I never realized before that this channel's acronym is, indeed, T.I.T.S.

Olivia is able to emote which is refreshing. But Miley can enunciate which is valuable.

personally, i prefer vampire because it hasnt been the number 1 song in my area's main radio for 18 months... I work retail... HELP...

Todd conveniently taking a vacation so he doesn’t have to talk about "Try That in a Small Town"

My only gripe here is with Crash saying “as an English major I was taught Always Avoid Alliteration,” because, as someone getting their PhD in English, I’ve really only heard that rule apply to writing prose (and that was while writing essays in high school), and songs are closer to poetry.

Flowers just sounds like the most watered-down disco song ever

Like, for Olivia it makes perfect sense for why she doesnt want to say who it is about. It is literally in the cringey lyrics "famefucker", if you say who it is about you are just giving him exactly what he wants.

Vampire is a better and somewhat more original song. I can't get over the interpolation of Bruno Mars aspect of Flowers. It is not an awful song by any means. I just feel like I have trouble recognizing it as its own work.

I would have preferred “soul sucker, fame fucker” actually for the double alliteration. Guess this is why I’m not an English major!

I don't even like vampire but the "fame fucker" line made sense to me. Like a star fucker is someone who wants to be adjacent to celebrities, a fame fucker is someone who's just horny for clout; two different things imo.

I find Olivia’s earnestness, and raw emotion, to be her one of her strong points. All in all, I think what makes her hit the most for me is that I was a teenage girl in the not too distant past. I’m excited to see how she evolves, because the lyrics are super clunky, and definitely a bit cringy (but again that harkens back to my own teenage girlhood).

Well, if you did an 80s versus then I'd like to see "like a virgin" vs "billie jean."

I 100% agree with the talk of Flowers being a total letdown after Plastic Hearts. I absolutely loved the 80s rock sound with Miley’s voice, and I don’t even like 80s rock very much. Flowers is just…boring. I didn’t know how I felt about Vampire when I first heard it, but it’s grown on me significantly. Her lyrics are very young-sounding, and I’m 40, so not a whole lot to relate to there for me. BUT…I am and have always been a melody girl. The lyrics will always come second in a song for me. If we are purely comparing the melodies of both songs, Vampire wins all day every day. The lyrics in Flowers are super basic imho, so it’s not winning any points there for me either. 🤷🏼‍♀️

The "garlic butter" clean lyric should be for the Weird Al parody of "Vampire".

Idk how to describe it Olivia's lyrics have a sense of awkwardness that makes them feel more real. A kind of authentic inarticulatness that makes me connect with it more

Nothing has signaled just how weird and loopy this year has been in popular music than the meteoric rise of Ice Spice - a charismatic yet fairly one-note rapper whose career primarily blew up through ironic stanning and terminally online kids. This would be like if, in 2011, Rebecca Black became an actual charting popstar.

Some of the critiques here of Vampire, particularly the “fame fucker” line, are a little weird for me. Asking as a published poet-where do they teach that you’re supposed to never use use alliteration? It’s like any other literary device. It’s a tool in your box that you strategically deploy to create impact. “Fame fucker” comes right at the crescendo of the chorus, and it’s a great place to put an attention grabbing phrase. The alliterative f’s make it sound like she’s spitting with anger. It’s also a totally valid device to switch words in a common phrase to give it a new texture, so that the ear doesn’t gloss it over. It’s not precisely synonymous with “star fucker.” In that phrase, the object being fucked is a star; a person. The object in Olivia’s phrasing is the fame-not her, even as a star, but only her fame, stripped of her personhood. “Fame fucker,” coming after Olivia desperately searches through various body horror metaphors, trying to find a way to describe her experience, lands like a disgusted exhausted surrender, where she finally says stripped of figurative language exactly what he is and what he did. It also keeps a little of the body horror associations, because of how the fame is this disembodied quality that this dude is fucking. It’s creepy and unsettling. Anyway I thought this was a striking song, and it has much more in common with “Dear John” if we’re gonna compare it to t swift breakup song. Like it’s about power dynamics and being taken advantage of, having your head fucked with, and ending the relationship disillusioned and feeling much older. Just because it’s song about a breakup doesn’t mean it’s more of the same, or that it has nothing to say outside of “boy left me, I’m sad:(“ The lines about how he manipulated her, how she regrets calling his old girlfriends crazy, the thrill of doing something that feels fucked up… those are all solidly written and give it more of a thematic richness It is clunky, but I think the occasional awkwardness and the rawness of it gives it a feeling of authenticity that works rant concluded lol

I really dont think "the term she was looking for is star-fucker". The two are not analogous. Also, alliteration is fine in a lyrical/poetic setting.

