is, is a nine and a half. I want to see how far she goes into that. Cause it's late and your mama don't know our song is a way.

She changes it to your mother is not aware with no accent. Which I don't recommend, kids. Like, let your parents know when you're talking on the phone. Maybe it's that I'm so obsessed with reputation. This is a TV I've always wanted to hear. I don't think improving the original is the point. I don't think that was ever the point. With Fearless, which everybody unanimously thought was already a great album, it was so powerful to hear her revisit these younger songs in her adult voice and...

And as Brittany pointed out, like sing them better, especially in the ballads. But also that was the power. There was a perfect album to choose to begin the Taylor's version project. And I would love to hear her do those reputation songs a few years down the line. She said it was a specific time in her life, but all these albums were. They all are. Yeah. Something I fantasize about for Rep TV is that if she feels she couldn't redo the industrial cityscape version, as she described it to you, Brian.

I would love to hear her do a country version of Reputation. Let's do those songs as country songs. If she's not into improving on the original arrangements, you know, because it's a Jack album, so she can Jack all the way with it. If they want to do something completely different. I just love the idea of doing something totally different with the Reputation songs.

Yeah, this particular TV. I think that was like a big thing with the surprise song portions of the shows because she did so many rep songs, especially in the that's why so many people thought rep and debut were coming so soon as because she was doing so many mashups of debut with rep on tour. And, you know, that was kind of the red flags were kind of going off like the Kill Bill siren, the Taylor Kill Bill sirens going off of like, is this coming like imminently?

But stripping those songs, I mean, that's the best part about so many Taylor songs is they can so easily be stripped down to just guitar, just piano. And, you know, they are essentially have this like country structure to so many of them, even with the big booming pop synths and everything. But, you know, I think that could be really, really fun if she decided to do that with, I mean, with any of her albums. I mean, any of her like big pop albums, but I think especially Reputation could be a really fun one.

Totally. If she just sat down with a guitar and a piano and redid those songs solo, that's something she could do in a weekend and release next week. It would be phenomenal.

Just to hear her do those songs. She brought so much to the debutation songs when she did them last fall, when she was doing debutation almost every night and really dangling it in front of people. Dangle, a word that Taylor loves. She hates when things are dangled in front of her. It's a word that comes up in these statements. The carrot that she mentions in this letter. But she...

She loves to dangle a carrot herself. Your point is well taken because it also sort of argues against the idea that a lot of people suggested, which is that she didn't want to do the Reputation songs because they're about a failed relationship. But she's obviously, you know, she was performing them live. She can do it. Yeah. She loves those songs. She's rightly proud of them. But as Brittany said, a lot of them are structured like country songs. So...

They can hold up to any arrangement she wants to give them. Why not five different reputation TVs and five different genres? If you can't do one, do five. Now you're talking, Brian. Now you're talking. As she told you at the time, I always loved that particular interview you did with her where she said, there's no wooden floors on that album. Right, right. She said, I just wanted hostile, antisocial, industrial cityscape album. And it's totally electronic. And to do a wood floors version of Reputation,

would be a nice way to celebrate this moment in her career where she's finally got those songs back. Also, love how she talked about these. And with both debut and reputation, she said, if you guys would still be interested. Unless Swifties have lost interest in Taylor Swift. They're like, no, I'm good. No, thank you. So, yeah, I mean, some people have basically acted like

now the entire Taylor's version project can be sort of tossed aside and was just a legal strategy and maybe it was wasted artistic effort. But I mean, you know, first of all, there's fantastic moments on the re-records themselves. And second of all, there is an entire little shadow catalog now available

of Taylor's own bootleg series, Taylor's own tracks of these vault tracks, which includes some many great songs. I have a question for you two about the vault tracks, because this is something that I've even heard kids question this. Now, we haven't heard the original purported versions of these vault tracks. Is it possible that some of them are written later in the spirit of the albums? Or do we believe that every single one of them is at least a half-finished song from the era, if you know what I mean?

