The New York Times Magazine profiled former R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe for its Dec. 10, 2023 edition and it's worth a deep-dive read. As the frontman for one of the biggest rock bands of the 1990s, Stipe is no stranger to worldwide mega-stardom — which makes his introduction to the current reigning queen of the pop music scene, Taylor Swift, all the more priceless.

Stipe, who is currently in the laborious process of trying to put out his first solo album after ending his three-decade run with R.E.M., happened to be recording at the same studio as Swift when they were both laying down tracks just before Memorial Day 2023 in Greenwich Village.

Both stars were working at Electric Lady Studios, a legendary space famously opened by Jimi Hendrix in 1970. Swift had rented a basement studio for a week during a break in between Eras Tour shows (recording exactly what is anyone's guess). Stipe, meanwhile, had rented a studio on the third floor, which opened out to a patio on the building's roof.

It's here that Stipe first met Swift's longtime producer Jack Antonoff, as well at the frontman for The 1975's Matty Healy, during that brief period that Swift and Healy were rumored to be dating (pre-Travis Kelce, of course). It sounds like Healy and Antonoff geeked out like a couple of fanboys, getting to talk to rock royalty Michael Stipe.

“Is it true you have one of Kurt Cobain’s guitars?” Healy asked Stipe at one point.

“Peter does,” explained Stipe nonchalantly, referring to the guitarist of R.E.M., Peter Buck.

The next day, Stipe met Swift herself when he was invited to the basement studio to meet her. He saw her standing in the doorway, put out his hand to shake and said suavely “You must be Taylor.” As the New York Times Magazine reporter admits, it was “an objectively cool thing to say to Taylor Swift.”

But Stipe knows a thing or two about having one's extended moment of fame in the music world. Swift even professed to Stipe at one point, “Jack and Matty were saying they talked to you for hours yesterday. They were like, ‘Best conversation!' They were so excited to be talking to you!”

Nice to know that a current musical icon like Taylor Swift has respect for one from a few decades back like Michael Stipe — who hopefully will climb the charts again when he finishes this solo album.