{"id":34422,"date":"2025-05-30T22:43:16","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T22:43:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/30\/how-taylor-won\/"},"modified":"2025-05-30T22:43:16","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T22:43:16","slug":"how-taylor-won","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/30\/how-taylor-won\/","title":{"rendered":"How Taylor Won"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\tIt happened \u2014 Taylor owns everything. All her songs, all her masters, her life\u2019s work. Eight years after her label Big Machine sold off her catalog, Taylor Swift<\/a> has finally achieved her goal of buying it back herself. The most impossible battle of her career, the most invincible dragon she\u2019s ever picked a fight with, the most doomed leap she\u2019s ever taken. As she announced in her bombshell public statement on May 30, she bought her catalog from Shamrock Capital, after a six-year struggle for control over her own music. \u201cThe memories,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThe magic. The madness. Every single era. My entire life\u2019s work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt can\u2019t be overstated what a victory this is for her, or the ramifications for other artists. This is the independence that generations of musicians have fantasized about, but never gotten close to seeing. \u201cLong Live\u201d hits different today. \u201cNew Romantics\u201d hits different today. \u201cOurs\u201d hits different, so does \u201cDear John,\u201d \u201cAll Too Well,\u201d \u201cI Did Something Bad,\u201d and damn, don\u2019t even start about \u201cA Place in This World.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s Time to Go.\u201d All those songs feel bigger right now. It\u2019s one of those \u201cremember this moment\u201d occasions. The patriarchy is having an extremely fucked day. Taylor won. How did this happen?<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m trying to gather my thoughts into something coherent,\u201d Taylor wrote in her bombshell public statement. \u201cBut right now my mind is just a slideshow. A flashback sequence of all the times I daydreamed about, wished for, and pined away for a chance to get to tell you this news. All the times I was this close, reaching for it, only for it to fall through. I almost stopped thinking it could happen, after 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away. But that\u2019s all in the past now. I\u2019ve been bursting into tears of joy at random intervals ever since I found that this is really happening. I really get to say these words:<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAll of the music I\u2019ve ever made\u2026now belongs\u2026to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tTaylor\u2019s battle was always much bigger than her. She\u2019s taking on the whole issue of artists controlling their own work. When Big Machine boss Scott Borchetta sold her masters to her arch-enemy Scooter Braun in 2019, she wrote<\/a>, \u201cHe knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn\u2019t want to be associated with them. In perpetuity. That means forever.\u201d Six years later, she owns herself.<\/p>\n

\n\tTaylor happened to make this announcement on May 30, exactly 112 days after the Super Bowl, which was February 7. Is that a coincidence? What, are you new here? There\u2019s a popular fan theory that she does things in 112-day cycles, because 112 was the number of songs in her catalog when Big Machine sold it off. The Super Bowl was her last big public moment, when she came to the game to support her boyfriend Travis Kelce. Otherwise, she\u2019s kept a low profile since the end of the Eras Tour, her longest blackout zone since the first half of 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut she broke her 112-day media fast with her bombshell today. So if it\u2019s a coincidence, let\u2019s just call it a very Taylor kind of coincidence. Because she\u2019s got all 112 of her babies back. As she wrote, \u201cTo say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTaylor was fighting for a kind of artistic freedom that her heroes never had, from Prince to Joni Mitchell. They never got to own their music, which was why Prince wrote \u201cSlave\u201d on his face and renounced his name. Even Paul McCartney, the most successful musician ever, had to suck it up, after the Beatles publisher Dick James sold off the Lennon-McCartney song catalog in 1969, while both John and Paul were out of the country. (John was actually on his honeymoon.) Macca lived with this disappointment for decades, and being Macca, he didn\u2019t keep quiet about it. But still, he got up there every night and sang \u201cHey Jude,\u201d and had to pay for the right to sing it.<\/p>\n

