Latest news with #BigMachine
Pink Villa
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Pink Villa
Is Taylor Swift Still Ignoring Blake Lively as Justin Baldoni Drops Subpoena? Source Reveals Amid Singer's Masters Win
Blake Lively and Taylor Swift are allegedly continuing with the silence amid the actress's ongoing legal battle with Justin Baldoni. The It Ends With Us director dropped the subpoena against the musician earlier this month. However, it has not lessened the tension between two best friends. In conversation with US Weekly, the source close to the duo revealed that Lively and Swift will not pick up from where they left off, as there is a lot of emotional baggage between the two. The Bad Karma singer was initially addressed in Baldoni's lawsuit and was described to be one of Lively's 'dragons.' Swift's mention in the legal battle majorly affected her friendship with Ryan Reynolds and the Another Simple Favor star, despite being the godparents to their four kids. The source explained to the media portal, ' There's been radio silence between Taylor and Blake since the subpoena was dropped." They further added, 'They won't pick up where they left off because of all the emotional residue.' Why was Taylor Swift being dragged into Justin Baldoni's lawsuit? Amid the ongoing legal battle, Swift was subpoenaed in the case to take the stand in the court and testify. However, at the time of dropping the musician's name from the lawsuit, Baldoni's attorneys claimed that they retrieved all the information they required from the Willow crooner. At the time of filing the 400 million USD case against Lively, the filmmake r's lawyer, Bryan Freedman, shared, 'The message could not have been clearer. Baldoni was not just dealing with Lively. He was also facing Lively's 'dragons,' two of the most influential and wealthy celebrities in the world who were not afraid to make things very difficult for him.' At the time, the source close to Taylor revealed that the reason behind her deeper rift with the mother of four was that she wanted no part in the legalities. According to the previous reports, Swift's dad gave up information to Baldoni's lawyers in order to protect his daughter. Meanwhile, it is reported that Swift is feeling extremely relieved to keep the drama behind her. As for the joyous moments, the singer also bought all of her masters from the Big Machine records at an expensive deal.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Taylor Swift Buys Back the Rights to Her First Six Albums for $360 Million—More Than Three Times Value of Her Real Estate Portfolio
Popstar Taylor Swift has bought back the rights to her first six albums in an historic deal that is reported to have cost the chart-topper a staggering $360 million—after a years-long fight in which she battled to regain control of her entire song catalog. The 35-year-old 'Love Song' singer revealed the happy news in a letter shared on her website, in which she explained that she reached a deal with Shamrock Capital to take ownership of the music, describing it as her 'greatest dream' coming true. '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,' she said in the letter. Her announcement comes after a fraught few years, during which Swift's first six albums were sold out from under her to Justin Bieber's longtime manager, Scooter Braun, by her former record label, Big Machine, a deal that saw her taking drastic action by re-recording the albums included in the contract and releasing them as part of a 'Taylor's Version' collection. 'To my fans, you know how important this has been to me—so much so that I meticulously re-recorded and released four of my albums, calling them 'Taylor's Version,'' the hitmaker went on in her letter. '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 the art that I have dedicated my life to, but have never owned until now.' Swift's first six albums—'Taylor Swift,' 'Fearless,' 'Speak Now,' 'Red,' '1989,' and 'Reputation'—were initially sold to Shamrock by Braun's company, Hybe, in a $300 million deal in 2019. Although Swift did not reveal the amount she paid to claim back the rights to the recordings, Billboard reported that the singer paid close to the $360 million mark for all six albums—more than four times the value of her enormous property portfolio, but just a fraction of her estimated $1.6 billion fortune. Thus far, the pop princess, who is currently dating NFL pro Travis Kelce, has re-recorded four of the six albums as 'Taylor's Versions,' with fans clamoring for her to move onto one of her most popular, 'Reputation.' However, in her letter, Swift admitted that she hadn't even recorded a quarter of the album. '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,' she confessed. 