Taylor Swift and the Fight for the Rights of Her Own Songs (English Version)
A name that stood out in the second semester of 2020 and hasn’t been out of people’s and media’s mouths is Taylor Swift’s. Her eighth album Folklore came into the world on July 24th as an innovative project created in social distancing and during quarantine with artists Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner. Taylor is known for switching in between genres in every album she releases, experimenting new styles every time. The unexpected use of folk and her incredible abilities to express herself and tell detailed stories through her lyrics, allowed this album to reach an unprecedented level, being nominated for Grammy Awards’ Album of the Year category.
As the unpredictable artist she is, Taylor didn’t stop there. In november, next to her 31st birthday, she announced she would be releasing her ninth studio album Evermore, characterized as Folklore’s brother, as they have really similar characteristics. The new album was as successful as the first one, and people wouldn’t stop talking about it, mainly because it wasn’t expected by anybody.
Unfortunately, not everything is an ocean of roses for Mrs. Swift. In 2021, the singer released Love Story (Taylor’s Version). People who have already listened to her songs know that this one was present on her second studio album Fearless and was really successful. So, what happened? Why did she record the song for the second time?
It all started when, before the release of Lover, her seventh album, Taylor published on her Tumblr a vent text, in which she complained that her songs and past albums had been sold and were in the hands of a man who had never done good to her. The man in question is Scooter Braun, manager of many famous artists and known for discovering Justin Bieber.
She said that, for years, she had been asking for the rights of her own work, which was denied by Big Machine Records, that only offered a renewal of her contract there. Knowing that, after some time, Scott Borchetta, owner of Big Machine, would sell the record label, Swift decided to “leave her past behind” and not sign the new contract.
Later on, Taylor found out that her masters had been sold for Scooter Braun, a person who had manipulated and bullied her for years. After quoting some examples of when the manager had manipulated her, she said that buying her master was one more of his attacks on her. Consequently, Taylor went to Universal Records knowing that she would lose all her past six albums that she had recorded ‘till that day on Big Machine Records, but, differently from her past label, she would be able to have the rights to her own songs.
On November 16th of 2020, Taylor went to her social media to announce that Scooter Braun had tried to silence her with a contract which she refused to sign. Besides that, Swift announced that she had started to record her old songs all over again, and that she would release them throughout 2021.
That brings us to today. In Folklore, the artist did not spare her words and indirectly wrote a few lyrics to Scott and Scooter on her bonus track called The Lakes, in which she says “I’ve come too far to watch some name-dropping sleaze tell me what are my words worth”. Recently, Taylor released her new version of Love Story, which achieved amazing positions on the charts. It debuted on the first place on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart for the first time since 2012, when she got #1 for We Are Never Getting Back Together. Besides this success, the singer announced by a letter on her social media that her re-recorded album Fearless is dropping April 19th with six bonus tracks.
In conclusion, something we can be sure of is that we are still gonna listen to her name a lot in 2021. With six albums on the way, we will be able to keep up with her journey for the recovery of her own past, which was stolen from her hands from men that did not participate in building her art. The same way her past albums, Folklore and Evermore, brought an enormous recognition for Taylor with their success, it is expected that her next albums will also succeed. Honestly, after everything Swift had to go through, this success is nothing more that deserved and is something that I cannot wait to see.
