Latest news with #10MinuteVersion
Newsweek
2 days ago
- Business
- Newsweek
The 1600: Mutually Assured Destruction
The Insider's Track Good morning, 🎶 Friday Listening: Taylor Swift - All Too Well (10 Minute Version). One of the greatest breakup songs ever written. Speaking of... That escalated quickly, huh? I'd say our discussion yesterday about the cracks in the Musk-Trump relationship ended up being pretty prescient, despite those accusing me of trafficking in gossip and innuendo! Elon finally went full mask off just a couple hours after this newsletter hit your inbox, ripping into Trump directly over the course of about 40 posts on X. The trigger seems to have been Trump telling reporters he was "disappointed" in Musk's trashing of his marquee legislation. Musk started his tirade arguing that Trump would have lost the election if not for him (maybe), predicted the tariffs would cause a recession (more likely) and, as the coup de grace, accused the president of the United States of being in the Jeffrey Epstein files (which don't exist, at least not in the form that's been alleged). Remember that Cybertruck that exploded outside the Trump hotel in Vegas on New Year's Day? It was an omen. Trump responded that Elon had "gone CRAZY" and threatened to pull his companies' government subsidies and contracts. All in all, at least so far, the POTUS has actually been the cooler head to prevail in this breakup. Whether that can last, we'll probably see today. I've heard some theories that this was all staged as a way for Trump to wash his hands of Musk and Musk to get back to his business of selling electric cars to Democrats. I don't buy it. Elon is dead to the libs, that ship has sailed. And from everything I've heard out of DC, Trump was legitimately taken aback by his former "first buddy" going scorched earth. I think what's more likely is what we've been saying right here for months. You just cannot have two alpha males in the same place at the same time. It never works. And Musk had grown way too big for his britches during his brief tangle with the federal government. I do think there's probably some kind of Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine at play that is going to lead to a detente, or rapprochement, out of necessity for both parties, maybe even as soon as today. These guys both still need each other. Musk needs Trump not to mess with Tesla or SpaceX. Tesla is where Musk's wealth is derived. The DOJ could easily cut its already struggling stock price in half with a well-timed investigation. SpaceX is where Musk sees his legacy. And given SpaceX is deeply entangled with the federal government, Trump could easily make Elon's life miserable by just dropping it as a federal contractor, or as Steve Bannon is calling for, actually seizing it. That would also be bad for America because SpaceX is one of our most innovative companies that is, literally single handedly, keeping our space program alive. Let's hope it doesn't get caught up in the crossfire. But Musk also has something that is extremely valuable to both Trump and the MAGA project, and that is the X algorithm. Elon has made the platform formerly known as Twitter into an echo chamber for Trump-adjacent voices. If he did get Trump elected, it wasn't because of the $250M he dropped in Pennsylvania—it was because of the influence of X. One tweak of that algo to make it less Trump friendly, like it was a few years ago, and that would be a big hit to the White House's reach. One certainty about when Donald Trump is president, it's never boring! The Rundown President Donald Trump is working to push his "big, beautiful bill" through the Senate in the face of resistance from some Senate Republicans and increasing criticism from Elon Musk. Some lawmakers have already raised serious concerns about the bill—more in the Senate than in the House, where the bill passed by just one vote—which has put its passage in doubt. Read more. Also happening: Trump-Harvard: President Donald Trump suffered a major legal setback in his dispute with Harvard University. U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs issued a two-page temporary restraining order instructing the DHS and the State Department to disregard a proclamation issued by the Trump administration the previous day banning international students at the university from entering the U.S. for six months. Read more. Trump's travel ban: The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be co-hosted by the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, with most matches—including the final—taking place in American stadiums. However, hopes among Iranian fans in particular to attend and support their national team on U.S. soil are now in doubt following Trump's announcement of a new travel ban targeting 12 countries, including Iran. Read the story. This is a preview of The 1600—Tap here to get this newsletter delivered straight to your inbox.
Business Insider
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
Taylor Swift just bought back her masters. She's happy to render her 'Taylor's Version' project moot.
