Taylor Swift regains control of her music, buys back first 6 albums
The pop star said she purchased her catalog of recordings — originally released through Big Machine Records — from their most recent owner, the private equity firm Shamrock Capital. She did not disclose the amount
New York: Taylor Swift has regained control over her entire body of work. In a lengthy note posted to her official website on Friday, Swift announced: “All of the music I’ve ever made now belongs to me.” The pop star said she purchased her catalog of recordings — originally released through Big Machine Records — from their most recent owner, the private equity firm Shamrock Capital. She did not disclose the amount.
In recent years, Swift has been rerecording and releasing her first six albums in an attempt to regain control of her music. “I can’t thank you enough for helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to, but have never owned until now,” Swift addressed fans in the post. “The best things that have ever been mine … finally actually are.”
“We are thrilled with this outcome and are so happy for Taylor,” Shamrock Capital said in a statement. Swift’s re-recordings were instigated by Hybe America CEO Scooter Braun’s purchase and sale of her early catalog and represents Swift’s effort to control her own songs and how they’re used.
Previous “Taylor’s Version” releases have been more than conventional re-recordings, arriving with new “from the vault” music, Easter eggs and visuals that deepen understanding of her work. “I am happy for her,” Braun said on Friday.
She has also released new music, including last year’s “The Tortured Poets Department,” announced during the 2024 Grammys and released during her record-breaking tour.
So far, there have been four re-recorded albums, beginning with “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” and “Red (Taylor’s Version)” in 2021. All four have been massive commercial and cultural successes, each one debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
Swift’s last re-recording, “1989 (Taylor’s Version)”, arrived in October 2023, just four months after the release of “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).” That was the same year Swift claimed the record for the woman with the most No. 1 albums in history.
Fans have theorised that “Reputation (Taylor’s Version)” would be next: On May 19, “Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor’s Version)” aired nearly in full during the opening scene of a season six episode of “The Handmaid’s Tale”.
Prior to that, the song was teased in 2023’s Prime Video limited-series thriller “Wilderness” and in Apple TV+’s “The Dynasty: New England Patriots” in 2024. Also in 2023, she contributed “Delicate (Taylor’s Version)” to Prime Video’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty.”
But according to the note shared Friday, Swift says she hasn’t “even re-recorded a quarter of it.” She did say, however, that she has completely re-recorded her self-titled debut album “and I really love how it sounds now.” Swift writes that both her self-titled debut and “Reputation (Taylor’s Version)” “can still have their moments to reemerge when the time is right.” Representatives for Swift and HYBE did not immediately respond to request for comment.
