Pushing

Hello, hello everyone, Gather round.

Malcolm Gladwell here.

If you're a fan of my show, Revisionist History, then you know my deep and abiding obsession

with American higher education.

How it's broken, how it can be fixed.

Over our next couple of episodes, we dive into this topic again.

And as you will hear, one story makes me really angry.

And the other gives me hope.

Listen to Revisionist History, wherever you get your podcasts,

and you can always get our shows early and at-free by subscribing to Pushkin Plus.

And you're not potentially opening yourself up to misinterpretation and unfair criticism.

You're inviting misinterpretation.

It's very easy to get in your head and be like, what's the point of this?

A couple of months ago, Rick Rubin and I met up at Rick's Shanglau Studios with Ezra Canig,

singer and songwriter for the band Vampire Weekend.

It was a Sunday morning, not long before the fire as a devastated the area.

Canig was putting the finishing touches on the band's first album in six years, Father the Bride.

Our deal with Ezra is that we weren't allowed to air this until the album finally came out, and now it has.

In fact, it's the number one record in the country.

I imagine that if this conversation had happened today, it would be different,

because the world has validated how brilliant Father the Bride is.

...