'There will be a time (if you're into the idea) for the unreleased vault tracks from that album to hatch,' she added. Swift noted that she may also release a 'Taylor's Version' of her debut album, but only 'when the time is right.' 'I'm extremely heartened by the conversations this saga has reignited within my industry among artists and fans,' she continued. '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. 'Thanks to you and your goodwill, teamwork, and encouragement, the best things that have ever been mine… finally actually are.' Although the exact figure that Swift paid for her six master albums, the estimated cost is staggering—almost four times the value of her extravagant $100 million property portfolio. The songstress boasts almost as many homes as she does albums, having built up an incredible collection of properties during her legendary career—from Nashville to New York City. One of the first properties Swift snapped up was a chic penthouse in Nashville's Music Row, which she purchased for $1.9 million in 2009. The penthouse sprawls across 3,240 square feet and boasts three bedrooms, high ceilings, and an open floor plan. It also comes complete with a heated resort-style pool. Two years later, Swift snapped up a mansion in the Northumberland Estate neighborhood of Nashville for $2.5 million. The property measures 5,600 square feet and comes complete with four bedrooms and five bathrooms. A 2,000-square-foot guesthouse sits adjacent to the abode. Swift also holds the keys to a luxurious Beverly Hills, CA, home, which she purchased in 2015 for $25 million. The lavish spread was once owned by movie producer Samuel Goldwyn, co-founder of Goldwyn Pictures. The home, which sits on 2 acres and offers over 10,000 square feet of living space, has been described in the listing as the 'epitome of cordial grace and distinguished heritage.' Highlights of the eye-catching home include seven bedrooms, a guest suite, a screening room, and a gym. The parklike grounds offer up a championship tennis court, rose garden, pool, and pool house. In 2014, Swift turned her sights to New York City as she snapped up two penthouses in the chic Tribeca neighborhood for about $20 million and combined them into a nine-bedroom, nine-bath abode with beamed ceilings, a curved staircase, and enormous windows. She purchased a third unit in the building a few years later for $9.75 million, increasing her Tribeca takeover by over 3,500 square feet. Then, in 2017, the pop star splurged on an adjacent townhouse, paying $18 million for the three-story mansion measuring 5,000 square feet, which joins her growing urban empire. While her Tribeca pad was undergoing renovation, she resided in a West Village townhouse, which she reportedly paid $38,000 a month to live in from 2016-2017. The rental boasts 5,500 square feet, four bedrooms, five bathrooms, two powder rooms, a kitchen, a rooftop, and an indoor pool. In 2013, Swift garnered a $17.75 million beachside estate in Rhode Island, which quickly became her go-to vacation getaway. The residence—which is located in the exclusive enclave of Watch Hill in Westerly and is known locally as 'Holiday House'—currently sprawls across 11,000 square feet and features seven bedrooms and nine bathrooms. However, it was previously revealed that Swift had plans to renovate the abode to expand it with an additional bedroom, while transforming one of the existing rooms into an 'enlarged bedroom suite.' In total, the project will add 400 square feet to the property. It is unclear when the construction will begin. However, the renovation plans were drawn up on Nov. 25 and Dec. 4, 2024, before Swift's final 'Eras Tour' show on Dec. 8, with an expiration date of Dec. 4, 2025. The renovation will be completed by a team of Rhode Island–based contractors, led by David W. Shafovaloff, who is located in Hope Valley and describes himself on LinkedIn as a 'self employed construction project manager' who specializes in 'high end residential and commercial construction.' In addition to its many bedrooms and bathrooms, Swift's opulent home currently features a 36-foot-long parlor and an octagonal dining room. The extravagant seaside estate was built in 1930 and once belonged to composer and socialite Rebekah Harkness, who was married to William Hale 'Bill' Harkness. Swift's abode has been described as the ultimate getaway, offering '700 feet of private beachfront' and eight fireplaces, per its original listing. Then, of course, there is the celebrity cachet that Swift's ownership of the home has added. Over the years, the property has played host to many of Swift's star-studded events, including her iconic Fourth of July parties, which have welcomed a long list of A-listers such as Selena Gomez and Blake Lively. More recently, Swift and Kelce were seen lounging around her Rhode Island home with Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, in August 2024, as well as the Kansas City Chiefs star's teammate Patrick Mahomes and his brother, Jason Kelce. At the time, an insider detailed Swift's love of the property, revealing that the star wants to spend 'more time' and be more 'grounded' at the beachside estate in the future. 