A Victory For Taylor Swift; Education For Musicians

You know what? Good for her! Taylor Swift finally owns the rights to her first six albums. This is the biggest story in music for the week (month) so we might as well discuss here.

Taylor Swift has fought years to get the rights to her music back. When her former label Big Machine was sold in 2019, along with the deal went the master recordings to her first six albums. Investor Scooter Braun acquired the masters when he bought Big Machine. He later sold the masters to investor firm Shamrock Capital for $300 million. Swift was able to buy back her music from Shamrock Capital for an undisclosed price, but she did admit the success of the Eras tour is what enabled her to make the purchase.

Owning the master recordings of songs gives artists more control and ability to leverage their product for fees from licensing deals.

I've always thought it was scummy that most musicians do not own their master recordings. It may have made more sense in the beforetimes when everything cost a fortune - especially studio time - and new acts needed label money to get going. We've all read the horror stories of our favorite bands being in label debt for years, even after having hit releases. With streaming, things are quite different and now anyone can produce an album with some software and a laptop.

The hot thing for big musicians to do these days is to sell their catalogs for a huge lump-sum, forgoing royalties in the future. That is different from owning master recordings but is still a way for an artist to cash in on a designated amount of money. The thing with the Taylor Swift dispute is just how smartly she fought the Braun deal - vowing to re-record those first six albums. These re-recordings are known as "Taylor's Version" and were massively successful. A smart play to hit back where she could. It's a wonder we don't see more artists do this, except for the fact that it is expensive and you need to be in top form musically to pull it off.

Of the big bands we love, Motley Crue owned their master recordings from their Elektra days. It is mentioned in The Dirt but what the band had to do to get them was never exactly revealed. They eventually sold their entire catalog to BMG in 2021 for $150 million.

U2 and Metallica also own their masters. Both those catalogs are worth a fortune!