After releasing “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” in April of 2021, Taylor Swift has moved on to the next album in her re-recording process, “Red (Taylor’s Version) was released on November 12, 2021.
The new two hour long album consists of 28 songs; including the original 19 songs, and the additional 9 songs from the “Red Vault.” Songs from the vault includes collaborations with Phoebe Bridgers, Ed Sheeran, Mark Foster and Chris Stapleton. A fan-favorite song, “All Too Well,” that was once five and a half minutes, now has a ten minute long version, along with “All Too Well: The Short Film” which was a film written/directed by Swift and stars Dylan O’Brien as well as Sadie Sink.
When Taylor Swift first entered the music industry at around 15 years old in 2005, she signed with Big Machine Records, which was founded by Scott Borcetta. Swift’s contract was set to expire in 2018. Within those twelve years, she released six albums. The master recordings for those albums however, were still owned by the company and not Taylor Swift.
Following the release of “Reputation” in 2018, the contract expired and Taylor Swift signed with Universal Republic Records. Swift was not hesitant to sign with another company. Now, Swift would have ownership over any future albums she created. However, she still did not have ownership of her first six albums. All hope was soon lost for this being changed when her masters were privately sold twice. After leaving Big Machine Records, the master recordings of Swift’s first six albums were sold to a company owned by Scooter Bruan, called Ithaca Holdings. Braun then sold the recordings to Shamrock Holdings, in an assumed over 300 million dollar deal.
In a tweet from November 16, 2020, Taylor Swift explained the situation and her plans for moving forward. Swift began by explaining that “Scooter’s team wanted [Swift] to an ironclad NDA,” this would state that Swift “would never say another word about Scooter Braun unless it was positive.” Swift’s legal team explained that, “they had never seen an NDA like this presented unless it was to silence an assault accuser by paying them off.” Scooter Braun will still continue to profit off of Taylor Swift’s original music; now fans plan to only to listen to the re-records, as opposed to the original albums, giving Swift the credit and profit she should have always had.
In her recent interview with Seth Meyers, Swift explains that “most [people’s] favorite artists do not own their work.” Additionally she expresses that, “several years ago [she] made it very clear that [she] wanted to be able to buy [her] music” and unfortunately, “that opportunity was not given to [her], and it was sold to somebody else.” Swift continues to say, “I was the one who made this music first, I can just make it again.” Swift also mentions that she now gets to do things “that [she] knows [fans] wish [she] would have done the first time.”
Taylor Swift is now almost halfway done with her re-recording journey, and continues to work tirelessly to gain ownership over her work.
