How To Plan A Sphere Residency w/ Carolyn Blackwood + Josephine Vacarello

15:40Carolyn Blackwood:No, what they're going to want to do is see a piece and say, oh, I love that idea. Now I'm going to do my version of that. You know, and that's actually good competition. Yeah. You know?

15:50Josephine Vacarello:Yeah. We love that. We love that.

15:52Carolyn Blackwood:Yeah, absolutely. Everybody ups their game.

15:53Josephine Vacarello:Yeah. I mean, this is probably a very inside baseball kind of question, but what's the cloud storage situation at this venue? Like, I imagine that's quite...

16:05Carolyn Blackwood:It's a thing. It's a thing. It's definitely a thing. Yeah. um we talk about it a lot we talk about how we uh every every day we talk about this um because you know there are certain there are costs associated with archiving any material and and even rendering in the cloud can be very expensive depending on how you do it and and how you choose to um you know prioritize certain things uh so it's a it's it's another version of Tetris. It's just in the cloud.

16:37Josephine Vacarello:Wow. Okay. So do you have to throw out things at some point? We do.

16:40Carolyn Blackwood:Sometimes we'll put it this way. What we will do is it's just like anything else, like on postcards, for instance, when I came into the studio, again, after opening, one of the first things that we started looking at was some of our storage issues. And we found that just like on your hard drive, there was like 9 ,000 versions of it saved. And so you have to be like, okay, wait, do I really need the first cut? No, maybe I can, I'll just save like come a couple of these iterations and then you purge the rest of it. So you do have to kind of do housekeeping. It's just good hygiene, right. To go through and do that kind of stuff.

17:16Carolyn Blackwood:So sometimes stuff does get purged, but for the most part, we do have a, of a cloud storage capabilities where we can really depree stuff at a much less expensive price. But if all of a sudden Jojo calls me and says, hey, can you go pull that thing? I'm like, you know, at least you told me that. Oh, I thought it was storage because now it's going to cost me more money to get it back. But yeah.

17:39Josephine Vacarello:Wow. I think I would have a heart attack if I was tasked with deleting only a few versions of something.

17:46Carolyn Blackwood:We're judicious about it, but we try to be smart.

17:49Josephine Vacarello:Yeah. Don't you guys have a rehearsal space in Los Angeles? It's like a mini sphere. That's my home. Okay, tell me about

17:57Carolyn Blackwood:that tell me about that so um we call it big dome okay um which i actually lovingly call thunderdome uh and and it's right next to our offices so our studio is there in los angeles near the burbank airport and what people see when they go to the burbank airport right next door is this large dome structure okay and that is that's our testing facility so essentially that is it represents a screen the media plane inside there is about a quarter scale of what it is here in las vegas and it is an absolute godsend for us in terms of reviewing material testing material qc material because if we had to do that here in venue we'd never be able to do it because the venue is the venue is being used 24 7.

18:44Carolyn Blackwood:either we're showing you know an experience or we have an event or Or we're doing maintenance, you know, on the screens or we're doing it's 24 seven here. Where would we actually test this material? So we have this facility and that is where I spend a lot of my time. Why is it in L.A.

18:59Josephine Vacarello:and not just somewhere else in Vegas?

19:01Carolyn Blackwood:Well, the studio is in L.A. And I think one of the reasons for that, too, is a lot of the people that, you know, we do in business with and we're in business with are there in Los Angeles. It's still the entertainment sort of capital. And so it makes a lot of sense for our studio to be based there. Our teams are based there. our artisans, our craftsmen, our technical people. We pilfered the best people from around the industry, the traditional sort of film or visual medium industry. And they're right there. So studio there, testing facility there. Works out great. Not that far from Vegas. Quick 40-minute flight.

19:37Carolyn Blackwood:It is a creation happens, basically.

19:39Josephine Vacarello:Yeah, got it. Okay. So on the inside, does it look exactly like Sphere?

19:44Carolyn Blackwood:No. No.

