It’s a blessed day for Swifties and those who believe in artistic ownership! That’s right: It’s the day of the release Red (Taylor version)!!!!
We are blessed with this extended edition of the multiplatinum album (including a 10-minute version of the absolute banger “All Too Well”), because original master recordings does not belong to Taylor Swift. ONE the private equity firm owns the masters to Swift’s first album after buying them from Scooter Braun, who put them on the market after buying Swift’s first label, Big Machine Label Group. Swift tried to buy the footage, but was unsuccessful.
To offset the money the sale earns (a deal that would continue to benefit Scooter Braun financially), Swift announced almost exactly a year ago that she would re-record her first six albums and republish them, thereby diluting the value of her original master recordings.
According to the report in Financial Times, the new owners of Los Angeles private equity firm Shamrock tried to get out of the deal:
While shopping around the masters, potential buyers told them that Swift might not actually follow up on her threats, and the publicity generated by her anger only increased listening to the old catalog, according to three people who contacted to buy the asset. “The message was: the controversy has been great for us. Every time she turns us on online, people go and listen to those songs,” said one of these people. That pitch sounded sensible enough. After all, what pop star who is looking right now would bother spending years of their lives recreating decades of old work?
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Swift is a calculating business owner who has already recorded two albums during the lockdown simply because it was fun and she did not have to spend two years in Love album promotion cycle. Why would Swift not take the time to re-record his material? Imagine a private equity firm not doing enough due diligence on one of the world’s most supervised superstars to believe that Swift would not take advantage of the time inside to preserve its artistic integrity. The woman once wrote a song about Katy Perry sniper staff!
It told a hedge fund manager who was contacted to buy the catalog FT: “To extract maximum value from music assets, you absolutely need, if not collaboration from the artist, you at least need them to not be actively angry.”
Of course, the singer-songwriter businessman is angry! She has been very clear in her views. Swift issued an op-ed on the rights of artists to own their work and be fairly compensated in Wall Street Journal, also known as America’s most boring newspaper, but a newspaper read by Business People ™. She is an artist and business owner. And Swift’s belief in artistic ownership has certainly taken root in her desire to be mega-rich have a the result of all her hard work. That is obviously a firm belief! Despite the overtly strained father-daughter relationship exhibited in Miss Americana documentary, I think banker / music director Scott Swift has drilled “get paid for your work” sufficiently into her head.
Although her father’s financial background has nothing to do with it, Swift has been open about the importance of legal aid and money. Yes, I’m talking about her Vogue “73 Questions ”video.
Good luck to Swift in her attempt to thwart a private equity firm’s attempt to extract maximum profit from its acquisitions!
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