The Billboard video staff reacts to Taylor Swift buying back her masters, including our thoughts on ‘Reputation (Taylor’s Version)’ not being re-recorded, how we feel about ‘Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version)’ coming out, what this means next for Taylor’s career and more.
Jerah Milligan
You know, good for her. All right? She’s not giving you a remix. She’s not giving you a reboot. She’s like, it’s perfect. Enjoy it. People need to do that. Movies need to do that. TV shows need to do that. It’s perfect. Let it cook.
Tetris Kelly
All right team, so they are all Taylor’s Versions now. Taylor Swift has bought her masters back, you know, after all, the re-records. Billboard, we’re the people that reported she spent around $360 million to get it all back. How we feeling?
Evan Burke
I mean, that’s pocket change for her.
Tetris Kelly
I mean, as a billionaire, you know…
Stefanie Tanaka
Pocket change, but I think it’s like, you know, it’s substantial, because not all artists hold their masters, and now she does, and this has been something that she’s been trying to do, and she has set out. She said, when she started her ‘Taylor’s Verison,’ this is something she set out to do, and if she had the opportunity to buy them, she would.
Judy Sanchez
I think it’s a total boss move, you know, and it really grabs, like, here she is taking control of her art and her music.
Tetris Kelly
Like a group project, though, right?
Jerah Milligan
Yeah, wait. So she got the ones she re-recorded, but then she got the originals.
Tetris Kelly
Now she owns the original.
Jerah Milligan
So now she got two sets of the same records.
Stefanie Tanaka
So under her new record deal with Republic, she owns her albums. So ‘Lover,’ ‘Folklore,’ ‘Evermore,’ ‘Midnights’ and ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ and all the Taylor’s Versions. She owns the rights to those, but her old, her old ones with her old label Big Machine Records, when they were bought out by UMG, she didn’t own those. So now she owns them all. She owns all the music videos, all the movies, everything she’s spent her whole life creating.
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