19:45Josephine Vacarello:Okay. it's very much like a huge warehouse yeah okay um but it's got like you know risers that you know

19:52Carolyn Blackwood:sort of uh like bleachers sort of set up it feels industrial it's sort of intended to be a little bit like we're here you know in the engine room testing out this material um and and the screen itself like i said it's not a you know it's it's a quarter scale but okay you still get you get what you need in terms of visually being able to see things that you could never see on a laptop.

20:16Josephine Vacarello:Yeah. And is that also where the artists are going to rehearse too? Or is that more of like a technical rehearsal for you and your crew?

20:22Carolyn Blackwood:It's really a visual space for content creation. We have used this space in the past to do like mini shoots and green screen shoots and things like that for some of the artists. So sometimes, and the artists do come in there and review their material there. You know, like we'll, we do a lot of our reviews there with the artists directly. But they're not physically rehearsing, you know, there. There's other spaces that they have. We'll go to a sound studio for the sound piece.

20:49Josephine Vacarello:One of the things that I thought was really interesting when thinking about some of the artists that have played Sphere before, Dead and Company is the one that immediately comes to mind. I am very curious to understand how the visuals work for an artist like that, given they're known for noodling around, ad-libbing. How do you sync up a fine-tuned visual like this to an artist like Dead & Company?

21:14Carolyn Blackwood:Well, they're probably one of the most interesting groups because they're highly, highly used of CG, right? And the digital medium and space. They don't do a lot with live capture. And again, they play around with a lot of different tools that allow them to ideate and change things, you know, a little bit more frequently, let's say, than some other shows that tend to sort of be more baked. And they've changed their playlist every night. So, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a, they're a unique example, but they, they, you know, they've, they've created this digital library of things that they use and tools that they use that they sort of play around with, but it's a jam band, you know?

21:55Carolyn Blackwood:So a lot of that stuff is, you know, not as much storytelling as you might see with, you know, like an act like the Eagles, you know.

22:03Josephine Vacarello:That's very interesting. I imagine Fish was probably the same way.

22:07Carolyn Blackwood:Same thing, real time.

22:08Josephine Vacarello:Yeah. And I know that they have like this lighting guy that all the fans love that they wanted to bring in. How did you guys work with him? Look, he is an integral part of Team Fish. So, you know, his voice and how things looked were, you know, I do think that it was, it's different for them, right? So Fish, while they do a lot of like light looks and laser looks. They are not a visual band per se. So this was completely and totally different for them. And Chris played a part in that as well. Yeah, a creative direction standpoint. This episode is brought to you by Palmolive. Family time isn't just the big moments.

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23:12Carolyn Blackwood:This summer, say I do. I am marrying a stranger. Like never before. Am I crazy? It's a whole new Married at First Sight on Peacock. Thank God I woke up in love. With new experts. My name is Dr. Lisa.

23:24Josephine Vacarello:My name is Paul Brunson. More couples. This could be the start of a very successful marriage. And Lord surprises. Or maybe not. Everything is just not enough. You're a little bit crazy. I don't know what's going to happen. I want my fairytale ending. Married at First Sight, now streaming. New episodes Thursdays, only on Peacock. Yeah, it feels like that was probably a really key piece to getting Phish probably to feel comfortable with taking the sleep, knowing they still have the core part. Yeah, absolutely. All artists want that. All artists want that. And we want everyone to be comfortable, but they're also working in a new medium and it's stepping outside of their comfort zone a little bit.

24:00Josephine Vacarello:I'm wondering, so you also book Madison Square Garden among other venues, many other venues, as we were just talking about. I don't know when you're sleeping, but I'm wondering Madison Square Garden and a lot of other arenas are usually very customizable in terms of how many seats there are. so you can take away hundreds or thousands of seats or add them back in based on what artist wants to play there at sphere can you do the same thing you can on the floor the floor is malleable so depending on the stage size the stage placement that we have retractables on the floor that can be pushed back so you can actually go from a 5 000 cap floor if it's completely open depending on stage size to an 1100 ga floor depending on what it is that they want well look at back street right

24:48Carolyn Blackwood:I mean, Backstreet used a totally different kind of stage, you know, because as a pop act, they used a totally different kind of stage.

