Taylor Swift offered fans a closer look at how she acquired her master recordings.
The pop icon first revealed the news on Instagram in May, but offered few other details. Appearing on the "New Heights" podcast with her partner, Travis Kelce, and his brother Jason Kelce, Swift explained that following the conclusion of the Eras Tour, it felt like the right moment to reach out to Shamrock Capital, the private equity company that had acquired the recordings from Scooter Braun's Ithaca Holdings.
"It was like an intrusive thought that I had every day. I wanted to buy my music outright. I [didn't] want to be in a partnership. I [didn't] want to own 30% of it. I want it. I want to own all of it," she said. "I deserve that, but it was a long shot to think that they would do that, they would sell that, that asset to me. It's a big asset. It's a huge decision for them to make, to sell that to anyone, including me. I decided that, rather than this be like a business conversation, I'm in the business of human emotion. I would so much rather lead heart first in something like this."
Swift explained that acquiring her master recordings was so much more than just a business deal.
"Because for me, this is not, Oh, I want to own this asset because of its returns, because of the dividends that I will receive over the years. I want it because this is my hand-written diary entries from my whole life," she said. "These are the songs I wrote about every phase of my life. This is my photography, my music videos, most of which I funded. My artwork, everything that I've ever done is in this catalog."
Swift explained that she decided that, instead of sending lawyers and management "like a big crew" into negotiations, she sent her mother and brother, who worked in Los Angeles.
"I don't ever really talk about it — because they sat down with Shamrock Capital, and they told them what this meant for me. They told them the whole story of all the times we've tried to buy it, all the times it's fallen through, all the times we had gotten plans together and figured out something we thought was going to work and it didn't at the last minute," Swift said. "And so, my mom calls me afterwards, she's like, 'Look, they were wonderful. They heard us out. We have no idea which way they're going to go with this.' And so I was like, 'I get it. I get it. I haven't gotten my hopes up about this in a decade.'"
Asked by Jason Kelce what the master recordings entail, Swift explained that it was "the actual vocal, band, production, mixing, mastering, that actual thing. Mine also included my album artwork, my music videos, everything that went along with any era of music that I had done for my first six albums every year."
"There's another category, which is publishing. I own my publishing, which is why I have control over, if my song is used in a film I and I want them to use Taylor's version instead of the original version, I, the songwriter, can decide that. I've always been very lucky because my publishing was protected."
Swift announced that her 12th studio album, "The Life of a Showgirl," is set to be released on Friday, Oct. 3. The news was shared along with the cover art on Instagram.
"And, baby, that's show business for you," she wrote alongside the release date, title and cover art.
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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