Taylor Swift is happy and that likely means Swifties are too. The pop queen's struggle has been real and long, but it is now over. She owns the masters from all of her first six albums.
Swift announced the news on her website on Friday. There was no mention of the purchase price, but it is likely to be somewhere around $600 million. The singer can afford that, plus some.
When the exact deal was done is unknown, but here is what happened. Swift's original recording contract was with Big Machine Records, but the contract stipulated that the label would own the masters of her recordings. This was the normal way of doing business for recording artists at the time, and, for many, is still the way.
Taylor Swift announces she has purchased the rights to her Big Machine Records albums
Big Machine sold their catalog to music executive Scooter Braun in 2019, and chaos ensued. For various reasons, including Braun controlling Swift's music, the two fell out of favor with one another. In 2020, Shamrock Capital gained control of the rights of Swift's catalog from her debut through her Reputation album.
To gain back having the say over her previous work, Swift had re-recorded four of her early work (Fearless, Red, Speak Now, and 1989). The assumption is that she would re-record the remaining two (Taylor Swift and Reputation), but that may not be needed now.
As she owns the masters, there is no need to keep re-recording her work.
There have been whispers that most of her debut, Taylor Swift, has already been finished, so there is a chance that could still come out. Reputation appears to be more personal for Swift, and she might not want to keep revisiting the album.
According to Rolling Stone, a source told the magazine that there had been a false report that Braun had been instrumental in helping Swift get her masters back, but that is completely false, The source stated that Shamrock Holdings, that owns Shamrock Capital, made an offer to Swift to allow her to purchase the rights.
So there is a lot of good to take away from Swift's news. The only negative is that Swifties might not ever get Reputation (Taylor's Version). Of course, if she is not worrying about re-recording albums that would leave her time to create new material. That's what everybody truly wants.