24:54Josephine Vacarello:And it was larger than any other stage that we've actually had in here. Oh, interesting. Okay. Talk to me about that, about the stage and how customizable that part is. Everyone, they dream it up and they bring it in. It's really what it is that they want to do.

25:07Carolyn Blackwood:I think that that one was the interesting one where I remember when we had the first conversations and they said, we're going to elevate the stage. They want to apply. They want to apply the stage. They want to apply.

25:15Josephine Vacarello:So bad.

25:15Carolyn Blackwood:And we were like, okay.

25:17Josephine Vacarello:I was like, all right, well, we haven't done that yet. So we have to figure that out.

25:21Carolyn Blackwood:And that's one of the things that's interesting about Sphere to the point that Jojo made earlier, which is we're still learning, right? This is still a new venue where, you know, we're all still learning together. And the idea of someone saying, but you know what? I want to do this.

25:33Josephine Vacarello:And we all kind of go, okay, let's figure out how we do it. Wow. That's so interesting because when I was at Backstreet Boys, I was scared for them while they were going up. It's actually not scary. I did it I did it it's cool I imagine they strap you in yeah you're tethered tethered in you're tethered in it's completely safe but yeah is it lifted from the top or from the bottom so there are rigging about 200 rigging points in the ceiling but for that we used four and chains and motors come down attaches to the stage and then it lifts wow okay what are some of the other stagings that you found to be particularly interesting at sphere so far when anima came in and you know it's EDM so it's completely different you don't need this massive stage so he had you know his setup and then the three towers behind him that was really interesting.

26:24Josephine Vacarello:It's also about being movable because we do do sphere experience during the day and then change over to a concert at night everything has to be mobile you need to be able to basically once the show is over take the stage push it into its position and then we change the house over and do something else. So it's a different way of thinking things as opposed to something just sitting there. Okay. So once the ink is dry and artists is booked and they're definitely going to be doing a residency, what is the first step right after that? The first step after that is the storyboard to figure out what it is that they want to show the world.

26:59Josephine Vacarello:And then it's introductions to the studios and to the audio team to figure out how to make that dream happen for them.

27:05Carolyn Blackwood:Yeah, we will sit down with that artist and we'll start to ideate. You know, take the initial visuals, work together, you know, get to the bottom of like, okay, what are we trying to do here? What's the set list? The set list is always a big part of how they know what they're trying to story they're trying to tell. And a lot of times it will change during the creative process. Certain songs might get dropped, other songs might get added. Yes, always changes. You know, and then you go, you know, you go through your journey of six, eight, 10, 12 months or whatever it might be and locking that stuff down so that you get to that point where, you know, opening night, they all feel good.

27:41Carolyn Blackwood:Everybody is ready. They feel good about the show and then they will change it.

27:45Josephine Vacarello:So what typically changes after opening night? Because that seems pretty tricky if you're going at the pace of about a show a night, right? Or how often do artists play sphere when they're in the middle of their residency? Is it every night? It depends. It depends on the artist. It depends on the cadence. Some of them, you know, will do three days in a row, like a weekend, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Some will do a Wednesday, Friday, Saturday. It really depends on the artist's preference. Got it. And so what are typically the things that you see people change after that opening night and they start their wheels start turning about what they could do differently?

28:17Josephine Vacarello:I've seen IMAG change.

28:18Carolyn Blackwood:Yeah. IMAG changes a lot. Yeah. You know, I think, well, you know, when they have their sort of the picture in picture on the screen, along with whether the content is, let's say that they're, you know, because they're small on that stage. Right. They're tiny little people on the stage. Yeah. Or artists, depending. and when you've got you know the crowds way up in you know the sort of 400s or in the suites and one of the things that's great about the use of iMag on the on the media plane meaning it's a camera on the artist where you can see the artist you know inside so sometimes you you there's there's iMag that's being used so the audience can feel sort of more of a connection to the artist and then other times um they're not using any iMag and then they realize during the course of like, oh, you know what?