I 100% believe that all of them, except for potentially some parts of All Too Well 10-Minute Version, are from the exact era. I think there's some liberties in some of the lines in the All Too Well 10-Minute Version. Not all of it, because obviously the 10-Minute Version was done in a live setting with her band, was off the cuff, most of it written. I think every other Volt track, though, does very much come from the exact era that they're from.

So specific to like the energy of the lyrics, like especially the 1989 Volt tracks. It just feels so like I'm sure some parts of the melodies are sharpened and, you know, like whatever, but like and tightened up in certain ways. But they just they almost feel like too specific to those moments that it feels, you know, it doesn't feel like Taylor doing like Taylor Swift, you know.

1989 drag or, you know, trying to recreate the kind of teenage kind of Joe Jonas of it all and fearless like it does feel so specific to those eras. I'm agnostic on this question. I guess what I believe is I believe in her ability to quote unquote fake it that if she needed this song like Speak Now that she could pretty much manifest one.

I don't know. Genuinely don't know. What do you think, Rob? Remember when the Stones were doing the Exile on Main Street and they had these outtakes to refurbish? I was just thinking, Jesus Christ, Rob, you just read my mind. I literally was thinking about that as I was speaking. Go on, yeah. But there were songs where there was a scrap of something and they finished the song and finished the song meant, Mick said, I just went into that mode. Right, right.

that narrative voice and completed the song. And of course, the songs turned out to be across the board so incredibly great that it was, Mick, why don't you do this once every two years? The fact that he was so blasé that it was so easy for him to go back into exile mode and write an exile lyric like Plundered My Soul is a great example where he just went back and re-entered that narrative voice and it was easy for him to toss off those songs. I thought you were all in my head But you're plodding my bones

Makes you wonder why he doesn't do that more often. But with Taylor, I can easily imagine doing that with 1989, which was the one where the Vault Tracks were the ones that raised this question most often, partly because they were so good, partly because she was also making Midnights at that time. And the 1989 Vault Tracks do sound like Midnight songs, which doesn't seem so surprising since they're similar kind of albums. Yeah. But...

I think what Brittany said is absolutely true that she is. All these songs are moments in her life and I have no trouble believing these songs are moments from her life. Some of them have obviously been finished that were left unfinished before. All too well she spoke explicitly about how it was not finished and how she had to finish it up now. Yeah. But she's been wise to leave some gray area in how she did it in her method. Full transparency, right.

Maybe in the future she'll release the vault versions of the vault tracks where we get the original, the demos for 1989. I think that's...

I think that's why I'm so excited for the, for debut TV and like have been, have been so excited for that one is because there's already this like built in vault that we like have access to, like, which are all of the, you know, the songs that she was doing in around Nashville at Bluebird cafe, like all these early, um, you know, those early songs that she was, you know, putting out on CD for fans and things that are on YouTube now that I'm just so excited for her to like

either sharpen up or just like record in her sort of adult voice. And that is kind of the one era where we kind of already had, we already, we kind of know the vault, you know, we kind of have. What are your favorites among those like, you know, pre-Taylor Taylor songs? We want to hear I'd Lie. If I love him.

She was so prolific in this era. Yeah. She started when she was young and don't even try to pretend that she doesn't still have records of all those songs that she wrote way back in the days. I'd love to hear her karaoke audition tape. Yeah. You know, where she's doing Hopelessly Devoted to You.

You want Taylor's versions of her karaoke? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. But there's like a lot of those songs, aren't there? Pre-debut songs? Really big chunk of them. There's so much of stuff that she like put on MySpace and that there was like physical only and like all these like demos and stuff that have just like kind of floated around in different forms. Get into your body's vitals with the Vitals app on Apple Watch. I don't get used to my, my skin don't talk. And I wanna feel like I'm a star.