'Taylor has been on tour and working nonstop, and she loves the Rhode Island house and wanted to spend some time there while the weather is still good and she can enjoy it,' the source explained. 'It has felt wonderful to be grounded back home again. It's been grounding to see friends and family and spend quality time with everyone, chat and get downloaded on everyone's worlds because she has been so busy and disconnected.' It is also the home Swift opted to sit back and relax at after 'The Eras Tour' ended. Andy Cohen Finds a Buyer for His 'One-of-a-Kind' West Village Apartment—After Slashing the Price by $2 Million Homebuyers Believe Recession Is On the Horizon—But Some Hope it Will Make it Easier to Buy Extreme Weather Disasters Will Escalate Foreclosures and Create Systemic Financial Risk in Mortgage Markets, Study Warns
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Taylor Swift Finally Owns All of Her Old Music
Taylor Swift has regained control of her recorded music catalog six years after her old label, Big Machine Label Group, sold it to Scooter Braun's Ithaca Holdings. The singer announced the purchase in a lengthy letter, writing, 'All of the music I've ever made now belongs to me.' Swift announced the news this morning with a note to fans on her website, as well as a handful of photos on Instagram showing her with vinyl copies of her original records. 'You belong with me,' she captioned the post. More from Rolling Stone How Taylor Won Taylor Swift Got Her Old Albums Back, But Her Re-Records Were Still a Massive Success Taylor Swift's Vinyl Records Are on Sale After Revealing She Now Owns All of Her Music The deal, as Swift wrote, covers not just the rights to her music, including unreleased tunes, but all of her music videos, concert films, album art, photography, and unreleased songs. And there are, of course, equally meaningful, more ephemeral aspects of the deal: 'The memories. The magic. The madness,' Swift wrote. 'Every single era. My entire life's work.' It's unclear how much the deal is worth, but a source tells Rolling Stone that a previously reported price range of close to $600 million, which emerged when rumors of the sale first started circulating, was 'highly inaccurate.' In her letter, Swift said that calling regaining control over her catalog her 'greatest dream come true' was 'actually being pretty reserved about it.' She thanked her fans for all their support, suggesting that the massive success of the Eras Tour and efforts to rerecord her old albums made it possible for her to buy back her music. 'I can't thank you enough for helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to, but never owned until now,' she wrote. '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 went on to say that she was grateful to Shamrock Capital — which has owned the rights to her catalog since 2020 — for 'being the first people to ever offer this to me,' saying their handling of the deal was 'honest, fair, and respectful.' A source close to the contract negotiations also pushed back against what was described as a 'previous false report' that there was an 'outside party' — Braun — who was encouraging the sale back to Swift. 'All rightful credit for this opportunity should go to the partners at Shamrock Holdings and Taylor's Nashville-based management team only,' the source said. 'Taylor now owns all of her music, and this moment finally happened in spite of Scooter Braun, not because of him.' Braun, in a statement shared with Rolling Stone, said, 'I am happy for her.' Ithaca's 2019 acquisition of Big Machine launched one of the most fascinating music industry sagas in recent years. While Big Machine owned the rights to music by an array of top country acts (Reba McEntire, Midland, and Sugarland, to name a few), Swift's first six albums were arguably the crown jewels, and a major reason the sale was valued at around $300 million. By the time Ithaca acquired Big Machine in summer 2019, Swift had already left the label and signed with Universal Music Group (the deal included provisions that would allow her to retain control of her master recordings). As Swift wrote in a blog post at the time, she was aware that, after leaving Big Machine, CEO Scott Borchetta was likely to sell the label — but she never expected Braun to be the buyer. In that same post, Swift highlighted her contentious history with Braun, largely via his work with her longtime foe, Kanye West. She claimed, for instance, that Braun got West and Justin Bieber 'to bully' her online amid the fracas over the leaked phone call regarding a lyric about Swift in West's song 'Famous.' Swift said she was 'sad and grossed out' over the deal, and claimed that any time Borchetta heard her speak Braun's name, 'it was when I was either crying or trying not to.' On top of all that, though, was Swift's desire to simply own the rights to her catalog. 