29:02Carolyn Blackwood:I want to put iMag in this queue now, you know? So sometimes I'll see that change. And I think, I don't know, Joe, your opinion, but for me, one of the things I've seen is you can go through the whole show, they can be prepared for this and they get an audience in that building. And then they say, oh, I want to connect differently. Or there's something that I didn't anticipate being here, seeing that. And that gets them inspired a lot of times. So you'll see some things that might be subtle, might be bigger, but it's being in the building on that opening night with their fans and then sort of getting inspired.

29:41Josephine Vacarello:I think that's right. It's really more about additions. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. So what is backing up from opening night to dress rehearsal? What does that typically look like? And I mean, is that just kind of a time to also test out the tech at the same time? Or are there technical rehearsals, then dress rehearsals? Like, give me the lowdown on leading up to opening night. From the content perspective, most of the work is done in Big Dome prior to. So that happens there. Then from an audio perspective, we send our audio team with our audio rig to mimic sphere immersive sound that we have in the building so that the artist is ready for what that is.

30:19Josephine Vacarello:Because it is different than playing in another venue because of the way the speakers are behind the media plane. So you have to use interreers. It's a different experience. We want everyone to be comfortable when they come into the building. And then because we are doing events every single day, there are no dark days, right? So there are no real rehearsal full days. What we do is we take hours and that could be overnight hours. It could be early morning or late night hours for the artists to come in and do their rehearsals until the day of the show. Wow. Yeah. I didn't even think about the fact that since it never goes dark, you're going to have to just squeeze this.

30:53Josephine Vacarello:iconic artist. We literally book the building 24 hours a day. Wow. Everything is succinctly timed. Wow. Carolyn, I'm wondering, what are some of the visual things that you're able to do that are actually more technically challenging that people might imagine?

31:10Carolyn Blackwood:Well, look, it is a 16K resolution screen. And in order to put visuals on that screen, whether it's live capture, meaning you're using the Big Sky camera system, which is the camera system we developed in order to be able to shoot, you know, imagery, live capture imagery in that resolution. It's a, it's a, you know, that's a heft. It's like, you know, there's only so many of these cameras that we have. There's only so many people who are trained on these cameras. So that's more difficult. And then, you know, even in the, in the digital environments that we, that we work with and create, you're talking about a very, very, very high resolution render, meaning back to our conversations on technology, it's a lot of time and a lot of heft in getting that kind of material rendered out properly for that screen.

32:03Carolyn Blackwood:That's always harder. People underestimate that. There's a lot of people that will come to us in partnership with some artists and say, oh yeah, we're going to help create this content. And when we talk to these people and we're like, okay, so have you rendered at 12K before? Have you rendered it at 16K before? And what's your cloud situation? What's your render farm? What's your capabilities? And everyone underestimates it. They always say, oh yeah, how hard can it be? Until they try it. Until they try it. And of course, we're mapping everything spherically. So this is not a rectilinear image.

32:39Carolyn Blackwood:So you can't just like take it and then just blow it up. It's not going to look right. It's going to be distorted. It's not going to have the proper fidelity. So you have to actually be prepared to learn something new to come on board and create that content with us because it's not going to be like anything they've ever done before.

32:56Josephine Vacarello:Yeah. And I imagine that's also the same challenge that you're facing with Wizard of Oz. It's sure. It's a rectilinear image. We learned something today. Yes. It's a rectilinear image. Now it's in a sphere. Was that the biggest challenge?

33:12Carolyn Blackwood:Yeah. I mean, we obviously for that, we also, we made a sort of a groundbreaking partnership with Google and Magnopus to do, to use generative AI and different types of AI tools with the artists in order to fill that field of view, right? Because you're starting like this and it's an existing film. So how are you going to do it? Well, that was part of the journey for us on that was using both AI and VFX to sort of fill out that field of view, which was a challenge.

33:45Josephine Vacarello:But it makes you feel like you're in it.

33:46Carolyn Blackwood:Oh man, do you ever? Yeah, it's going to be spectacular, but it's been a, it's been a large library of love, but it is, it's the same thing. Even when you're creating something brand new and it's not taking an existing, you know, film from 1939, it's a very, very big technological challenge to do it correctly, to do it in a way where every one of those seats, you know, it's mapped in a way where when you're there, there's not a bad seat in the house. That's always the goal. So you have to keep that in mind when you're creating this material, because you're, you know, you're, you're not doing it for just the center of this, you know, the center of the audience there.

