Arguably the biggest contributor to Taylor Swift‘s success is her storytelling through her song writing that has been at the core of her career’s foundation since the very first days of her stardom.
From her self-titled album back in 2006 to her third Grammy-winning album Folklore in 2021, she has effectively etched her name in music history as one of the industry’s most successful, impactful, and talented artists with her original songs and personal stories throughout the years.
However, it may come as a massive surprise that the globally-renowned artist doesn’t actually legally own the master rights to her first six albums. That’s from Taylor Swift (2006) **to Reputation (2017). Her old label, Big Machine Records, retained its ownership of these albums even after she left the label to sign with Republic Records and Universal Music Group in November 2018. This means that all royalty and streaming profits, as well as publication and distribution rights, fall under the jurisdiction of Big Machine Records. Not Taylor Swift.
A second layer to this issue is the fact that BMG has recently been bought by Scooter Braun, a man who, Swift revealed in an emotional Tumblr post, has “incessantly bullied” her for years:
“Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter. Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. 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.”
With her life’s work held hostage by corporate greed and by the last person she would want to profit off of her music, Swift publicly announced in August 2019 that she would be rerecording and rereleasing her first six albums to regain its master rights.
For us and the rest of the world, this just means more good music and an excuse to revisit nostalgic memories singing “Love Story” and “You Belong With Me” at the top of our lungs in-between high school classes. But more than that, these rereleased albums make up a powerful statement that goes out to all artists—especially young women who are often manipulated—to take ownership of their work and fight back. If anything, Swift’s impact and outspokenness on the issue spreads more awareness for young artists to avoid making the same mistakes.
“Thankfully, I am now signed to a label that believes I should own anything I create.. And hopefully, young artists or kids with musical dreams will read this and learn about how to better protect themselves in a negotiation. You deserve to own the art you make.”
With that, Taylor Swift has yet again reignited Swifties’ love for the “Fearless” album with its original songs and a few “From the Vault” tracks that have never seen the light of day beforehand.
On its release day, April 9, old T. Swift classics dominated Twitter’s global trending topics with tweet after tweet of young adults reminiscing their childhood and teenage years spent with this very album as the soundtrack of their lives. As the world listened to the same album on repeat, “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” has even broken records originally held by her previous albums.
Even more cause for celebration is the fact that we have five more albums to look forward to, with additional, originally “Vaulted”, songs from her repertoire. With this, her music is also reintroduced to a younger generation of music fans who might have only heard of Swift from her most recent pop and folk releases.
Soon they’ll have six albums of mixed genres with Swift’s trademark songwriting skills to fall in love with all over again, or for the first time ever.
(Article updated on 07 July 2023)