It's so true about different audiences for different songs - in my case, I'm 31, so yes, I'm a little outside Olivia's target audience - but I like that she *is* speaking to her girls that are her age - "Hey, some guys are total fame fuckers, they'll steal your light, and listen to your friends if they warn you about someone" - these are all things I wish I'd taken to heart when I was 20!

For the record, alliterations in songs work great, so I think changing "fame fucker" to "star fucker" would ruin that line. I mean, try singing "fame fucker" and then try singing "star fucker", I just think it flows better and it's more poetic. I don't wanna be mean, but sometimes you just gotta say "English majors be damned, this works great!" and that's what I'm saying right now. Love y'all lol

if the love interest in vampire is a “fame fucker” why would olivia broadcast who it’s about? i’m not too fond of the song but i do think that criticism is a bit funny. also i think the super fans have already figured out and blasted the dude

Country music takeover is dangerous for the music industry

The chill vibes from Flowers sounded better to me than Vampire's teenie rage.

You should do Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinéad O'Connor vs Linger by The Cranberries

Holy shit, that thumbnail looked straight outta 2009.

It's interesting bc for me the comparison I can't get over for Vampire is Billie Elish's 'Happier Than Ever' which is such a good song that it really drags Vampire down to me

I couldn’t even get through Flowers while I really loved the buildup and the rawness of Vampire so to me there’s no competition.

Vampire is a far better song imo, at least it goes somewhere. Flowers just drones on for 3 minutes, it's one of the dreariest songs I've heard recently. It's not like a bad song per se, but there's just nothing to it. It's just generic lyrics over a generic instrumental, and I can't believe it's the lead single for an album called "Endless Summer Vacation" cause it sounds more like the music that destroys your soul as it plays from the speakers at a super market as your standing in a particularly long line.

"Starfucker" is about the specific person, adoring someone who is famous and wanting to fuck them. Vs her phrase "famefucker" which isnt about the person at all; they are a tool to climb the social ladder, a resource to be drained and discarded. It works far better with the vampire metaphor and even though "starfucker" sounds less awkward, "famefucker" seems to have a much more specific meaning within the context of the song

Enjoy your vacation Todd, you've earned it & then some!

Wow I feel like such an outlier in these comments. After listening to both of them back to back, I 100% prefer Flowers. I can see why the vulnerability of Vampire is appealing, but Miley is just hands down a better vocalist, the song is catchier, and I like the vibe. It feels like she's a grown-ass woman who is just setting the record straight that it wasn't the flowers, the dancing, the holding hands, or whatever. It's more relaxed and less focused on the angst of a breakup. Olivia sounds like a 20 year old girl who's had her first run in with a real sleazeball. It's a true to life experience, but not anymore original. Listening to it feels like reading college student poetry, which isn't inherently bad, but it's not especially interesting when you're past that point in your life.

I've never heard either song but I'm invested in this drama.

Those who are big Crash fans know how big it is for him to collaborate with Todd in any capacity. Congratulations King 🎉🎉🎉🎉

Without even watching the video, I can immediately say with 1000% certainty that Vampire is a better song than Flowers in every single humanly possible way.

I had never heard of the term star fucker before this song used fame fucker, maybe that's just me maybe that's indicative of a lot of younger people not knowing that term. I wouldn't know. But I do like fame fucker better anyway after hearing so much discussion about it. There is a connotation that differentiates them to me. star fucker meaning you are fucking the actual person, verses fame fucker, you are "fucking" the concept of fame. Like it's even more disconnected from giving a shit about the real person you're hurting than the original term. Which also fits with the song Vampire thematically. A star fucker might find that specific star genuinely attractive or hold some admiration toward them, but the fame fucker only wants the fame and will use anyone they can to that end. Not unlike a Vampire sucking someone's blood, without regard for who they get it from. I also don't totally agree with the impression that it's a retread of topics. I guess I can see how people who don't know who it's about or don't pay attention to her music might think so. But I feel like the difference between a first love teen heartbreak vs your first forays into the adult world of dating and getting preyed on by an older guy can not be overstated. It comes across as a genuine maturation of what she did with Sour, musically and lyrically. Maybe similar on first glance, but darker and coming from an older perspective when you look beyond that. Though obviously 19-20 is still very young, the leap you take in growing up from 16 and getting your drivers license is pretty huge and is definitely heard in this song.