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Obviously, Is It Over Now is one of the greatest songs. If we're going through The Vault, which again is like a shadow catalog, what are the key Vault songs for you? I mean, you know, there's one that's very obvious. One she did on Saturday Night Live, but besides that one. Now That We Don't Talk. Now That We Don't Talk. I called my mom, she said, remind myself the moment.

The 1989 Volt tracks are pretty. Yeah, the 1989 Volt tracks are a great album in themselves. Mr. Perfectly Fine. Yeah, and that I believe existed 100%. Like that's such a perfect teenage breakup song. Yeah. When Emma Falls in Love. When Emma falls in love, she paces the floor, closes the blinds and locks the door.

Absolutely love that song. So great. And I love timeless. A lot of people aren't so into timeless. I completely love timeless. I would have read you.

Oh, and Nothing New with Phoebe Bridgers is great. Yeah. It's pretty good. How can a person know everything at 18 but nothing at 22? I obviously really loved her doing her solo versions of Better Man. I just miss you and I just wish you were a better man. And Babe. How could you? You really could.

I was really excited that those were included in the vault in the same way that obviously I've been holding out for the Taylor version of, oh my God, what's the Rihanna song? The Calvin Harris Rihanna song. What you came for

She sings on that anyway, so it doesn't matter. I just, I loved like, you know, obviously like she's, you know, I love the Taylor Swift songwriter for other artists mode. And I think that's such an interesting, um, still like not fully tapped well of her own sort of creativity and what she is capable of. Cause she's so prolific on her own. So it's not really in the cards, um, probably timing wise for her to do more of that. But, um, I love that she included those, those two on the red vault. Yeah.

Yes, it's true. You do want to hear, this is what you came for, is the song. And yes, of course, even though you can hear Taylor on the original, it would be very interesting to hear the Taylor version. Yeah. Nils Joburg's version. Yes. Yes. The very, very layered joke that she used a Swedish pseudonym when writing that song. That is a good joke. Just the...

re-recordings themselves, it's key that these are not substitutes for the original albums as versions of them where she's going back and revisiting them from a different place emotionally, but also vocally. Fearless was a brilliant one to start with because that one is just a tour de force and that one really served notice that this whole project was for real. And I listened to the re-record Fearless. I

I don't know the last time I listened to the non-re-recorded Fearless. But the Taylor's version, Fearless, is, I think, just even more striking than the original. For all of them, there's the gestalt that they share. And for Red, the vault tracks on Red are phenomenal. They fit so well with the album. 1989 is really off the hook that way.

Yeah, I think it's, you know, I think people kind of forget that this type of project, which is like really time consuming, could be a huge waste of time. A lot of artists have, you know, wanted to do it, have tried to do it, have like threatened to do it, threatened to do it. Yeah.

And really, you know, it's like, you know, for a lot of them, it just boiled down to it is it could be a waste of time. Like, it's really, really time consuming to try to recreate that and to try to recreate the magic of your hits that obviously people have such emotional ties to and have such specific memories of and goes beyond even the songwriting or just hearing it. It's like those little ticks in like the way you sing a certain word or like, you know, kind of the way your voice cracks or sounds on something like it. It's hard to recreate it. But, you know, it could have been a huge waste of time, but it's a statement and it's a, you

you know, it is a big rebellion as an artist to do that. It was, that was the point of what, why she was doing it. Because this was like a statement of her own artistry. It was a statement. It was a rebellion. It was this big F you to the people who owned her music and to kind of what it stood for. And I think a lot of artists, as you point out her letter, and I think has become so clear in the last, you know,

nearly six years since she announced it is that it empowered a lot of artists to, you know, I think of like someone like Jojo, for example, who whose first two albums that featured her biggest hits were stuck in this like purgatory from her record label and just never on streaming and never released. And she re-recorded them and she was able to kind of she was like, oh, this is like an avenue I can take and be able to actually get, you know, a song like Leave Get Out that I'm so proud of on Spotify because it just isn't available. And, you know.