Taylor Swift shocked fans on Friday by announcing her latest unprecedented power move: buying back her original master recordings, giving her full ownership of her musical catalog for the first time in her career. "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," Swift, 35, wrote on her website. "To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it," she added. Indeed, Swift was so adamant that music should belong to its creators — especially in her case as a diaristic songwriter who signed her first record contract at age 15 — that she embarked on the ambitious process to rerecord her first six albums after her masters were acquired by Scooter Braun in 2019. (Braun sold Swift's back catalog to Shamrock Capital, a private-equity firm, in 2020 for a reported $300 million.) Swift's ambitious rerecording plan wasn't entirely without precedent, but it had never been attempted on such a broad scale. At first, it was met with plenty of skepticism from journalists and industry experts. "A real fan knows the difference, and will never accept it," a Forbes columnist wrote, referring to the rerecorded versions of Swift's beloved songs. Even Swift herself wasn't immediately on board. "I'd look at them and go, 'How can I possibly do that?'" she reflected in 2023. "Nobody wants to redo their homework." You belong with me. 💚💛💜❤️🩵🖤 Letter on my site :) — Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) May 30, 2025 And yet, even without unanimous support from the industry, the "Taylor's Version" series became a wild success, partially thanks to their " vault tracks." To prove her point that only the artist knows the full story of her work — and, of course, to incentivize fans to stream and buy albums they've already heard — Swift shrewdly included never-before-heard songs that had originally been left on the cutting room floor. Swift released the project's first two installments in 2021, "Fearless (Taylor's Version)" and " Red (Taylor's Version)," which yielded a No. 1 hit in the long-awaited " All Too Well (10 Minute Version)" and three Grammy nominations. These were followed by "Speak Now (Taylor's Version)" and "1989 (Taylor's Version)" in 2023. The latter sold 1,653,000 copies in its first week, surpassing the original, and spawned yet another No. 1 hit in the fan-favorite vault track, "Is It Over Now?" Fans have been clamoring for the remaining installments, "Taylor Swift (Taylor's Version)" and "Reputation (Taylor's Version)," for literal years now. A common refrain in online Swiftie communities is that "all she has left to reclaim is her name and reputation." Now, that reclamation is moot. There's no longer any reason (moral, financial, or otherwise) for Swift to complete the "Taylor's Version" project. In her Friday announcement, Swift even admitted that she's yet to finish rerecording "Reputation," despite months of drumming up anticipation and dropping apparent Easter eggs. "To be perfectly honest, it's the one album in those first 6 that I thought couldn't be improved upon by redoing it," Swift wrote. "Not the music, or photos, or videos. So I kept putting it off." Swift did tease the existence of "Reputation" vault tracks, and she also confirmed "Taylor Swift (Taylor's Version)" is ready to go — but declined to give fans a firm promise or timeline for their release. "If it happens," she hedged, "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." Like most things that Swift does, this move is bound to be met with mixed reactions. Some Swifties may even be angry about how much they've invested in supporting the "Taylor's Version" albums, mostly on principle, only for the endeavor to render itself redundant. However, that's not to say the venture was a bust. In fact, the passionate fan response likely gave Swift important leverage in her negotiations with Shamrock; the more that Swifties insisted on listening to "Taylor's Version" albums and shunning the so-called "stolen versions," the less valuable those original recordings became. (In the year after its release, for example, "Fearless (Taylor's Version)" sold 1 million equivalent album units, while the original "Fearless" sold 242,000.) Moreover, as Swift noted in her announcement, the impact of "Taylor's Version" is already causing ripple effects across the music industry. While it's rare for musicians to own their masters — especially big stars like Swift, who typically sign major label deals that forfeit their masters in exchange for bigger budgets and wider reach — labels are spooked. In 2023, top music attorneys told Billboard that many are overhauling contracts to prevent artists from rerecording their music down the line, Swift-style. Whether or not their efforts pan out, Swift's peers are now better prepared for the challenge. Her showdown with Braun alerted newer artists to the dangers of overreaching contracts — and inspired many, like Olivia Rodrigo, to maintain control of their masters from a young age. The "Taylor's Version" series may never conclude in the way Swifties had imagined, but then again, keeping the industry on its toes is what Swift does best. "I'm extremely heartened by the conversations this saga has reignited within my industry among artists and fans," Swift wrote on Friday. "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."
