‘The Life of a Showgirl’: Everything We Know (and Are Predicting) About TS12

Below is an excerpt from Nora and Nathan’s conversation about the New Heights podcast, Taylor Swift’s new album, and where she is in her career.

Nathan Hubbard: We’re getting a 12-song Taylor Swift record, produced by Max Martin and Shellback. And to be clear, this is not because Jack Antonoff has done anything wrong and there’s a rift, or there’s anything wrong with Aaron Dessner. There’s nothing wrong there. The point is, as so many people—including on this podcast, but we weren’t the first to say it, everybody says that—people were ready for a break, right?

Nora Princiotti: Yeah.

Hubbard: We’d gotten a lot of Jack over the last albums. This is her ninth studio record since, whatever, in the last handful of years.

Princiotti: No. It’s been a decade. It’s been more than a decade.

Hubbard: So people were like, hey, by the end of Tortured Poets, which was a terrific album, and I’m so glad exists, and I still go back to in a million ways to this day. I still love “Down Bad,” “The Black Dog” absolutely kills me. There are other things on that album that just are incredibly moving and that matter. I happen to believe that “Fortnight” is really, really good. I know not everybody feels that way, but I do.

Princiotti: I don’t like that song, but I love “The Black Dog.”

Hubbard: It’s fine. It’s fine. You love other things.

Princiotti: And I love “The Bolter.”

Hubbard: You love “The Bolter,” right? But this was an album that really mattered. But I think it was fair to say, “Hey, Taylor, I get it. Thank you. And, with the next one, can’t wait to see your genius challenged in new and different ways.” And this is not necessarily a new and different way until you listen to what she said tonight, which is that she went in the studio with Max Martin, her mentor, and Shellback, her peer, who they are now both of age and adults, and just the three of them made an intentional album that preserves the direct and poetic writing that she has been focused on since Folklore, but is all about bangers. And I guess she really put herself on the line for this album in ways that she hasn’t before. I mean, she put it all out there.

If the biggest risk tonight was going on the podcast with a Hall of Fame center and tight end to talk about your music, the second-biggest risk tonight was what she did to put herself out there and be like, “I don’t even care, that’s how great I feel about this.” And that, to me, I am all in. I’m all in.

Princiotti: Yeah, no, me, too.

Hubbard: When a four-time Album of the Year winner says, “I could not be more excited about this music.” She did not sell Tortured Poets that way. She did not sell Midnights that way. She did not sell Evermore that way. She did not sell Folklore that way.

Princiotti: She hasn’t really sold an album that way since 1989.

Hubbard: Well, and that was the album today that she told us is indeed her sterling one. I think I heard her say that’s my favorite—

Princiotti: Oh, I missed this.

Hubbard: When they talked about the rerecords, “What’s your favorite?” She’s like, “Listen, 1989 is what it is, and I just think it’s the best. But going back to Red”—

Princiotti: Oh.

Hubbard: “… I’ve had mixed feelings about it, but the rerecord process made me feel better about it and feel great about it.”

Princiotti: I got the whole comment vis-à-vis Red, but I missed that little aside about 1989.

Hubbard: Right.

Princiotti: That’s really interesting. But it makes a ton of sense because—and I think I’d texted this to you guys—even before she went all in on this on the show, I was like … “Oh my God, Taylor, this is your moment, why are you giving it to your boyfriend? I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to listen to men talk to each other. That’s not my vibe.” I’m kidding. Sort of.

Hubbard: “I talk to a man enough on this fucking podcast.”

Princiotti: It’s like, enough already.

Hubbard: No more dumb fucking men. Putting chest hair in my sourdough.

Princiotti: Ew.

Hubbard: By the way, can we just be clear, when she made the point that both chest hair and cat hair are edible, it was fantastic.

Princiotti: Oh, gosh.

Hubbard: True. Also, gross.

Princiotti: I guess, fiber. Yeah.

Hubbard: Also true.

Princiotti: Yeah. That woman must have one heck of a vacuum cleaner.

Hubbard: You know how to ball, I know Aristotle.

Princiotti: You know how to hair ball, I know Aristotle. But even before, even when I was feeling like that, I was kind of like, “But PS, I’m super psyched for this album.” One, because it’s a Taylor Swift album. But two, because when an album doesn’t “do great,” which obviously takes huge air quotes because this is the most successful artist of all time—

Hubbard: Yeah. What does that mean?

Princiotti: —that we’re talking about. When an album, I think, goes down as one that didn’t go over quite as well as—

Hubbard: Is that how you think of Tortured Poets?

Princiotti: Yes.

Hubbard: It was nominated for Album of the Year. It’s one of the most streamed albums of all time.

Princiotti: She didn’t win any—this is, to be so clear, I’m not giving my opinions. I actually think Tortured Poets is pretty underrated.

Hubbard: You’re giving the dumb Grammy voters’ opinions?

Princiotti: I’m giving—

Hubbard: They were just tired.

Princiotti: I’m describing a landscape. I’m not making any sort of value judgment.

Hubbard: Yeah.

Princiotti: When Tortured Poets came out, the critical reception was pretty lukewarm. There was a lot of writing about “These lyrics are unhinged.” By the way, I think that’s unfair.

Hubbard: Yeah, that’s the worst take in hindsight.

Princiotti: This is—

Hubbard: I think it was her best lyrical album. I really do.

Princiotti: “She needed an editor, overwrought, tiresome, groaning under the weight of all the lore.” And then also, the streaming numbers are never going to be unimpressive—it is a different beast because of its length. You and I have both acknowledged that people dropped off a lot of these songs, in ways that don’t happen to most Taylor Swift A material. This is not me being like, “I don’t like Tortured Poets.” I do like Tortured Poets. I like Tortured Poets a lot. Also, by the way, I’m out here writing—

Hubbard: There were 31 songs. Of course, stuff dropped off. It had to. That’s why she made 12 on this album and only 12.

Princiotti: OK, but can I tell you how I was feeling? I think there was more—

Hubbard: Yes.

Princiotti: And by the way, this happened with Reputation, too, and it happened with Red. Red is actually the best example of it, and that’s probably my favorite Taylor Swift album most days. But when Red didn’t win that Grammy, that is one single, arguably entirely meaningless piece of feedback. But when there was this one piece of feedback that didn’t get that album to the place where she wanted it to go, she locked in so hard, she made 1989. And I do think that the reception of Tortured Poets, my guess is that it didn’t entirely satisfy her. Even though I think she feels very strongly about that album, and even though I think that ended up having a slightly different life because of the tour bringing it to life in a new way, I have to guess that she doesn’t feel like she knocked it out of the park.

Hubbard: So now we’re getting somewhere.

Princiotti: That is an insanely competitive person’s point of view on her own work.

Hubbard: OK, great. So get me to the next step.

Princiotti: So even when I’m getting a little bit icked out by some of the clips that they were showing before they did the pod, I was saying to you, “I’m really excited about this album.” And part of that was because I absolutely believe her and believed her before she started saying all of this stuff, that she was going to lock in for this. We’re setting such a high bar, but she said it, too. I really do believe that she’s completely given this thing everything that she has.

This excerpt has been edited and condensed.