So many artists have felt so empowered to ask these questions and to, you know, sign contracts, you know, especially for younger artists that allow them to own their masters or at least have a huge chunk of it. I think this was a thing that, you know,

Barring the Taylor Swift of it all that people sort of create a lot of these like weird sort of narratives and anger and issues around. I think it really changed the way a lot of artists approach the music industry and approach owning their own music and reclaiming their music in a way that is a bigger conversation than it ever been before.

Yeah, I thought it was interesting when she said in the letter that artists were saying that when they negotiate their contracts, now they're asking to own the masters, which is sort of... So she's really... This has become a nightmare for the labels in the best way, which is that now they have these empowered young artists asking for the thing that the labels least want. So it's kind of fascinating. Yeah. I mean, a lot of artists... I think of someone like Dua Lipa, for example. She had bought back her masters a few years ago. She was able to... When she was getting out of her last management deal, she bought back

all of her masters. Like that's like a pretty incredible move. But I think, you know, artists who have that ability are now trying to like...

reclaim that ownership. And especially a lot of younger artists have spoken about how when they were signed or, you know, when they kind of considered a major label or anything that they had this in mind and thought about it and thought about what Taylor had gone through, what she had spoken out about and how she had sort of been able to reclaim her music and really weaponize the fact that she does have this really powerful and impassioned fan base behind her who are willing to support her.

It's funny. It goes in contrast to the older artists who are selling their masters and publishing. But in a way, it doesn't because you have to have ownership of this stuff in the first place to be able to make the decision when you're 75 or whatever to sell it. So it's all one thing. The idea is it's theirs to do what they please. And if they want to sell it someday, that's their business. So...

Album 12 you think is coming sooner rather than later. What's your best guess? When is it coming? I'll put you on the spot. I think this year. September. Yeah, I think fall release. I think we're going back to fall. I think we're going, we're back to fall release. Back to September is what you're saying? I think we're going to get it. Heat football season. I think that's when we're going to get it.

You know, this is going to probably be a very football heavy album, potentially. Kill me. Fucking kill me. Come on. It's about Travi's big game. I was going to say she's going to really do the Travi's big game song. Yeah. No, I do think it. I think, you know, I think it will come later this year. No later than next spring. But I do think it will come sooner rather than later.

Can't even begin to imagine where she's going. Can we musically lyrically? I stopped guessing. Yeah, you certainly didn't. No one expected a, you know, a Maddie Healy concept album. So, you know, I'm still shook. Nobody's saying this isn't going to be another one. Very well could be. There could be, there could be a lot of Joe songs left over that we didn't get the first round. She had a lot to get off her chest about Maddie. And she was like, okay. And another thing. Yeah.

That could be the Apple title. Black Dog, Day 6. I know the black dog. It pierced new holes in my heart. You forgot to turn.

Yeah, I think, I don't know, it feels like she's still very, you know, in, yeah, I think, obviously, like I said, I've always wanted the rock album and I've waited and I think it will come one day, the full rock album. But I do think she's still so in her pop girl bag at the moment that I can see this kind of continuing, maybe, you know,

in a, in a mid nightsy vein in sort of the bigger kind of sparkling pop moments of, um, the, the few and far between really big sparkly pop moments of, um, of tortured poets. But I do, I can see this being another kind of, um, glitter gel pen pop album from Taylor, especially given kind of the last few years, there was so much to celebrate and so much, um, so many kind of big, happy things, um, that happened, you know, even,

Even as Tortured Poets was coming out. I think you're right. I see the rock album that you and I have been waiting for for such a long time. I can hear that being the one after this one. Yeah. I can hear that being 13. Yeah. Or even a return to sort of that folklore evermore kind of folky sound. I had a feeling so peculiar that this pain would be forevermore.

to kind of indie indie pop indie rock moment um yeah i think that i think that could happen again for sure but i i can see you know how so many artists are always so influenced by kind of their tours right when they're kind of recording or writing music and i think eras was built on these big glittery pop moments and these sequins and the kind of bigness of that i can see that reflecting a lot in her music and how she's maybe considering her music because that was such a

a powerful statement as a live performer. And I can see her wanting to kind of write it back with a big sort of glittery pop tour and an album to fit that. Yeah, I mean, that is a huge question that she may not have the answer to is how do you do...

