The singer’s album reveal and interview on ‘New Heights’ nearly “broke the internet.”
Look out, Joe Rogan.
The latest episode of Travis and Jason Kelce’s podcast New Heights exploded in popularity thanks to the duo’s in-depth interview with Taylor Swift. The pop mogul announced her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, and gave what might be her longest and most candid interview ever, clocking in at more than two hours.
Wednesday’s episode (watch it below) has already racked up more than 10 million views on YouTube in less than 20 hours. The episode is already the most popular episode of the podcast ever, surpassing the previous No. 1, which had Jason’s spouse and podcaster Kylie Kelce as the guest. And this doesn’t count all the other ways a fan could consume the podcast. A representative for Spotify said the episode generated a 3,000 percent increase in new listeners for New Heights, and the number of female listeners jumped 618 percent.
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Comparing the YouTube views to podcast king Joe Rogan, the Taylor Swift episode would currently rank around the 50th most popular Rogan episode ever. Rogan’s biggest episode on YouTube was a discussion about UFOs with Bob Lazar and Jeremy Corbell (64 million views), followed by Rogan’s interview with Donald Trump last fall (59 million). New Heights often ranks as a Top 10 podcast, while Rogan’s JRE is often No. 1, and it will be interesting to see if Heights moves into the top spot for a week, especially since the Swift episode is still racking up views.
The numbers also come despite the live stream seemingly crashing near the end of the podcast around the time when Swift pulled out her new album cover to show her fans. “We hit a glitch but will be back shortly” the New Heights X account posted before later tweeting, “Shoutout all the 92%ers and Swifties for actually helping us break the internet.” Oddly enough, WNBA star and Swift fan Caitlin Clark predicted, “Are we sure YouTube isn’t going to crash tonight?” Yet a spokesperson for YouTube tells THR that the problem actually wasn’t on their end.
Among the revelations on the podcast: Swift collaborated with Sabrina Carpenter for a track. Also, after years of collaborating with Jack Antonoff, Swift has reunited with hitmakers Max Martin and Shellback, who previously worked with Swift on hits like “Blank Space” and “Shake It Off” — suggesting the album will feel more pop-driven rather than the more downbeat and minimalist style of her recent work.
“It just comes from the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in in my life,” Swift said on the podcast.
Swift also announced on the podcast that the new 12-track album will be released Oct. 3.
