Weekend Reads (June 7): Taylor Swift, Guy Gavriel Kay, Power Rangers, Trump vs. Musk
Recommended weekend reading material for June 7, 2025.
Every week, I compile a list of articles in order to give subscribers like you something interesting and thought-provoking to read over the weekend.
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One of the biggest music news items is that Taylor Swift now owns all of her music. Scooter Braun had purchased the master recordings of her first six albums in 2019, which led to a feud and Swift re-recording and releasing new editions of albums like 2008’s Fearless and 2012’s Red.
On her website, Swift said that reclaiming the rights to her music had, for a long time, seemed unimaginable.
“To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it,” she added, thanking fans for their support as the drama played out.
“I can’t thank you enough for helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to, but have never owned until now.
“I almost stopped thinking it could ever happen, after 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away,” she wrote.
“But that’s all in the past now.”
I’d never call myself a Swiftie. Regardless, I believe all artists should own their art, be they some small garage band toiling away in Nowheresville, USA, or the world’s biggest billionaire pop star.
Related: Swift’s efforts to own her music underscores the complex history of American copyright law. “Very few artists will ever reach the level of popularity and profitability that Swift enjoys, but by raising public discourse about music copyright she has helped to reinvigorate conversations about the value of music.” Via 1440.
Although Sleep Token has become one of the world’s most popular metal bands, they’ve faced widespread criticism for being too “pop.” Doc Coyle is sick and tired of that sort of gatekeeping.
I just don’t know why we have to keep repeating the same patterns of tearing down our successful acts. This is “why we can’t have nice things?” in practice. Hating bands as trends is not cool because trying to be cool isn’t cool. It is another form of conformity, elitism. I believe truly being a fan is being a nerd. It’s passionate, obsessive and unabashedly earnest. Unfortunately, we live in a time where earnestness is viewed as cringe.
Sometimes I wonder if the “next Nirvana” could even happen in today’s climate — a band that marries artistic credibility with commercial validation. Reaching the top of the pyramid is anathema. Not to be revered, but proof that the entity is compromised, industry-planted with souls long foreclosed at the Mississippi crossroads.
You may not know the name Alf Clausen, but if you ever watching The Simpsons, then you definitely heard his work. Sadly, the composer died this week after previously being diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy. He was 84 years old.
Clausen joined The Simpsons in 1990, when the show was in its second season. As composer, his role involved creating songs, cues, and reinterpreting Danny Elfman’s theme alongside a 35-piece live orchestra. Clausen scored over 560 episodes of the show and was nominated for 21 Emmy Awards (out of a career total of 30) for his work. He won twice, for 1997’s “We Put the Spring in Springfield” and 1998’s “You’re Checkin’ In (A Musical Tribute to the Betty Ford Center).” Clausen’s trademarks on the show often involved big band, jazz, or broadway numbers and while his compositions could be silly, they were often extremely moving. His songs for the show were collected on soundtrack albums like 1997’s Songs in the Key of Springfield and 1999’s Go Simpsonic With the Simpsons.
In addition to his work for The Simpsons, Clausen also composed music for ALF, Moonlighting, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and The Naked Gun.
As a member of both DC Talk and Newsboys, Michael Tait has been a very prominent figure in contemporary Christian music (CCM). He’s also been accused of grooming and sexual assault by several individuals.
It’s been called Nashville’s worst-kept secret. For decades, allegations have circulated that Newsboys frontman Michael Tait, formerly of DC Talk, had groomed and sexually assaulted numerous victims.
And after a two-and-a-half-year investigation by The Roys Report (TRR), which included interviewing more than 50 sources, TRR has documented Tait’s alleged predatory pattern with stories dating back more than two decades.
TRR also has corroborated allegations of Tait’s alcohol and substance abuse with multiple sources.
If you were a Christian kid in the ’80s and ’90s, it was all but impossible to escape DC Talk and Newsboys. I very nearly wore out my copy of DC Talk’s Nu Thang, and Free at Last might as well have been my youth group’s soundtrack thanks to songs like “Luv Is a Verb” and “Jesus Is Just Alright.”
Sadly, Tait’s alleged abuse has become an all-too frequent story in Christian circles.
Haley Byrd Wilt credits the works of fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay for saving her from “the most suffocating despair I’d ever felt.”
I read one after another of Kay’s books, finding that theme of resilience across them all. His stories depict evil unflinchingly while holding tightly to the good. These books did more than pull me away from the doomscroll or pass the difficult hours of my early postpartum era; they rekindled my love for storytelling and gave me an appreciation for its power to defy the darkness of this fallen world.
