Following a threat that rocked the music business and started conversations across the industry about artistic ownership, Taylor Swift announced on Thursday that he would release a newly recorded version of “Fearless”, his second and most successful album, as part of a long term plan to control your old songs at once.
“This process was more rewarding and emotional than I could have imagined and made me even more determined to re-record all my songs,” said the singer, 31, in a statement on social media. She added that the release of her re-recordings would begin at midnight with the release of a new version of the song “Love Story” – now called “Love Story (Taylor Version)” – her first Billboard Top 10 single, just in time. for Valentine’s Day.
“Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” will be released on April 9 and will feature 26 songs in total, including hits like “You Belong With Me” and “Fifteen”, along with six new tracks written when Swift was a teenager. “‘Fearless’ was an album full of magic and curiosity, the happiness and devastation of youth,” wrote Swift.
First released in 2008 on the Nashville Big Machine label, “Fearless” represented the discovery of Swift’s mainstream outside of country music and won four Grammy awards, including the album of the year, on the way to selling over 10 million copies in the United States. United States. Like most artists, Swift did not control the rights to her recordings, which belonged to the label, although she owned some property, along with her collaborating composers, in the separate rights to the compositions of her songs, known as publishing.
In 2019, not long after Swift signed a different contract with Universal Music Group that gave him the rights of his masters in the future, the powerful music executive Scooter Braun bought Big Machine – and with it, the master recordings of the first six albums Swift’s multiplatinum – in a $ 300 million deal that included an investment by the private equity firm Carlyle Group.
At the time, Swift said the business “took my job out of my life” and placed his catalog “in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it”. (Braun, who represents artists like Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, previously worked with Kanye West, Swift’s longtime rival; she accused Braun of “relentless and manipulative intimidation”, which he denied.) His fans reacted with a campaign of public pressure on social media.
Swift’s previous catalog changed hands again: Braun Ithaca Holdings’ company sold the rights to Swift’s music – the albums “Taylor Swift”, “Fearless”, “Speak Now”, “Red”, “1989” and “Reputation “- for Shamrock Capital, an investment firm founded by Roy E. Disney, Walt Disney’s nephew, for more than $ 300 million. Swift said he declined a partnership offer with Shamrock, citing Braun’s continued financial involvement.
But before the second sale, Swift had already indicated that he planned to create a new set of major recordings that matched those she didn’t have, potentially devaluing the original assets.
The owner of a master recording controls its use, including selling albums or licensing music for films, television, advertisements or video games. Although an artist can still receive royalties for these recordings, record companies have historically retained the rights of masters in exchange for the financial risks they take in supporting and promoting an artist.
By creating new original recordings of her older songs, Swift, one of the music’s most powerful celebrities and more, not only encourages her loyal legions of fans to broadcast and buy the versions she owns, but can also encourage brands, filmmakers and other potential corporate partners to avoid using the originals. In December, Swift introduced the new “Love Story” in an ad for the Match dating service.
Swift is not the first artist to attempt such a maneuver, although she may be the highest profile and most dedicated to the project. Standard recording contracts typically include terms that prevent artists from releasing re-recorded works for three to five years or more from their initial release – restrictions that became common after the Everly Brothers released new versions of previous hits on a new label in the early 1960s.
Since then, Def Leppard has released what they called “fakes” of their biggest hits during a dispute with their label, while pop singer Jojo released newly recorded versions of their first two albums, which were not available on streaming services in 2018, after its rewrite clauses expired.
Swift said on “Good Morning America” in 2019 that her contracts allowed her to re-record her first five albums starting in November 2020. “I think artists deserve to own their work,” she said. “I feel very passionate about it.”
Artists like Prince, Janet Jackson and Jay-Z had previously emphasized the importance of musicians having their own masters; Swift’s public missives on the subject seemed to revitalize the conversation for a new generation. In 2018, when she left Big Machine, where she first signed at the age of 15, Swift announced a multi-album agreement with Universal Music Group and its subsidiary, Republic Records, where she would own her recordings.
That deal covered 2019’s “Lover” and Swift’s two pandemic albums last year, “Folklore” and “Evermore”. The singer has six Grammy nominations next month, including the album of the year for “Folklore” – her fourth career nomination in that category and possibly her third win.