I think knowing who vampire was about would help the dudes here seeing as it's Pretty much explicitly about a dude who is in the position he is in by sucking up to famous people. like maybe you guys just aren't In touch with the Olivia fandom but everybody knows who the song is about except some insane people who have convinced themselves it's about Taylor swift

What Shatner would do to flowers is treat each line like a dramatic reveal. I will buy MYSELF flowers. I will hold......MY OWN HAAAAAAND.

Overall I like Flowers much better, but I'd love Vampire with better lyrics and singing. But I'm with Todd in that neither of the songs are all that.

What's the problem with famef*@r? It makes complete sense and I like the alliteration. The idea that starf*@r (a term I havent heard either) is better? It sounds old-fashioned, calling someone famous a 'star' is pretty cheesy, and we don't refer to internet famous people as 'stars'. But the main point is that it's meant to be depersonalising. Someone who's a famef*@r doesnt care who the person is, they just want to feel kind of important by being close to fame as a concept. Whereas a starf*@r wants the star specifically. I also dislike pedantry though so there we go haha. (And what kind of english education teaches you to not use alliteration in poetry?? Sounds like a teacher with a bone to pick to me.) I also thought the point of that part in the song is to be sort of self-deprecating. She's angry and saying stupid stuff, it felt very authentic to me, even if real-life tone clashes dont always translate to songs.

I speak for everyone who likes cool KZfaq videos when I say *OH MY GOD CRASH IS IN THIS VIDEO*

I don't like Vampire at all and I'm really trying 😭the "sold me for parts" line is so bad and it's impossible to ignore since it's in the chorus. I am not a "lyric person", like I always value everything else about a song above the lyrics and most of the time I don't even process what the lyrics are saying on the first dozen listens of a song, but with Olivia's songs they just jump out at me in the worst ways. a lot of people are being very protective of her, which I get because she's a young female artist that is basically a target for critique, but I genuinely think she's very talented and I wish people would stop assuming that everyone criticizing her music is out to get her. I think driver's license was successful BECAUSE of her young perspective - who else can write a song about getting their driver's license in the context of a relationship, but a high schooler? I just want her to progress a little bit lyrically and subject-wise - I would really like to hear a song that, at the very least, is coming from a different angle if it's going to be about a relationship. Taylor Swift also wrote songs mostly about relationships at the beginning of her career, but they were varied in perspective. anyway, I also don't like Vampire musically, but we already know from her first album that she can write catchy songs. I'll be listening to her new album with great interest.

Apparently, Olivia's fans have generally settled that her song is about 1 of 2 people and most likely an amalgamation of them. I don't know who. I like her as a singer, but I'm way too old to follow the love lives of teenagers. I really don't care who it is about.

I heard that there were multiple ways Olivia Rodrigo tried to substitute a family friendly version of “fame fucker” in the radio cut of her song and some of the choices were “fame lover”, “fame hunter”, and “whale blubber”

Flowers is incredible when paired with the music video. The feeling of being free and moving past something after considerable work at healing. It was infectious. It felt real and she was glowing with it.The song without the vibes though is not melodically interesting to me but I feel like people are picking up on that magic. People seemed to love it more than just a generic empowering break up song.

My goodness, Smoke on the Water vs. Iron Man is going to be friggin' awesome! Absolutely tailored to my tastes, and I've been listening to both Purple and Sabbath a lot recently. Really hard choice between those two, as well. Love Crash being invited on this episode. Love that dude and all of the Rock Coliseum guys.

Why would you ignore illiteration? That's such a bland take☠️

I'm just happy you put the crossover episode with Crash on KZfaq.

Flowers gives me the same vibe as Victoria's secret by Jax. I know so few women who value flowers. Flowers are the cliché "I know nothing about a woman and have put no thought Into this gift" gift at this point. So talking about buying herself flowers feels downright dated

I'm shocked flowers got a pass for having better lyrics? It's such a clunky weird response to when I was your man which isn't even a particularly memorable song. It just feels like a weird bit, the lyrics are the worst part about flowers!

To your point that it's a weird time for music, Vampire illustrates a point about contemporary music that continues to baffle me. Musical genres which once seemed antithetical to one another now seem interchangeable. Pop and alternative are virtually indistinguishable, hip hop and country are one and the same, and a lot of metal sounds like dance music. There seem to be no lines anymore, but as someone born in the mid 80s, I miss those lines. For my generation, one's identity was closely tied in with what genres of music we were into.

