She read you should never leave a fight unresolved — and so she only went and won it. Taylor Swift has bought her masters outright, with “no strings attached, no partnership, with full autonomy,” as she told fans in a letter published on her website on Friday.
Following a lengthy battle during which Swift’s original record label Big Machine sold the masters to Scooter Braun, the singer-songwriter has now acquired her first six albums, music videos, concert films, album art and photography, unreleased songs, her “entire life’s work,” from Shamrock Holdings.
For fans like myself, this is an emotional moment. Swift was clearly bereft over losing the opportunity to own her masters, and has described her victory in owning her work outright as her “greatest dream come true.” Her Eras Tour, which took place throughout 2023 and 2024, was a celebration of her musical legacy thus far, which allowed those of us lucky enough to attend the opportunity to revel in all of the music Swift has put out into the world — whether she owned it at the time or not.
In a bid to gain ownership of her masters, Swift rerecorded and released four out of her first six albums — Fearless, Speak Now, Red and 1989 — with the suffix “(Taylor’s Version)” and previously unreleased songs, known as “Vault Tracks.” In her letter on Friday, Swift revealed that she has also rerecorded her debut album, Taylor Swift, in full, but hasn’t rerecorded her sixth album Reputation. She added that at some point, she may release the Reputation vault tracks, which she previously described as “fire,” and debut (Taylor’s Version), but had no plans to do so immediately.
It’s been tricky for Swifties to stream the original versions of Swift’s records over the past few years, as the royalties have directly benefitted those who bought Swift’s masters without her consent. But now that she owns all of her music again, it’s fair game to listen to the originals on Spotify, Apple Music or whichever streaming service you subscribe to.
So even though Reputation (Taylor’s Version) and Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version) won’t be coming to streaming services anytime soon, I know what I’ll be doing tonight. I’ll be celebrating this victory by blasting I’m Only Me When I’m With You, and my other top tracks off Swift’s criminally underrated first album on Spotify — while still crossing my fingers that one day I can do the same with unreleased vault track, I’d Lie.