34:22Carolyn Blackwood:You've got an entire, you know, bowl that you're filling and you want to make sure everybody thinks that that experience was the best thing that they've ever had.

34:30Josephine Vacarello:Yeah. And I know you've, you both touched on this throughout the conversation about sound and how that is also a unique challenge because of the spherical shape. So can you walk me through how you tackle that challenge? Sure. I mean, sphere immersive sound is laser pointed sound. So no matter where you are in the venue, you're getting that same quality of sound like nowhere else. But it is different. The number of speakers in the venue or what's the large number 160 ,000 okay I was close um so it is also the speakers themselves are behind the media plan so now they are behind the artist which is different for an artist to play in the venue so that's why they have to do the in-ears yeah absolutely yeah okay and so but although there's not a bad seat in the house if you're going to sphere to watch a show where ideally would you want to be if you watch a show in sphere if you have the experience on the floor versus the 200 series 300 series for interest you will have you have seen a different show each and every time it is a different experience depending on where you

35:38Carolyn Blackwood:are in the house that's why when people come back yeah a lot of times they'll try to sit somewhere they'll try to sit somewhere else like dead is always a great example where you have the people on the floor and then they wanted to be in the 200s yeah they come back and they want to be in the 300s because it is a different show.

35:51Josephine Vacarello:I don't know that it's better or worse. It's just different. It's just different. Yeah. Interesting. And do you have a lot of people that come back to the sphere to see the same show over and over again? It sounds like Den Company is like a classic. Yeah. Kind of a given. Same as Fish. This is the same with everybody, actually. I think you're, I mean, we haven't done all the data from Backstreet Boys, but there were definitely repeats for that as well. Wow.

36:15Carolyn Blackwood:Yeah. Anecdotally, just by the people we knew. Yes. Yeah.

36:20Josephine Vacarello:Yeah. I mean, it definitely it doesn't hurt that. First of all, Vegas is such a destination. People are already going there on vacation or I mean, I'm sure there's locals who also want to come as well. But it's also very close to Los Angeles where all of the music stuff is happening. but I know you guys are planning a sphere in Abu Dhabi which is very interesting to me obviously Abu Dhabi is very up and coming in the entertainment space they're putting a lot of investment in there what will be different about the Abu Dhabi sphere it's going to be the same spheres we have here exactly like all the same like dimensions and stuff yeah it'd be the same same as we have here will you also be booking that we'll see because that is you know i know we'll figure it out we'll see it'd be great we'll see yeah yeah i imagine although there's so much investment going into abu dhabi it still will have the added challenge of getting artists who can perform to a 20 000 it's 20 000 cap yeah it depends on the setup but between 17 to 20 that far away but yeah are there plans to expand beyond abby dhabi absolutely we plan on building more spheres we plan on building smaller size spheres for a different market so if that comes to pass in the coming years can some artists transfer the exact same show that they've already played in vegas wow i feel like that is very cost effective yes Yes, that's the idea.

37:53Josephine Vacarello:That's the idea. Yeah, because I mean, yeah, the big challenge with Sphere, I imagine, is just the cost and the time and the effort. So, yeah, what are some ways that you guys, beyond building Sphere's of all different shapes and sizes that are transferable, what are some other ways that Sphere manages its costs? I do think that, again, it's a partnership. It's a partnership with each of these acts or the promoters that come into the building. But for us, every time we do something, we get better at it. We get smarter at it. And there's cost management that comes with that. 100%.

38:26Carolyn Blackwood:I mean, it's like anything else. We are a startup. And startups, as they operationalize, get smarter and more efficient. We're doing the same thing.

