The global superstar owns the masters of her first six albums, including concert recordings and artwork
In a shocking announcement, Taylor Swift now owns the masters to her first six albums released via Big Machine Label Group. The global superstar shared the news via a handwritten letter to fans on her website.
“All of the music I’ve ever made… now belongs… to me. All of my music videos. All the concert films. The album art and photography. The unreleased songs. The memories. The magic. The madness. Ever single era. My entire life’s work,” she exclaims.
“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 that I meticulous re-recorded and released four of my albums, call 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.”
Terms of the deal are undisclosed, but Swift thanks fans for the success of The Eras Tour as her way to purchase them.
“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 says. “I will be forever be 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 also confirms that the Reputation and Taylor Swift “Taylor’s Version” re-recordings are still coming.
“Full transparency: I haven’t even re-recorded a quarter of it,” she states. 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. There will be a time (if you’re into the idea) for the unreleased Vault tracks from that album to hatch. I’ve already completely re-recorded my entire debut album,a nd 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.”
For years, Swift has been at odds with Big Machine Label Group over the acquisition of the masters for her first six albums. In 2019, current label owner Scooter Braun, who’s Ithaca Holdings LLC purchased the label mid-2019, sold them to Shamrock Holdings for upwards of $300 million. Swift says she had attempted to purchase the masters to no avail while also being caught up in live performing rights of the same songs. She decided to re-record her first six projects, four of which have been released and broke records with her fans clamoring for more.
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