the first post heiress tour tour and not have it seem like a letdown, but also not a copy. And, you know, if anyone can certainly, she can figure it out, but it is an interesting question. Like how do you, you know, the, the obvious answer would be a tighter set focused more on whatever the new album is and also torture poets, which she didn't have much of a chance to play. Yeah. Laura had less of a chance to play, but how do you think she can handle that? How does she, how does she move on from heiress tour on a live basis? Yeah.

I think she'll probably take a page out of the, you know, how the last two, like, you know, the structures of Beyonce's recent tours, I think is a great blueprint for that. And obviously Taylor and Beyonce have so many, many, many things in sort of their kind of overlapped event diagram of pop stardom in recent years. But I think, you know, the Beyonce tours are really great example of building a tour around the album and finding a way to make that new album so centric and

And then finding ways to kind of make these great mashup moments, making the old song sort of fit into that narrative of this album. You know, I think the Renaissance and Cowboy Carter tours have been really great. Sort of, you're getting pretty much the full albums in that tour, in this like nearly three hour show. But...

She's doing so much of her music, of her old music throughout it to the point where, you know, you're getting so many great hits, but you also like there's still so many more she could do, but you don't feel like a letdown from not hearing them. So I can see her doing something like that where there's potentially a lot of mashups, a lot of kind of rearrangements of songs throughout it. And especially again, if she does like a big sort of big synthy synth pop type of album for the next one, if that's could be a really easy thing.

kind of mode for her to do. Rob, what do you think about the tour? I think after ERA's tour, I see her picking up where ERA's tour left off. She loved doing the big conceptual show. She loved having all those particular moments. She's, she's always done that. Uh,

She's always loved to make each song its own story and to set it off. And so I can totally see her doing that as she did before, not breaking up the songs into the specific eras, but I see her going all over her career. Obviously, she loved covering her entire career, going back to those moments that she'd lived. And obviously, she saw that the audience responded to that experience.

People had their own stories with these records, and so people loved that each album was its own interlude. I don't necessarily see her doing the Errors tour again in such a structured way, but I think she's going to be covering her entire career. This is a victory upon a victory. The irony is, as we already discussed, we left it out of our discussion of the effects of the Tellers versions just because we did a whole episode about it, but the truth is the Tellers versions helped create...

The Taylor mania multiplied Taylor popularity that resulted in the Aris tour being such a phenomenon. So it was by no means wasted effort. It took her to this new level of fame and success when it didn't seem like there was a new level to be had. So there's now that victory and then the victory of getting the albums back. There's nothing, unfortunately, that people hate more than a winner, especially a powerful woman who wins. There's the inevitable backlash that I

that i guess was already brewing we saw a little bit of in the reaction to torture poets

But by thinking on that is she's kind of too big for a backlash to matter. I think she's got too many loyal fans that, sure, there'll be haters, there's haters of her relationship there, but it's just a thing that exists, but in no way affects her career or anything really. And that's kind of how I see it because there's definitely been people kind of predicting the backlash, but I don't think it's the kind of backlash that makes her less popular or interferes with a single thing personally.

Yeah, I mean, you know, reputation is a great example of that, right? It's like that was a huge sort of like public lashing type of moment that she was experiencing and continue to experience even as the album was rolling out.