38:36Josephine Vacarello:Exactly. I am curious to learn from you guys what you think the mix will end up being as Sphere matures. what's the mix going to be between residencies original content uh sports all of those different categories we're going to do as much as we can yes i kind of like i like this the way we're

38:59Carolyn Blackwood:approaching it now to be honest which i feel like you know we lead with what we think is going to work right and so um when it comes to the live you know the live acts and when it comes to the original experiences or licensed experiences like was you know in terms of existing pre-existing content um or the marquee events like the nhl draft or ripsy it's all about what we think works if we think it's going to work there we're going to try to make it happen so the balance of it is you know it's part of the fun but we also you know we're not struggling to fill the to you know to fill it. Like it's, it's more of the Tetris of how do we fit all of the great things that we have, you know, into a 365 day calendar.

39:48Carolyn Blackwood:Yeah. Yeah.

39:49Josephine Vacarello:And one of the things that I report on a lot at Billboard is AI and how it will impact the music industry. And I am always fascinated as to how AI could aid or change the live music experience. I'm wondering, are there some things on the horizon that you're excited to play around with or find to be interesting?

40:08Carolyn Blackwood:100%. Okay. We just had a meeting about it last week. Yeah. So the whole idea behind, you know, audio reactive content for the screen, right? Using Gen.ai to help us develop tools that where sound creates visuals.

40:29Josephine Vacarello:Interesting.

40:30Carolyn Blackwood:So a lot of that work is being done in different areas. And we toy with some of it a little bit with some of the tools, but the idea of being able to create an entire show and program that way is something we're working on. So we think about that all the time. Yeah.

40:48Josephine Vacarello:I mean, tracing it back, do you think it would have even been possible to do what you're doing right now with these sphere residencies like 10, 15 years ago? Or is this exactly the right place, the right time where the technology caught up with the idea?

41:02Carolyn Blackwood:The landscape has changed a lot from my perspective in terms of how people, you know, consume content at all and think about their entertainment dollars. You know, I think that in an odd way, the pandemic gave a boost in the post-pandemic world to live entertainment and communal experiences, you know? And so I, I think it's a hard question to answer because the world changed so much since 2020 that, um, I don't know if it's, if it's part of what I, you know, what I see as this, you know, voracious appetite for what it is we're doing at Sphere is a reflection of, you know, that post-pandemic idea of, oh my God, I want to, I want to experience this with people.

41:55Carolyn Blackwood:I want to be in, you know, in an environment where things feel tactile and real, um, or, you know, or if that would have happened anyway, I don't know. But I, I thinking back on the past 10 years in terms of just the content creation side of things, like there's always advancements in technology and tools and such and CG and, and whatnot. But I think that this experience, this immersive new medium, I think is a function of, you know, a lot of things. And one of which I think is people are just really missed that, you know, that idea of that live shared communal experience. And I think that that was that that sort of put a burst of energy behind this.

42:36Josephine Vacarello:Yeah, yeah, I think that makes sense. And moving forward, do you imagine that there could come a day where a virtual artist could play Sphere? Could be. That would be an interesting thing to book. I don't even know how that would work. I don't know. We'll figure it out, though. Yeah. I feel like there's got to be some sort of, you know, 2030 version of like the Tupac hologram. Yeah, exactly. There's got to be something like that. But yeah, it could be a really interesting thing for estates. Did you see the ABBA Voyage? Oh, yeah. Totally. That was crazy. that was one of those things where I went in and I have to admit I I was kind of like okay you thought it was gonna be cheesy yeah yeah I was like I don't know about this but I took a chance and I actually loved it yeah I saw a lot of potential in it yeah they did a really good job of balancing also that there were live musicians that were there to accompany these visuals because I think that we we all still want to go to a show and feel like the people are there correct even if

43:39Carolyn Blackwood:there are bells and whistles as well I absolutely 100 there has to be a live component or element to it. Absolutely. Yeah.

43:44Josephine Vacarello:Yeah.

43:44Carolyn Blackwood:It grounds it all. You know, there's something that grounds it.

43:47Josephine Vacarello:Yeah, I agree. And I mean, right now, it seems like with Sphere, a lot of the artists that have done super well so far have been legacy acts. Has that been an intentional choice when you're booking or did it happen that way coincidentally? It happened that way. But, you know, it's also those acts have immense following and getting people out here. But I mean, we are going to continually try and change the genre of artists that are in the building. We want new, I mean, the same way you said with Backstreet Boys, where you're all these millennial women were, you know, in the house. We want to make sure that, you know, it's for everybody.

