Have you ever wondered about the meaning behind your favorite song lyric or why certain melodies make your skin tingle?

I'm Cole Kushner and these are the kinds of questions I try to answer on Dissect,

a podcast that dives deep into one album per season examining the music, lyrics, and meaning of one song per episode.

I've dissected full albums by Kendrick Lamar, Radiohead, Tyler the Creator, Beyonce, Kanye, and more.

Our latest season just launched all about MF Doom's Mad Villany.

Listen to dissect wherever you get your podcast, because great art deserves more than a swipe.

It is Thursday, April 18.

Taylor Swift has a new album out tonight, the tortured poets department, which is good news

for everyone in the entertainment business except her ex-boyfriend. And if you're on TikTok,

as Craig is most of the time when we tape this podcast, Taylor is back on the platform. I say back

because for about two and a half months, Taylor's songs and nearly all of the music released by

Universal Music Group, the world's largest music label, has been taken off TikTok.

That's Drake. It's Ariana Grande's new album. It's Billy Ilish.

Thousands of artists, both big and small.

We haven't talked about this standoff much on the show, but it's a pretty big deal given how important TikTok is in the music industry.

It's the fastest growing entertainment platform and a major place to discover and, importantly,

to market music. But UMG and its CEO, Lucien Grange, are accusing TikTok and its Chinese

owner of undervaluing its music and trying to bully it into a terrible deal in recent negotiations,

plus allowing tons of AI-generated recordings that dilute the royalty pool for its human musicians.

Many people thought this dispute would be resolved quickly, but here we are, 10 weeks later,

and the UMG artists are still off the platform, but not Taylor.

That's because she owns her music, of course.

...