Thanks for plugging this man cause genuinely I thought song v song was just a video series you did, will definitely check out the pod

Vampire is realllly not that strange

Thriller vs Purple Rain. I saw it elsewhere alluded to in the comments, but I’ve been wanting this for a while. It’s Prince vs the King of Pop. Both are strongly tied to the videos associated with them. Both blew up in 1984. Anyway please please please- Purple Rain vs Thriller.

The chords for Flowers suggest that the process was "It's a breakup song let's rip off the 8 bar loop from I will Survive" "Isn't that a bit obvious? people are going to notice that" "OK lets just rip off the first 4 of those 8" "Good thinking!, Hit record!"

Todd, I’ve been subbed for a few years and honestly didn’t know about the pod. I listen to podcasts all day at work and today has gone by so much quicker listening to it

...but when the world needed him most to make sense of Jason Aldean's culture war cry, he vanished.

Only todd could get away with using a thumbnail that's the wrong aspect ratio and a total of 20 pixels

See, as an English major I never had a problem with fame f*cker. What really bothered me was the last line of the chorus. 'Bleed' and 'Bled' would've been much stronger notes to leave on than 'Bleeding'. In the same way that (I think) Todd said Flowers should've ended with "but I can't love me better than you", I feel like both "Bleed me dry..." and "Bled me dry..." are much stronger endings, y'know? It's less passive, because it implies she made a choice about what to do with vampire, and I think that makes more sense with the tone of the song.

Dude, Olivia's ex received so many death threats and so much harassment he was hospitalised (he literally almost died and he is still getting harassed 3 years later) I understand why she doesnt want to feed into the drama (though the 'you only come out at night' is a reference to her ex that iykyk, and a lot of people know)

I also think a point was missed. She’s calling this dude a Vampire, basically a leech who was older than her. SHES IN TURN TRASHING MEN WHO DATE YOUNGER WOMEN. AND PEOPLE WHO LEECH ON TO SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE AND THEN THINK THEYRE THE SHIT

personally i really love vampire and i enjoy the "fame-fucker" line quite a lot (i especially like her delivery of it). i will admit i am definitely more in olivia's target/typical audience though (many songs from guts have made it into my daily commute playlist and i do not see them leaving particularly soon).

Took me a little while to warm up to Vampire, but I really like it now. Is it her best song? No. Are some of the lyrics a little clunky and awkward? Yeah. But it's good, it's fine. Honestly I saw a lot of Olivia stans on Twitter hyping up the vampire metaphor and some of the lyrics pre-release and that's maybe why it took me a couple weeks to warm up to the song. Because the lyrics in isolation look incredibly cliche and generic, but they work pretty well in the actual context of the song IMO.

I dunno if you can see that comment but your Twitter seems to have been hacked

Flowers is so obnoxious to me. It feels like a TikTok song and I hate it so much. At first it was just meh, but the overplay hit me like a goddamn truck. Vampire, I thought, was clumsy due to the lyrics, but it's really grown on me. I like to compare it to Maroon from Midnights, which I really disliked at first (not because of the lyrics but the point still stands) and has slowly become a quintessential Taylor Swift song for me.

After seeing/listening to this I listened to every other Song VS Song episode and now I have finally come full circle and I'm listening to this again🤓

so many todd uploads we are thriving

So after thinking about this more extensively than I would have ever I've come to some conclusions. 1) Vampire is definitely better. At first I thought it was my bias because I like her much better than Miley but moreso I like her approach to post Disney imaging of herself. Miley and those alike all went for an oversexualized "debut" saying "I'm not a child, let me grow up" while Olivia's approach is more "I grew up too fast, let me be a kid again" which kind of reverse psychology us into seeing her as a young adult. And for that reason I disagree about her being bad at cursing, I feel like it's more deliberate that she sounds like someone bitterly trying to get their childhood back. 2) the reason Flowers doesn't work is because you feel no emotion from it. When I first heard the song I didn't think of Bruno Mars, I thought of Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive. That's kind of why I think the beat is very intentional. The issue is she 1) doesn't have Gloria's vocals, but more importantly 2) you don't ever feel like he hurt her to begin with so her doing better without him doesn't have an impact. With Gloria you felt every bit of pain she started with and every bit of agitation she felt when he came back once she was finally over him. I get none of that in flowers. Flowers is just a pop song to bop along to without much more going on.

Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I hear ya’ll talking about how vampire “takes bold risks” and I was struck by how deeply I feel the exact opposite. If anything, I prefer Flowers because I at least felt that Miley had a vision and a novel concept for a song, whereas Olivia was following the drivers license + good 4 u playbook exactly and landing on a slightly lyrically clunky combination of the two.

