Taylor Swift's music officially belongs to her as she finally takes ownership of her masters
It's a day of celebration for Swifties: Taylor Swift officially owns all of her master recordings! Back in 2020, her first six albums of music, videos, and art were purchased by Shamrock from Scooter Braun, marking the second time that her music was sold without her knowledge.
When this happened, she decided to re-record her older music in addition to continuing to release new albums, including Lover, folklore, evermore, Midnights, and The Tortured Poets Department. Today, she announced that this battle is behind her and she is now the owner of all of her music, new and old.
"I'm trying to gather my thoughts into something coherent, but right now my mind is just a slideshow. A flashback sequence of all the times I daydreamed about, wished for, and pined away for a chance to get to tell you this news. All the times I was thiiiiiiiiiiiis close, reaching out for it, only for it to fall through. I almost stopped thinking it could ever happen, after 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away. But that's all in the past now. I've been bursting into tears of joy at random intervals ever since I found out that this is really happening. I really get to say these words: All of the music I've ever made... now belongs... to me. And all my music videos. All the concert films. The album art and photography. The unreleased songs. The memories. The magic. The madness. Every single era. My entire life's work," she wrote in a letter to fans, posted to her website.
"To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it. To my fans, you know how important this has been to me - so much so that I meticulously re-recorded and released 4 of my albums, calling them Taylor's Version. The passionate support you showed those albums and the success story you turned The Eras Tour into is why I was able to buy back my music. 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." The albums she re-recorded include Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), and 1989 (Taylor’s Version).
"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 singer expressed. "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 feel 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."
As for Reputation (Taylor's Version), she admits that she hasn't even re-recorded a quarter of it yet, noting it was "so specific to that time" in her life, and she "kept hitting a stopping point" when she tried to remake it. She continued to add that it was "the one album in those first 6 that I thought couldn't be improved upon redoing it."
However, she promises there will be a time for "the unreleased vault tracks from that album to hatch" and confirms that she has already re-recorded her debut album.
"I'm extremely heartened by the conversations this saga has reignited within my industry among artists and fans," she concluded. "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. 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."
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