'For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work,' she wrote. 'Instead I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and 'earn' one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in. I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future. I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past.' Within a few months of the sale, Swift began teasing her ambitious response: She would rerecord her first six albums, thereby reclaiming some control over the music, while ostensibly diluting the value of the original recordings. In 2021, she launched her Taylor's Version campaign with rerecords of Fearless and Red, both of which were followed in 2023 by Speak Now and 1989. (Along with new versions of the original albums, the projects also included an array of previously unreleased tunes now known as 'vault tracks,' which were also rerecorded.) As for the future of that project, Swift said in her letter today that her 2006 self-titled debut has been 'completely re-recorded,' adding, 'I really love how it sounds now.' But her rerecord of 2017's Reputation is far from complete — 'I haven't even re-recorded a quarter of it' — and Swift admitted she wasn't sure if she would ever finish 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,' she said. '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 she may share the unreleased Reputation 'vault tracks' at some point, but didn't give any release details. Nor did she share when the rerecord of Taylor Swift would see the light of day. 'Those 2 albums can still have their moments to reemerge when the time is right, if that would be something you guys would be excited about,' she said. '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.' Before Swift had originally begun the rerecord project though, her catalog changed hands again. Just over a year after the Big Machine acquisition, Braun's Ithaca Holdings sold Swift's catalog to Shamrock Capital in a deal reportedly worth over $300 million. Prior to that sale, Swift revealed, she'd been trying to get back control of her masters, but claimed that Braun's team was, as part of the deal, demanding she sign 'an ironclad NDA' that would prevent her from speaking negatively about him. Swift also said she considered partnering with Shamrock until she found out that the deal terms would still result in Braun profiting off her old recordings for 'a very long time.' Braun, for his part, later expressed some regret over his handling of the Big Machine acquisition and Swift catalog sale. In a 2022 interview on NPR's The Limits podcast, he admitted to coming from 'a place of arrogance,' assuming that he and Swift could work things out. 'The regret I have there is that I made the assumption that everyone, once the deal was done, was going to have a conversation with me, see my intent, see my character and say, great, let's be in business together,' he said. 'And I made that assumption with people that I didn't know.' Swift concluded her note today by mentioning a massive positive that has come from this saga: The attention it's brought to the hurdles that artists face in trying to control and own their creative output. 'Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in their record contract because of this flight, I'm reminded of how important it was for all of this to happen,' Swift wrote. 'Thank you for being curious about something that used to be thought of as too industry-centric for brand 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.' This story was updated at 1:24 p.m. ET with a statement from Braun. Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Taylor Swift Got Her Old Albums Back, But Her Re-Records Were Still a Massive Success
