The Taylor Seminars8 Nov 2024

"The Prophecy" Breakdown with Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone Magazine

We have a special guest for this special song! Rob Sheffield is an author and music critic at Rolling Stone magazine. He's written many of your favorite Taylor Swift album reviews (⁠Folklore⁠, ⁠Red (Taylor's Version),⁠ ⁠The Tortured Poets Department⁠, but you might know him best from ⁠his ranking of TS songs⁠.

Rob also has a book coming out called ⁠Heartbreak is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music⁠, which is coming out in November 2024 (and you can pre-order it now!).

We invited him onto "The Taylor Seminars" to talk about his new book as well as go in-depth into "The Prophecy," which is a track on The Tortured Poets Department: Anthology. This is one of Rob's favorite tracks (ours too!) and so we get deep into the song as we analyze the lyrics and performance.

We also talk about:

How Taylor changed pop
How Taylor studies the music greats of her past
The connection between Taylor and hip hop
LOTS MORE

And be sure stay until the end when Rob shares what he considers to be "the most Taylor album."

Join in on our conversation on Twitter/X with the new hashtag #AnthologySeminars!
Enjoy the podcast? ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Send us a tip!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Connect with Rob Sheffield!

Art by Alef Vernon:

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"It's Time to Go" and Leave the evermore era

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4 Juni 20min

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29 Maj 35min

Keep it 100 with Brigid Kaelin: The Sounds of "evermore"

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15 Maj 2h 23min

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8 Maj 29min

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29 Apr 49min

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17 Apr 28min

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10 Apr 26min

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"Long Story Short" from Taylor Swift's evermore album brings us back to Taylor's personal perspective. With a drive beat and a fun vocal performance, this song showcases her sharp pen and clear-eyed p...

27 Mars 31min