But, you know, that's still, that album was still huge. It was like a giant album with a giant stadium tour. You know, there was no, there was no lull in the success of Taylor. Look, What You Made Me Do was number one. Like there was, it was a big, a big, big album. And, you know, even Taylor at her least, you know,

what like broadly popular general public popular or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. She's always gonna, she's always gonna have like a really core, her core fan base is bigger than the average core fan base that any artist could have. Right. It's bigger than most countries. Yeah. The core fan base is like, you know, is basic, is literally the general public, you know? Um, and so, you know, there's no, there's nothing she's done or, um,

potentially can do. I'm like, I don't anticipate her doing anything truly ever that's like actually cancelable or horrible. Like she's not, you know, that's just not in her nature as a, as a public figure, as a star, you know, she's always going to have these ebbs and flows in terms of,

like, you know, popularity or criticism and things like that, that's natural and happens to everyone. And every major, as you said, like any, any really famous woman is dealing with that and has dealt with that. Um, but the ebbs and flows in her own sort of

like chart and financial success as a pop star are always going to be kind of base level, slightly larger, much larger than average, just because that's just the reach that she has. That's the type of fandom that she has and type of, you know, larger than life kind of pop starness that she kind of holds in this moment. But also the torture poets backlash really notably failed. It was

a backlash that completely failed to make it a less popular album than the most popular album of the year. It was absurdly popular and absurdly big seller. And it was funny to see that the backlash when it was first released was

just didn't have any impact on its popularity. Yeah. And it was also right before another year of Arrow's tour. It was coming like, she was still on the biggest tour in history. There was no slowing down and there is no slowing down in sort of the Taylor extended universe. It's really amazing. Yes. And now she went as far as to release this announcement

just to kneecap Miley Cyrus in her new album release. No, she did not do that. That is what, that is the kind of, you know, as I've discussed, there's something called, uh, this is a Taylor, Taylor derangement syndrome. And it's, it's this belief that, you know, she is every single thing she does is, is, uh, is somehow calculated to kneecap some other pop star. She's a monster on the hill. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Um, you know, it's, it's,

People were trying to like do a sort of carbon dating of the photo to like, to prove that they were like months old, to prove that like the photo, they can prove the photo was taken in March and that she just waited to do this until Miley released an album.

And even if it was, you know, that doesn't mean that the deal was, you know, I'm sure there was she wanted to prepare in some way. She had to prepare, especially if she has, you know, any if she has these vault tracks, she has the rerecording. She did have to kind of think ahead of like, OK, if this deal doesn't go through, like I do have to think about when these will be released or like how to navigate this. Or maybe she like wanted to kind of prepare.

prepare in some capacity of like what that rollout would look like maybe it was almost finalized in march and just wasn't you know well we don't we won't know the exact like unless we get like a play-by-play minutes report from every assistant for every person involved in the deal we won't know the exact timing of it but she is a business person at the end of the day and everyone is and she does have to prepare in some way like she's maybe it could have

been potentially announced in March. Maybe it just didn't go through then, you know, but I don't think it's fair to anyone involved to create all of these like weird feuds between everyone. I don't think Taylor's thinking of, you know,

like how you know how her announcement is going to affect she's just she's famous like she's a really famous person her announcement's going to affect anything you know it's going to um you know anyone could be releasing something selena gomez could have released an album on friday and she had the deal went through she would have released it and it would have and people would have created some like their ants like whatever it's very unusual to have

just an unambiguously good news moment like this for a pop star. It does remind me of Dylan winning the Nobel Prize. It was a thing where something happens and it's just, it's good news. It's something that the fan base can root for. It's something that the general audience can root for. It's just something that felt like a celebration of pop music in general. Yeah. Robyn Brittany, as always, thanks for joining me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

And that's our show. We'll be back next week. In the meantime, subscribe to Rolling Stone Music Now wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us five stars and a nice review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify because that's always appreciated. But as always, thanks so much for listening and we will see you next week.

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All right, here we go. New Phineas and Ferb is here. We're back, baby. For 104 more days-- I know what we're going to do today. --of Summer Vacation. I am ready for summer shenanigans. Let's do it. Oh, yeah. All right! We're going to ferb once and for all. Are we going to do this again? New inventions, shenanigans, inaters, adventures, and songs. Red Summer Vacation. New Phineas and Ferb starts June 5th on Disney Channel and next day on Disney+ on Disney+.Disney.com.

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