It was one of the most ambitious musical endeavors ever, as well as one of the most implacable and successful: Taylor Swift's decision to re-record her back catalog after Scooter Braun's Ithaca Holdings acquired the rights to her first six albums when it purchased Swift's old label, Big Machine. Swift began teasing this project just months after the Ithaca/Big Machine deal closed in 2019, but it wasn't until 2021 that she officially launched the Taylor's Version campaign. She went on to drop re-recorded versions of four albums, starting with Fearless and Red, followed by Speak Now and 1989. Along with completely redoing the original albums, Swift also shared new versions of previously unreleased tunes, most notably a 10-minute version of her masterpiece, 'All Too Well.' More from Rolling Stone How Taylor Won Taylor Swift's Vinyl Records Are on Sale After Revealing She Now Owns All of Her Music Taylor Swift Reveals Why She Hasn't Released 'Reputation TV' Yet: 'I Kept Hitting a Stopping Point' The logic behind the Taylor's Version campaign was bitingly to-the-point: The re-records would allow her to reclaim some control over her music, while it would also ostensibly dilute the value of the original recordings. Swift's fans, devoted as ever, greeted each release with characteristic enthusiasm, and all four Taylor's Version albums topped the Billboard 200 albums chart. On Friday, May 30, Swift announced that she'd finally bought back the rights to her first six albums from Shamrock Holdings (which acquired the catalog from Ithaca in 2020). Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Swift wrote in a letter she was able to complete purchase thanks to the massive success of the Eras Tour and the 'passionate support' her fans showed the re-records. By the numbers, the success of the Taylor's Version records is remarkable. According to data from Luminate, all four albums have garnered at least two billion on-demand streams in the United States since their release, through May 22. Fearless and Speak Now accumulated 2.7 billion and 2.1 billion streams, respectively; Red has racked up 7.5 billion streams; and 1989 has led all four albums with an astonishing 8.2 billion streams. Each re-release spawned several successful singles as well, with new versions of old hits like 'Love Story,' 'Wildest Dreams,' 'Style,' and 'State of Grace' cracking the Top 20 again. While none of those re-recorded songs charted quite as high as the originals ('Love Story' peaked at Number Four, while the TV reached Number 11, for instance), Swift's re-record of her Speak Now favorite 'Enchanted' peaked way higher on the Hot 100 (Number 19) than its original ever did (Number 75). Unsurprisingly, where Swift saw the most success in terms of singles was the 'From the Vault' tracks. Her 10-minute version of 'All Too Well' from Red (Taylor's Version) went to Number One on the Hot 100, becoming the longest chart-topper in history to boot. Meanwhile, Speak Now (Taylor's Version) spawned the vault hit 'I Can See You,' which reached Number 5, while 1989 (Taylor's Version) featured several Top 10 hits: 'Is It Over Now?' (which also hit Number One), 'Now That We Don't Talk,' 'Suburban Legends,' and 'Slut!' Many of Swift's vault collaborations did well, too. 'I Bet You Think About Me' with Chris Stapleton reached Number 22; 'You All Over Me' with Maren Morris hit Number 51; and 'Nothing New' with Phoebe Bridgers peaked at Number 43. Still, the reality of Swift's massive popularity and the tremendous impact of those first six albums, meant it would be difficult for any re-record to outright match, or surpass, the success of the original records. The one that definitely achieved this feat was 1989, with Taylor's Version selling more than 1.3 million copies during its first week, just surpassing the 1.28 million the original sold during its opening week. (Ironically, the announcement of the 1989 re-record caused streams of the original album to double, with fans seeking out the LP in anticipation.) But within the context of the Taylor's Version project, the four re-releases almost certainly achieved their primary objectives: Entertain fans and keep them more engaged than they already were during a four-year span during which Swift also dropped two totally new albums — Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department — and toured the world. And, most importantly, the drew listeners away from the original recordings she did not own. Data from Luminate shows that the Taylor's Version records were a whopping success in this regard. In the period between each TV album release and May 22, only one original album outperformed the re-record: Fearless, which racked up a surprisingly impressive four billion streams compared to the 2.7 for the Taylor's Version. Meanwhile, the original Speak Now was streamed two billion times, just below the Taylor's Version tally of 2.1 billion. As for Red and 1989, the TVs were substantially more successful than the originals. After Red (Taylor's Version) arrived in late 2021, it picked up 7.5 billion streams while the original earned just 3.7 billion. And following the release of 1989 (Taylor's Version) in October 2023, it garnered 8.2 billion streams while the original picked up a comparatively measly three billion. Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