With how static the Top 10 has been and if it keeps going that way, might as well get the year-end podcast out of the way now. 🎶

I don't remember these being so long/positive

If you're hearing Flowers 3-4 times a day at a supermarket, you're at the supermarket for too long.

Spotify has stopped notifying me as soon as these podcasts are available to listen to. This isn't the only podcast on Spotify where I have this problem, but I get unwanted push notifications for Spotify exclusive podcasts. Very frustrating

Did....did they not know that flowers was a response to when I was your man? They sound exactly the same

Flowers would be an amazing Tom Jones song. For all of the same reasons why Todd hates it.

i’m waiting to see if todd does a review that garbage ass jason aldean song like he did with aaron lewis song in 2021

I think the line that complete brings me out of vampire is, you can’t love anything cause that would mean you had a heart, it just screams I’m 12 and this is my first relationship and it ruins the song for me

Your Twitter got hijacked and it scamming folks and blocked me when I said as much

Thank you Todd have fun you will be missed.

Finally Todd and Crash team up. I hope they do it again. My two faves teaming up. A dream come true.

The Can't Be Tamed Erasure in this podcast.

OMG! I saw the title, I saw the length of the video... I AM SO INTIMIDATED XD

I've literally never heard the phrase star fucker, I think especially since we just don't really call famous people stars anymore

Enjoy your vacation Todd! 😄

I love these videos so much! Will you do Watermelon Moonshine by Lainey Wilson vs Strawberry Wine by Deana Carter please?! I'm not musically articulate enough to express my thoughts on these two songs and I've love to see you do it!

I think fame is for the alliteration but also the fact that it half rhymes with vain which lends itself to the vampire imagery.

Enjoy your vacation Todd!

I'm glad that Desire and That! Feels Good! gets a mention here. By rights they should be the bigger hits this year.

I usually wait till the end of video to comment, but heck, Flowers is not a very happy song. It is about the mid point of post breakup, the realisation that you can be happy without the other person is not actually being happy without them. The music fits perfectly. I will survive (I made a life without you and you can piss off the song) it is not. That said, please don't take this as me choosing Flowers. It never gripped me. I like Vampire. Didn't take breakup from the song at all. EDIT: I guess I am commenting as it goes. Linguist here - let ppl make up new words. We need those for new concepts. Famefucker works to fill a gap - you can have fame or influence in your field without being a star. It's a levels game. You can't call someone who wants to fuck a professor famous in their field for bragging rights a star fucker or sleeping up. Fame fucker works. And not every rule about writing is worth following. Alliteration has its place too. Also, as a person who is a lot into vampire lore - her metaphores are not that mixed. Vampires as a concept are not as simple as main stream pop culture makes them out to be. I think your perception of the singers as Disney ppl is colouring your view of them. As a person who never watched one episode of a live action Disney show who heard Vampire on the radio randomly - there's nothing weird or silly about how Emilia swears. And there's nothing wrong in not relying on drama for promotion. What's wrong with letting the song stand on it's own merit?

Lina is 100% right on “Vampire” being the better song. Todd sounded like he was one foot out the door to go on vacation and hated everything. The guest was super nit-picky about Olivia. Either way, a fun conversation!

Hey Todd, your twitter was hacked. It's saying your selling macbooks and that your donating all profits to charity all while locking replies and quote tweets

Have a good vacation Todd!!

Ok, so it took me moment but I relized that "Flowers" reminded me of Bruno Mars "When I was your man" with its chord progression(?, idk I'm not a music major. It just sounds similar to me) and even a few of the lyrics feel mirrored (buying herself flowers and holding her own hand?) and then I started laughing. Putting the two songs together makes for a great juxtaposition between a woman who takes charge of her own happiness after a breakup and a guy who's pining over it because he can't get past it.

Long time follower of the podcast, recent patron (A-1 stuff)

Totally agree, Vampire is the better song!

You know we want to see the Oliver Anthony song next. He may not always be a one hit wonder, but he is for now! So sieze the moment!

Hey. It’s a good podcast. It makes me very happy.

Before this was posted, I didn't know that this podcast was anything more than a bi-annual award show thing. I've started listening to it and it's pretty great! Weird how Todd has kind of kept it hidden except for the award show stuff until now.

Thanks for the Vampire Shat!

I'm not gonna get "go full SHAT" out of my head now. Thankx

Now I've heard both songs just get my own opinion on which one that suck the least 😂.. Enjoy your vacation Todd