Currently, Taylor Swift is basking in the unprecedented success of her new album ‘Midnights’. Taylor devised a new campaign to tease the album with her ‘Midnight Mayhems’ videos revamping her promotional strategies. Nevertheless, the album was released on October 21st, 2022, and became an instantaneous success for the artist. It became the most-streamed album in the history of Spotify while breaking other records.
However, the country-turned-pop artist has had a tradition to re-record her already-released and recorded albums. The tradition started with her 2008 album ‘Fearless’. In 2021, Swift re-released the album titled ‘Fearless (Taylor’s Version)’. This 30-tracks LP did better commercially and on charts than the original version. In the same year, she released ‘Red (Taylor’s Version) with which she also released the visual imagery for ‘All Too Well’. But, why is she revamping her previous albums?
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Why Is Taylor Swift Re-Recording Her Already Released Albums?
The story goes back to when Swift was 15 years old and she was just starting her career as a country singer. When she started, she signed a contract with Big Machine Label. So, when an artist signs a contract with a label, the label will have the copyrights over the originally recorded music, which are called ‘masters’. So, all the studio albums that she recorded right from her self-titled album in 2006 to ‘reputation’ in 2017, the masters are owned by Big Machines Label.
Currently, Swift is under contract with Universal Music Group since 2018. But in June 2019, Scooter Braun, a well-established exec and manager took over the Big Machine Label for a whopping $300 million deal. Scooter and the singer did not have the best of relationships. Taylor Swift called him “a bully”.
In 2019, she took to her Tumblr to express her discontent. She wrote, “This is what happens when you sign a deal at 15 to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept. And when that man says ‘music has value’, he means its value is beholden to men who had no part in creating it.” In 2020, Braun sold all her masters to Shamrock Holdings.
Since the ‘Blank Space’ has got into a new deal with Universal Music Group, she can re-record her albums and mint new songs, and better experience for the fans. So, once she re-records, she can allow movies, advertisements, and others to use it.
Been getting a lot of questions about the recent sale of my old masters. I hope this clears things up. pic.twitter.com/sscKXp2ibD
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) November 16, 2020
In 2019, she told Billboard “Every week, we get a dozen sync requests to use ‘Shake It Off’ in some advertisement or ‘Blank Space’ in some movie trailer, and we say no to every single one of them. And the reason I’m rerecording my music next year is because I do want my music to live on. I do want it to be in movies, I do want it to be in commercials. But I only want that if I own it.”
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How Can Taylor Re-Record The Music If She Does Not Own It?
In 2019, during a Good Morning America interview, Taylor was asked if she is going to re-record her first six albums. The ‘folklore’ artist responded, “Yeah, that’s true and it’s something that I’m very excited about doing because my contract says that starting Nov. 2020, so next year, I can record albums one-five all over again. I’m very excited about it. Continuing she said, “Because I think that artists deserve to own their work. I feel very passionate about that… it’s next year. It’s right around the corner. I’m gonna be busy. I’m really excited.”
But, can she re-record music she does not own? Absolutely! Fortunately, Taylor Swift is a skilled songwriter, so she has written all the songs that she has recorded. Due to this, she can re-record the music, but not like the original. As per TMZ, Big Machine Labels had a clause in the contract that restricted Taylor from any re-records that sounded like the original. That’s why all the ‘Taylor’s Versions’ are different sonically.
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