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\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tBut Taylor, still only 35, has won control of her work in a way that never seemed possible for artists, even the biggest ones. It seemed like a crazy battle for her to carry on \u2014 a guaranteed failure, a waste of her time. Yet as she said three years ago at the Tribeca Film Festival, in one of her all-time greatest quotes, \u201cPeople often greatly underestimate how much I will inconvenience myself to prove a point.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHer fight began in 2019 when she announced that Borchetta had sold her masters to Braun. \u201cThis is my worst case scenario,\u201d Swift said. Braun was not just any music-biz mogul; he was a man who had seriously bad blood with Swift. (For one thing, he was the manager of a famous male rapper who was bizarrely obsessed with her \u2014 can\u2019t remember his name right now but he\u2019s the guy who just released the summer jam \u201cHeil Hitler.\u201d)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Borchetta to sell her off to Braun was seen as gamesmanship, especially since both men publicly strutted about the deal. To the general public, it looked like they were going out of their way to make her mad, and it\u2019s safe to say they succeeded. Talk about a \u201cbe careful what you wish for\u201d situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut when she raged about it, the industry response was basically: You\u2019re on your own, kid.<\/em> Sorry, but that\u2019s the music business. Welcome to the big leagues. Unfair or not, that\u2019s how it works. All your old-school heroes, they all had to shut up and live with this, so what makes you special? This is the business we\u2019ve chosen, remember? There was a bit of bemusement that she was taking this so personally. It was just proof that she was an emotional girl who didn\u2019t have a head for business and didn\u2019t get how things worked in the grown-up world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work,\u201d Taylor wrote at the time. \u201cWhen I left my masters in Scott\u2019s hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them. Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter.\u201d But big deal \u2014 Scooter was just playing the game. As Bloomberg <\/a>reported, \u201cAll along it\u2019s been clear she was using personal animus towards him to make a few larger points about the music business.\u201d Maybe she had some valid points about artists\u2019 rights. But as Bloomberg sniffed, \u201cSwift was never the ideal messenger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe lashed back in 2019 by announcing plans to re-record all six of her albums, in new versions that she would own. Every single person in the music industry \u2014 every last one of them \u2014 assumed she was bluffing. She wasn\u2019t. Since the Taylor\u2019s Version<\/em> project became a blockbuster, nobody wants to admit now they thought it was a dumb idea, just as nobody wants to admit they booed Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival. It only looks like a brilliant move in hindsight, especially since it led to the Eras Tour phenomenon. But there was no precedent for any artist attempting this, much less getting away with it. Everybody<\/em> thought it was crazy, even if they were rooting for her. Anyone who tells you different is a liar (and pathetic, and alone in life).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tControlling her own music was obviously a silly thing to even talk about \u2014 just a childish fantasy. It was another one of those doomed quests that Taylor has always kept taking on \u2014 like her fight with Apple Music over artists\u2019 rights, or her legal fight against the male DJ who groped her at a concert. (Combat, she\u2019s ready for combat.) She\u2019ll pick the battles that seem crazy, or beneath her, and turn them into major victories. Other artists were stunned she had the nerve to try Taylor\u2019s Version<\/em>. SZA called it <\/a>\u201cthe biggest \u2018fuck you\u2019 to the establishment I\u2019ve ever seen in my life, and I deeply applaud that shit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut it was the fight of her life, and she won. As Taylor wrote today, \u201cAll I\u2019ve ever wanted was the opportunity to work hard enough to be able to one day purchase my music outright with no strings attached, no partnership, with full autonomy.\u201d Today is that day, and it\u2019s a major victory for artists.<\/p>\n

\n\tHer statement has so many ramifications for her fans. For one thing, we can now listen to the old version of \u201cHoly Ground\u201d with a clear conscience, since sorry, but the Red<\/em> (Taylor\u2019s Version)<\/em> mix blew it with the rhythm track. (Try it again, Taylor\u2014hell, you own it now. Take all the do-overs you want.)<\/p>\n

\n\tTaylor also announced that she has barely begun work on Reputation TV<\/em>. This can only mean she\u2019s about to drop Reputation TV<\/em>. \u201cFull transparency: I haven\u2019t even re-recorded a quarter of it,\u201d she wrote. \u201cTo be perfectly honest, it\u2019s the one album in those first six that I thought couldn\u2019t be improved upon by redoing it. Not the music, or photos, or videos. So I kept putting it off. There will be a time (if you\u2019re into the idea) for the unreleased vault tracks from that album to hatch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for \u201cfull transparency,\u201d yeah well \u2014 this is the artist who posted \u201cNot a lot going on at the moment\u201d the day she wrote \u201cCardigan.\u201d We all know better than to trust her. She loves to deceive, to mislead, to disrupt. She\u2019s fooled us before; she will never NOT fool us. Don\u2019t be surprised if we get Rep TV<\/em> this weekend.<\/p>\n

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\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tShe added that her debut album has been totally re-recorded. \u201cI really love how it sounds now,\u201d Taylor said, which probably means she\u2019s adjusted the accent a tiny bit. \u201cThose two albums can still have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right, if that would be something you guys would still be excited about.\u201d Oh, the modesty. Yes, people will be slightly excited. The audience has been fiending for Debutation TV <\/em>for way too long, the last two missing pieces of the Taylor\u2019s Version<\/em> puzzle. She made headlines this week by not announcing these albums at the American Music Awards (or even showing up). \u201cBut if it happens,\u201d she wrote, \u201cIt won\u2019t be a place of sadness and longing for what I wish I could have. It will just be a celebration now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tToday is a celebration for sure, and it\u2019s a celebration Taylor Swift has earned. Nobody thought this victory was possible. She had the time of her life fighting this dragon\u2014even though nobody thought the dragon could lose. But she won. Long live.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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