Kay, who is Jewish but not personally religious, often explores themes that Christian readers will find compelling and beautiful, with an emphasis on friendship, love, and self-sacrifice — a father putting his life on the line to save his son, or a warrior setting aside nationalistic animosity to instead value the dignity of his neighbors. Beauty and virtue exist amid pain and evil, just as in our own lives.
I’ve only read a handful of Kay’s novels, including Tigana and A Song for Arbonne, and I’ve enjoyed all of them. I just added his latest novel, Written on the Dark, to my reading list.
Bruno de Figueiredo spent years tracking down the world’s rarest video game. His efforts highlight the challenges faced by those trying to preserve video game history.
Figueiredo refers to TRIPITAKA as one of the rarest games ever made, and it’s true inasmuch as there appears to be only one known copy of it. Value and rarity are also fluid concepts that are ultimately determined by interested audiences. At the same time, TRIPITAKA’s fate and availability is shockingly ordinary when you consider how poorly the gaming industry preserves its own history. If the lack of care is evident with significant games that have arguable merit, it’s doubly true for average games. This is how a game with mixed reviews from twenty years ago suddenly starts commanding hundreds of dollars on resale sites; the scarcity happens because nobody felt a game was worth holding on to.
If you don’t know the difference between Power Rangers Zeo, Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, and Power Rangers Cosmic Fury, then Joshua Moore has published the exhaustive guide to Power Rangers that you never knew you needed until now.
There’s nearly 1,000 episodes (you read that right), hundreds of comic stories, three movies, and even an official audio adventure to explore — all carefully crafted to delight your inner child and inspire you to buy oodles of action figures from your favorite
Toys'R' UsWalmarteBay seller.
I never got into Power Rangers, but I always appreciate extremely nerdy deep dives when I see them, and Moore’s article certainly counts as such.
Jennifer Rubin makes the case that Trump and his crew are nuts, but that’s only resulted in “bizarrely inexact and feeble” coverage by traditional media outlets.
Without fully exploring the mental, moral, and emotional condition of Trump and his coterie of kooks, corporate and billionaire media outlets treat each new revelation (e.g., a fraudulent MAHA report, the State Department’s embrace of the Nazified term “remigration,” attacks on judges, threats to prosecute political enemies, defiance of court orders, appointment of unfit officials, etc.) as a discrete episode rather than part of a pattern of crackpottery symptomatic of late-stage authoritarianism. The failure to convey the enormity of the problem has serious ramifications.
No argument here. It’s really quite amazing, the extent to which Trump and his administration want us to ignore that which is plainly obvious about their behavior. And it’s tragic, the extent to which so many — politicians, ordinary voters, or otherwise — are just accepting their twisting of reality.
Related: Adam Kinzinger highlights how Trump’s empire of control is crumbling. “Trump is surrounded by people he once thought he controlled. And now that they’re acting with independence, he doesn’t know what to do.”
Casey Newton chronicles Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s sudden breakup and feud, and what it could mean for both men.
It did not take any particular skill in forecasting to predict, at the end of 2024, that the unprecedented partnership between Donald Trump and Elon Musk would come to a dramatic ending. Both Trump and Musk are independently famous for their erratic leadership styles and abrupt purges of once-close allies, and neither shows any long-term patience for anyone who opposes them.
Still, when I predicted here in December that the bro-ligarchy would collapse in 2025, I can’t say I had envisioned what transpired over the past few days.
Related: Scott Galloway’s assessment of Elon Musk’s character and legacy is one of the best I’ve ever heard.
Finally, Apple is reportedly working on a redesign that will affect all of their operating systems, including iOS, macOS, iPadOS, and watchOS. Sebastiaan de With imagines the possibilities and delves into the history of Apple’s design, including its dalliance with skeuomorphism.
If there is indeed a big redesign happening this year, it’ll be consequential and impactful in many ways that will dwarf the iOS 7 overhaul for a multitude of reasons. The redesign is rumored to be comprehensive; a restyling of iOS, macOS, iPadOS, tvOS, watchOS and visionOS. In the intervening years between iOS 7’s announcement and today, iPhones have gone from simply a popular device to the single most important object in people’s lives. The design of iOS affected and inspired most things around, from the web to graphic design and any other computer interface.
That’s why I figured I'd take this moment of obscurity, this precious moment in time where its changes are still shrouded in fog to savor something: wholesale naivety of where things are going, so I can let my imagination run wild.
Via Daring Fireball. I’m with John Gruber when he says, “I hope, very much, that what Apple has been working on is along the lines of what de With has mocked up.” A glass-centric UI is certainly intriguing, and it looks very cool, so it’ll be interesting to see how that applies to macOS.
Like everyone else, I’m hoping that Apple pulls back the curtain on their redesign even just a little bit at next week’s WWDC.
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