Taylor Swift: “All the music I’ve ever made now belongs to me”

Taylor Swift has bought back the master recordings to her first six albums.

• READ MORE: Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour comes to an end: a look at its massive global impact

In a letter to fans shared today (May 30), Swift revealed that she now has control over her entire catalogue for the first time. “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. All of the music I’ve ever made … now belongs … to me.”

She originally lost the rights in 2019, when music manager Scooter Braun and his media holding company, Ithaca Holdings LLC, acquired Swift’s old label, Big Machine Label Group.

When news broke of Braun gaining the rights to her masters, Swift, who had made the move to Republic Records by that time, wrote in a Tumblr post that this was “the worst-case scenario” for her, calling him out for his “incessant, manipulative bullying”, and confirming her plans to re-record songs from her first six records in a bid to take control over her music once again.

The story then hit headlines again in late 2020 after Swift confirmed that the ownership of her back catalogue had changed hands again for the second time within two years, when Braun sold the rights to the private equity company Shamrock Holdings in a $300million (£230m) deal. The singer shared a statement at the time, in which she said that the master recordings “were not for sale to me”.

In today’s announcement, Swift said that she bought her masters – as well as her videos, concert films, album art and photography and unreleased songs – back from Shamrock.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

“All I’ve ever wanted was the opportunity to work hard enough to be able to one day purchase my music outright with no strings attached, no partnership, with full autonomy.

“I will be forever grateful to everyone at Shamrock Capital for being the first people to ever offer this to me. The way they’ve handled every interaction we’ve had has been honest, fair and respectful. This was a business deal to them, but I really felt like they saw it for what it was to me: my memories and my sweat and my handwriting and my decades of dreams. I am endlessly thankful. My first tattoo might just be a huge shamrock in the middle of my forehead.”

Swift thanked her fans for their support, writing: “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.”

In order to regain control over her music, and to devalue Braun’s investment, Swift began rerecording all six albums, dubbing them ‘Taylor’s Version’ and adding “From the Vault” tracks that had been written around the time of the original songwriting sessions but never released.

Between 2021 and 2023, Swift released ‘Taylor’s Version’s of her albums ‘Fearless‘ (originally released in 2008), ‘Red‘ (2012), ‘Speak Now‘ (2010) and ‘1989‘ (2014). The rerecordings cumulated billions of streams and broke Spotify records.

Rerecorded versions of the songs have since been used in film and TV synchs, including an updated version of ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ – from the currently unreleased rerecording of 2017’s ‘Reputation‘ – which appeared in the new series of The Handmaid’s Tale earlier this month.

‘Reputation’ and Swift’s 2006 self-titled debut album are the only albums that have not been re-recorded, and fans have been speculating about their potential release dates for the past six years.

However, now that the singer has reacquired her masters, there is less reason to release their ‘Taylor’s Version’.

“I know, I know. What about Rep TV?” she wrote in the letter. “Full transparency: I haven’t even rerecorded a quarter of it. The Reputation album was so specific to that time in my life, and I kept hitting a stopping point when I tried to remake it.

“All that defiance, that longing to be understood while feeling purposely misunderstood, that desperate hope, that shame-born snarl and mischief. To be perfectly honest, it’s the one album in those first six that I thought couldn’t be improved upon by redoing it. Not the music, or photos, or videos. So I kept putting it off.”

Swift went on to say that fans may still hear the unreleased ‘Reputation’ From the Vault tracks, “if you’re into the idea”. She also confirmed that she had rerecorded her debut. “I really love how it sounds now. Those two albums can still have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right, if that would be something you guys would be excited about. But if it happens, it won’t be from a place of sadness and longing for what I wish I could have. It will just be a celebration now.”

Swift concluded her letter by drawing attention to the larger conversation about artists’ rights to their masters, triggered by her rerecordings. “Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in their record contract because of this fight, I’m reminded of how important it was for all of this to happen,” she wrote.

“Thank you for being curious about something that used to be thought of as too industry-centric for broad discussion. You’ll never know how much it means to me that you cared. Every single bit of it counted and ended us up here.”

In 2023 it was reported that major labels such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group were looking to put a stop to artists following in Swift’s footsteps, and have reportedly overhauled contracts for new signees.

The post Taylor Swift: “All the music I’ve ever made now belongs to me” appeared first on NME.