44:25Josephine Vacarello:Okay. Before we head out, I always ask my guest to make me a playlist. And as part of making this playlist, there are three songs that you have to pick for me. So first song is a song you can no longer gatekeep. Second is a favorite throwback. And third is a guilty pleasure. So Jojo, I'm going to throw it to you. What is so hard? But the song you can no longer gatekeep. I don't know. The pressure. Let's go to the next one. Okay. A favorite throwback. Superstition, Stevie Wonder. Oh, that's a good one. That's a perfect one. It just makes me happy. It is a good one. What about

45:03Carolyn Blackwood:you what's what's your favorite throwback probably like billy joel always a woman oh okay okay i love that song it's like the song that you know like you don't like if it comes up in your you know in one of your places you don't you don't press fast forward you're not like i'm gonna i'm advanced past that one i'm always like i have to listen to yeah and then a guilty pleasure teddy swims lose control oh yeah yeah that's a good one too i just love it i mean i'd have like i'm a little bit of a swifty okay so it's pretty much all of taylor's albums um that's not guilty i think they're all guilty they're all guilty pleasure they're all a guilty pleasure yeah um but i like it just depends like my mood i would definitely have a lot to do with it yeah you know so but yeah um geez yeah i just you know i could pick a taylor song circling back i'm not gonna let you off the hook for this one what is a song you can no longer i mean i don't like i i don't feel like I, um, every time, like, if I say to anybody, have you heard of this artist?

46:06Carolyn Blackwood:Everyone's always heard of the artist. So it's like, I always feel like I'm behind everybody else on the time, right? I'm always slightly behind the times. Like there's a, there's a country artist, cause I'm pretty eclectic with my music stuff. Right. But there's a country artist that, um, Mark McNown, same questions. I think it is. And every time I've heard the song, but it's like really good. And I was like, who is this guy? And he's been around. I mean, everybody's, nobody's an overnight sensation in music, right? Everybody feels like, oh my God, suddenly they have a hit song and everyone's like, oh yeah, they're, they're just hit the scene.

46:38Carolyn Blackwood:And meanwhile, that artist has been toiling for a decade. Yes. So I'm sure people know that artist, but yeah. I didn't. So I'm going to have to look at it. Same questions. Yeah. It's the song's called Same Questions.

46:49Josephine Vacarello:Well, on that note, we are good to go. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you. All right. That's today's show. A Special thank you to Josephine Vaccarello and Carolyn Blackwood and to The Sphere for hosting us today. And now it is time for the news. So I'm going to throw it back to Los Angeles where we will run down the top music business stories this week. I am back in our LA studio to tell you about what's going on on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week of September 20th. Justin Bieber's Daisies is back in the top ranks this week at number 10. Love Me Not by R &B singer Raven Lanay falls to number 9.

47:26Josephine Vacarello:The K-pop Demon Hunters craze continues this week as How It's Done by Huntrix rises to the number eight slot. Morgan Wallen and Tate McRae's country pop crossover What I Want sticks at number seven. Tears by Sabrina Carpenter falls to number six. Saja Boy's Soda Pop lands at number five this week. and another Sajiboy's song, Your Idol, is in the fourth position. Manchild by Sabrina Carpenter climbs to number three. Ordinary by Alex Warren continues at number two again this week. And finally, the number one song of the week is Golden by Huntrix. It's the fifth week that the K-pop Demon Hunters track is in the top slot.

48:21Josephine Vacarello:That's all we got for you today. Thank you so much for tuning in to On the Record, a production of Billboard and Sickbird Productions. I'm your host, Kristen Robinson. And if you enjoyed today's show, please give us a rating, give us a follow, a like, a subscribe, all of those things. As a new show, it's very helpful to get our episodes out there. And with that, I will see y 'all next week.

48:56Josephine Vacarello:Good energy in. Ah, good energy out.

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