How Taylor Won
It happened — Taylor owns everything. All her songs, all her masters, her life's work. She won. Eight years after her label Big Machine sold off her catalog, Taylor Swift has finally achieved her goal of buying it back herself. The most impossible battle of her career, the most invincible dragon she's ever picked a fight with, the most doomed leap she's ever taken. As she announced in her bombshell public statement on May 30, she bought her catalog from Shamrock Capital, after a six-year struggle for control over her own music. 'The memories,' she wrote. 'The magic. The madness. Every single era. My entire life's work.' It can't be overstated what a victory this is for her, or the ramifications for other artists. This is the independence that generations of musicians have fantasized about, but never gotten close to seeing. 'Long Live' hits different today. 'New Romantics' hits different today. 'Ours' hits different, so does 'Dear John,' 'All Too Well,' 'I Did Something Bad,' and damn, don't even start about 'A Place in This World.' 'It's Time to Go.' All those songs feel bigger right now. It's one of those 'remember this moment' occasions. The patriarchy is having an extremely fucked day. Taylor won. How did this happen? More from Rolling Stone 'I Couldn't Stop Crying': Swifties React as Taylor Swift Reveals She Finally Owns Her Music Taylor Swift Got Her Old Albums Back, But Her Re-Records Were Still a Massive Success Taylor Swift's Vinyl Records Are on Sale After Revealing She Now Owns All of Her Music 'I'm trying to gather my thoughts into something coherent,' Taylor wrote in her bombshell public statement. '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 this close, reaching for it, only for it to fall through. I almost stopped thinking it could 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 that this is really happening. I really get to say these words: 'All of the music I've ever made…now belongs…to me.' Taylor's battle was always much bigger than her. She's taking on the whole issue of artists controlling their own work. When Big Machine boss Scott Borchetta sold her masters to her arch-enemy Scooter Braun in 2019, she wrote, 'He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn't want to be associated with them. In perpetuity. That means forever.' Six years later, she owns herself. Taylor was fighting for a kind of artistic freedom that her heroes never had, from Prince to Joni Mitchell. They never got to own their music, which was why Prince wrote 'Slave' on his face and renounced his name. Even Paul McCartney, the most successful musician ever, had to suck it up, after the Beatles publisher Dick James sold off the Lennon-McCartney song catalog in 1969, while both John and Paul were out of the country. (John was actually on his honeymoon.) Macca lived with this disappointment for decades, and being Macca, he didn't keep quiet about it. But still, he got up there every night and sang 'Hey Jude,' and had to pay for the right to sing it. But Taylor, still only 35, has won control of her work in a way that never seemed possible for artists, even the biggest ones. It's an unprecedented victory—you have to wish Prince had lived to see this day. As she wrote, 'To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it.' As she wrote, 'To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it.' It seemed like a crazy battle for her to carry on — a guaranteed failure, a waste of her time. Yet as she said three years ago at the Tribeca Film Festival, in one of her all-time greatest quotes, 'People often greatly underestimate how much I will inconvenience myself to prove a point.' Her fight began in 2019 when she announced that Borchetta had sold her masters to Braun. 'This is my worst case scenario,' Swift said. Braun was not just any music-biz mogul; he was a man who had seriously bad blood with Swift. (For one thing, he was the manager of a famous male rapper who was bizarrely obsessed with her — can't remember his name right now but he's the guy who just released the summer jam 'Heil Hitler.') For Borchetta to sell her off to Braun was seen as gamesmanship, especially since both men openly strutted about the deal. To the general public, it looked like they were going out of their way to make her mad, and it's safe to say they succeeded. Talk about a 'be careful what you wish for' situation. But when she raged about it, the industry response was basically: You're on your own, kid. Sorry, but that's the music business. Welcome to the big leagues. Unfair or not, that's how it works. All your old-school heroes, they all had to shut up and live with this, so what makes you special? This is the business we've chosen, remember? There was a bit of bemusement that she was taking this so personally. It was just proof that she was an emotional girl who didn't have a head for business and didn't get how things worked in the grown-up world. 