Taylor Swift's Old Album Streams Double on Spotify After She Buys Masters for 1st 6 Albums

Yahoo

2 days ago

Taylor Swift shocked fans when she announced that she bought back the masters for her first six albums, and fans showed their support by doubling the amount of streams on Spotify.
After Taylor, 35, announced the deal on May 30, Spotify shared figures with The Hollywood Reporter that revealed that streams on all of the original versions of her older albums at least doubled that same day. The statistics were compared to the albums' average daily streams between April 1 through May 29.
Speak Now – which was originally released in 2010 and was followed by Speak Now (Taylor's Version) in July 2023 – had the biggest individual spike as streams rose 430 percent globally.
Meanwhile, Taylor's self-titled 2006 debut album and her 2017 Reputation album came in second and third. The debut album's streams jumped 220 percent, while Reputation's streams rose by 175 percent. The second and third most streamed albums may surprise fans, as they are the only two albums that she hasn't released re-recordings for.
Meanwhile, her 2008 album, Fearless, was streamed 160 percent more, and 2012's Red jumped 150 percent. 1989 – which was released in 2014 – also saw more streams with a 110 percent boost.
Following Taylor's massive day for streaming, it's no surprise that she's one of the most listened to artists on the streaming platform with over 82 million monthly Spotify listeners. Due to the announcement of her owning her masters, her overall streams jumped 40 percent on May 30.
Scooter Braun previously bought the master recordings of Taylor's first six albums from Big Machine Label Group in 2019 for $300 million. He quickly faced backlash for the business deal and eventually sold the masters to investment firm Shamrock Capital in 2020.
Over the years, the 'Better Than Revenge' singer has been open about how hurtful it was to not be able to own the rights to her music.
'Scooter has stripped me of my life's work, that I wasn't given an opportunity to buy,' she wrote in a Tumblr post at the time the sale was made. 'Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.'
In light of the situation, Taylor decided to re-record her first six albums so that she could own her own.
Nearly six years later, Taylor announced on her website that she had officially bought her masters from Shamrock Capital.
'I almost stopped thinking it could ever happen, after 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away,' she told her fans in the letter. 'But that's all in the past now. All of the music I've ever made … now belongs … to me.'
Not only does Taylor officially own her masters, but she also bought back her videos, concert films, album art, photography and unreleased songs.
'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,' she said. '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.'