Taylor Swift has hit out at Big Machine Records after it was revealed they were releasing an album of live performances of her old songs. But that persona hides Swift’s savvy: she’s long understood that artists, even those with brands as powerful as hers, are vulnerable to exploitation.Taylor Swift posted a lengthy statement to her Instagram account. That this financial nitty-gritty is what excited Swift most might seem at odds with her image as a singer-songwriter who performs on sets that look like a cottage in a fairy-tale forest. “There was one condition that meant more to me than any other deal point,” she wrote at the time: ensuring that profits from the future sale of Spotify shares would be returned to artists. Greater equity was the central consideration of Swift’s label change-along with greater certainty that all who contributed to making the art itself would benefit from their work. As the business grows, the musician is left with a smaller and smaller piece of that pie. Every musician is a business, a startup with limited equity to portion out to labels, publishers and other stakeholders. What’s truly different about Swift’s “new” work is the intention behind it, and developments that have brought her to the place to own it. The new release also includes a changed lyric following years of complaints that a line from “Better Than Revenge” could be read as slut-shaming. Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) includes six songs from the vault, featuring Paramore’s Hayley Williams and Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump. Swift is also sharing a number of new tracks from what she calls her “vault,” beginning with “You All Over Me” with Maren Morris. Not much her re-recordings are, so far, faithful to their original versions-with some subtle production updates, and the newfound maturity in her voice that an extra decade has provided. What’s different about Taylor Swift’s new work? Swift is in the rare position to want to upend the system and actually have the power to do so. Meanwhile, the fans who are the most active streamers of her old music have become well aware of her intentions-and will abide by her wishes. Given her unique position, platforms like Spotify have everything to gain by supporting her new versions. And she is meticulous about how her work is consumed and perceived, from the aesthetics of her album covers to the comments she makes on Tumblr fan blogs. She had time-a whole year of it, while the pandemic put her touring schedule on pause. But rarely do they go through the hassle of re-recording and re-releasing old work. “But the most screamingly obvious one is that the artist is the only one who really knows that body of work.” Her choice stirred up responses across the music world, and forced the public to take a long look at the music industry’s quiet corporate machinations.Īrtists regularly chafe against their record label contracts see Kanye West, who very publicly vented against his own contractual obligations in 2020 (before a series of escalating controversies moved the conversation further and further from his music). “Artists should own their own work for so many reasons,” she wrote in a March 2021 Instagram post. Her hope, it seems, is to override those archival works with these new versions. People change, and so do the contracts that govern them. Changing labels, carving out more agency, updating contract terms-these steps are par for the course for a successful artist. In her new contract, Swift made sure to secure ownership of her future masters. Big Machine owns the masters, or original recordings, of her first six albums, as is typical with many recording deals. When her deal was up, she switched labels to Universal’s Republic Records. The contract expired in 2018 but not before she rocketed to radio-play heights with hits like “I Knew You Were Trouble” and crossed into the pop stratosphere with sold-out stadium tours over the course of six albums. Swift signed to Big Machine Records in 2005, a fresh-faced Nashville singer with a guitar and long blond hair. But Swift has power that most don’t, and her very personal fight to reshape the way wealth is distributed from creative work is a potential model for wrestling compensation back from industry forces. It’s a pipe dream for artists of any kind. Her goal now: make sure it stays within her control. Art also makes money, and Swift is equally adept at that. Art makes us feel things, a craft at which Swift is a master. But behind it all is an artist who’s been fighting for years now to manage the means, method of production, and distribution of her work.
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