The most well-known pop diva in the world has finally purchased the rights to her master recordings, which is a victory for her and possibly a significant one for the industry.
Taylor Swift has won a lot of awards in the last few years, which should go without saying. Primarily, there was the wildly popular Eras Tour, which turned into the all-time best-selling concert tour and a legitimate cultural epoch in its own right. Her distribution strategy upended the theatrical business when she launched the best-selling concert film ever. There was another Grammy for album of the year. She made the Super Bowl a romantic comedy. Despite receiving only average reviews from critics, her last album, The Tortured Poets Department, broke more streaming records than I can remember.
Her self-styled narrative as an underdog, the emotionally astute lyricist fighting against a sliding scale of villains, from careless boys, bitchy girls, and heartbreak to gossip, criticism, and misogynistic double standards, was irksomely at odds with all of these beyond impressive, if occasionally threatening overexposure. The targets are frequently trivial; I hope to never hear another allusion to Kim Kardashian. However, on Friday, Swift announced that she had bought the master recordings of her first six albums, probably the biggest win of her career. Swift defeated the music industry’s depreciating methods, the only opponent worthy of her reputation.
Since Scooter Braun, best known as Justin Bieber’s music manager, bought Swift’s master recordings from her former label Big Machine Records for $300 million in 2019, ownership of her masters has been the driving force behind the last six years of Swift’s career, for those who do not follow what has become canon in Swift’s enormous fandom. Swift, like almost all new musicians, had signed a contract that only guaranteed her profits from the sale of her records, not ownership of them. Swift stated at the time that the sale “stripped me of my life’s work” and left her catalog “in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.” (Kanye West, a longstanding Swift irritant, was once managed by Braun.) Swift re-recorded each album under the moniker “Taylor’s Version” for the next six years, even after Braun sold the catalog to private equity firm Shamrock Capital for $360 million. This was a brilliant business move that simultaneously devalued the originals, stoked nostalgia, and prepared the way for the Eras Tour.
According to Swift, owning her master recordings, all of her music videos, concert films, album art, photographs, and unreleased songs holds great personal significance. In a handwritten letter announcing the acquisition, she said, “To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it.” The message was uploaded on her website. “I’ve only ever wanted the chance to work hard enough to eventually be able to buy my music outright, with no partnerships, no strings attached, and complete autonomy.”
However, it is also a triumph that feels larger than Swift herself for the first time in this period. Swift’s enormous fortune and influence have made it possible for her to own her masters, which is a modest step toward openness and artistic integrity in the music business. Swift’s ability to choose a worthy target, even if that target frequently takes the form of Braun (who, for the record, stated he’s “happy for her”), is demonstrated by the fact that we’re even discussing master recording ownership and that millions of music fans now doubt the business standard of recording industry contracts. Swift added, “I’m really encouraged by the discussions this story has rekindled among artists and fans in my industry.” “I’m reminded of how crucial it was for all of this to occur every time a new artist tells me that they negotiated to own their master recordings in their record contract because of this fight.”
Swift is in her finest crusader mode right now; she is focused on her job, aware of the stakes, and speaking as a songwriter in what is arguably the one field in which she still has something to fight for. Her showcasing her extraordinary influence over the music industry for artists’ rights is one of her most enduring battles, despite the fact that it is frequently obscured by rumors and her personal life in ways that are both self-inflected and expected by a culture that enjoys seeing women fail. Her album 1989 was removed off Apple Music’s streaming service due to an open letter stating that the firm will not pay royalties to artists for the first three months of the service. Or her 2014 Woman of the Year speech from Billboard, in which she demanded that writers, musicians, and producers be paid more fairly. She brought up this issue five years later when she accepted Woman of the Decade in 2019, and it’s worth listening to again to see the difference between the fights that resonate and those that rankle. The part when she changed her image and voice to please critics? The most human aspect of Swift’s unfathomable fame is her sensitivity to criticism and bone-deep yearning for popularity, which is so out of character for her status as perhaps the most famous woman on the planet that I find adorable. Flop, mild applause, is only one of many examples of this. “The unregulated world of private equity coming in and buying up our music as if it is real estate, as if it is an app or a shoe line”—that’s the point where she expressly criticizes it. It’s the clearest, sharpest voice she’s ever had, and it sounds good.
The re-record effort is still underway, so even while the acquisition of her masters feels a little like a settlement out of court before the whole trial, this is the victory that might have the biggest long-term impact on musicians and music lovers. This is power properly leveraged upward, much as how her criticism of Ticketmaster and fan annoyance over the Eras Tour ticket purchasing process sparked attempts to reform ticket transparency and dismantle the Live Nation monopoly. She replied to her admirers, “Thank you for showing interest in something that was once considered too industry-centric for general discussion.” “You have no idea how much your concern means to me. All of it contributed to our current situation. This is a Swift win that deserves applause, Swiftie or not.
