If you’ve been anywhere online in the past year or so, you’d see that Taylor Swift has seemingly taken over the internet. Although she has had a large fanbase throughout her whole career, between COVID lockdown, a genre change (indie — hello folklore and evermore), and a lot of people spending their free time on TikTok, Taylor Swift has accumulated many new fans over the past year and a half. With the entire world seemingly breaking down every time she sends out a new post, many fans are currently awaiting the re-release of her album Red, dubbed Red (Taylor’s Version). This would be the second of Swift’s re-recordings to be released so far. But why is Taylor rerecording her music? While many Swifties know most (if not all) of the details, some new fans or more casual listeners may not know the whole story. Let’s talk about it.
Taylor Swift was signed with Big Machine Records until 2018, when she left the company for Republic Records and Universal Music Group. At the time, they parted on good terms with Swift thanking the CEO, Scott Borchetta, for believing in her as a 14-year-old and guiding her through “over a decade of work that [she] will always be so proud of.” However, on June 30, 2019, it was revealed Scooter Braun — music manager of A-list singers Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber and more — had acquired Big Machine Records, and with it, the catalogue of Taylor Swift’s first six albums for over $300 million. And this was Swift’s first time hearing the news.
Taking to Tumblr, Swift explained that she has been fighting for years to own her masters she created during her time at Big Machine. For years, Taylor has been advocating for artists to own their work. She refused to put her music on Spotify for years when they would not pay artists enough. She also dedicated a performance on her Reputation Stadium Tour to Loie Fuller who “fought for artists to own their work” and paved the way for new artists in the streaming era by owning her masters going forward with her new contract with UMG.
Swift had to leave the past behind, writing; “When I left my masters in Scott’s hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them. Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter.” Scooter Braun has a history of bullying Swift through his clients Justin Bieber and Kanye West. Swift’s post opens with a screenshot from Bieber’s Instagram that pictured Bieber FaceTiming with West and Braun, following Kim Kardashian West leaking a phone call between Swift and West in 2016 (that was later proved to be manipulated) about his song “Famous” — the caption reading; “Taylor Swift what up.” Braun had acquired all of Swift’s work until that point, with the help of Borchetta, someone Swift trusted for years and knew the trauma that Braun put her through.
Though Taylor owned her work from albums Lover and on, Swift explained on social media that Braun and Borchetta were preventing a mashup of her old songs from being televised during her Artist of the Decade performance at the 2019 AMA’s. Swift announced here that she was planning to re-record copycat versions of her songs in the coming year (when she was legally able) and that she would own all of the rights to them herself. Stating she didn’t know what else to do, Swift wrote that she “feel[s] strongly that sharing what is happening to me could change the awareness level for other artists and potentially help them avoid a similar fate […] Please let Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun know how you feel about this. Scooter also manages several artists who I really believe care about other artists and their work […]I just want to be able to perform MY OWN music.” With such a large platform, this call to action has brought the topic of artists owning their work to light in large magnitudes all over the world.
Now able to legally re-record her music, Taylor Swift is reliving all her eras with her fans while owning every second of it. (Did I mention she now owns her song that has her literal heartbeat in it? AKA “Wildest Dreams (Taylor’s Version).” And besides the songs being re-recorded, for each album, Taylor is including “From the Vault” tracks of unreleased songs from every era to be published on the new re-records. What’s not to love? While the original recordings of her music will always have my heart, I know I will be giving my commissions to the source that deserve it.
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