'For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work,' Taylor wrote at the time. '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.' But big deal — Scooter was just playing the game. As Bloomberg reported, 'All along it's been clear she was using personal animus towards him to make a few larger points about the music business.' Maybe she had some valid points about artists' rights. But as Bloomberg sniffed, 'Swift was never the ideal messenger.' She lashed back in 2019 by announcing plans to re-record all six of her albums, in new versions that she would own. Every single person in the music industry — every last one of them — assumed she was bluffing. She wasn't. Since the Taylor's Version project became a blockbuster, nobody wants to admit now they thought it was a dumb idea, just as nobody wants to admit they booed Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival. It only looks like a brilliant move in hindsight, especially since it led to the Eras Tour phenomenon. But there was no precedent for any artist attempting this, much less getting away with it. Everybody thought it was crazy, even if they were rooting for her. Anyone who tells you different is a liar (and pathetic, and alone in life). Controlling her own music was obviously a silly thing to even talk about — just a childish fantasy. It was another one of those doomed quests that Taylor has always kept taking on — like her fight with Apple Music over artists' rights, or her legal fight against the male DJ who groped her at a concert. (Combat, she's ready for combat.) She'll pick the battles that seem crazy, or beneath her, and turn them into major victories. Other artists were stunned she had the nerve to try Taylor's Version. SZA called it 'the biggest 'fuck you' to the establishment I've ever seen in my life, and I deeply applaud that shit.' But it was the fight of her life, and she won. As Taylor wrote today, '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.' Today is that day, and it's a major victory for artists. Her statement has so many ramifications for her fans. For one thing, we can now listen to the old version of 'Holy Ground' with a clear conscience, since sorry, but the Red (Taylor's Version) mix blew it with the rhythm track. (Try it again, Taylor—hell, you own it now. Take all the do-overs you want.) Taylor also announced that she has barely begun work on Reputation TV. This can only mean she's about to drop Reputation TV. 'Full transparency: I haven't even re-recorded a quarter of it,' she wrote. '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. There will be a time (if you're into the idea) for the unreleased vault tracks from that album to hatch.' As for 'full transparency,' yeah well — this is the artist who posted 'Not a lot going on at the moment' the day she wrote 'Cardigan.' We all know better than to trust her. She loves to deceive, to mislead, to disrupt. She's fooled us before; she will never NOT fool us. Don't be surprised if we get Rep TV this weekend. Taylor also spelled 'thiiiiiiiiiiiis close' with the letter 'i' 12 times, which may or may not be a hint about TS12, just like water may or may not be wet. She added that her debut album has been totally re-recorded. 'I really love how it sounds now,' Taylor said, which probably means she's adjusted the accent a tiny bit. 'Those two albums can still have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right, if that would be something you guys would still be excited about.' Oh, the modesty. Yes, people will be slightly excited. The audience has been fiending for Debutation TV for way too long, the last two missing pieces of the Taylor's Version puzzle. She made headlines this week by not announcing these albums at the American Music Awards (or even showing up). 'But if it happens,' she wrote, 'It won't be a place of sadness and longing for what I wish I could have. It will just be a celebration now.' Today is a celebration for sure, and it's a celebration Taylor Swift has earned. Nobody thought this victory was possible. She had the time of her life fighting this dragon—even though nobody thought the dragon could lose. But she won. She did something bad, and it feels so good. Long live. Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
