My senior year of high school was soundtracked by Taylor Swift and the re-recordings of her masters, known as “Taylor’s Version”. My friends and I would drive around our Midwestern suburban town late at night, screaming her lyrics and soaking up our time together before we all departed for college.
I had the privilege of seeing her live after my friend fought in the Ticketmaster queue, and I am still indebted to her. Although I was never Swift’s biggest fan, as I grew older and became more interested in writing, I came to enjoy her poetic and powerful lyrics, and seeing her live was a spiritual experience. I still remember sobbing my eyes out during “champagne problems” and screaming the entirety of “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault).”
On May 31, the news broke that Swift bought back her first six albums—”Taylor Swift,” “Fearless,” “Speak Now,” “Red,” “1989” and “Reputation”—from Scooter Braun for $360 million, who had spent an estimated $300 million in 2019 to buy the master recordings from Big Machine Label Group.
“To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it,” Swift wrote in a letter published to her website. “I can’t thank you enough for helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to, but have never owned until now. I almost stopped thinking it could ever happen, after 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away. But that’s all in the past now.”
It is inspiring to see an artist I grew up with fight and win this battle to own her work again, but the money she’s made from her re-recordings cannot be left unnoticed. Due to her “Taylor’s Versions” consistently topping Billboard charts, as well as her “Eras Tour” and a growing fandom, Swift became a billionaire.
While I have to admire the amount of money she has made and her dedicated fanbase, I’m still left with one question: now that she’s grown her fame and bought back her music, where will Swift go from here?
“The Reputation album was so specific to that time in my life, and I kept hitting a stopping point when trying to re-record it,” Swift writes on her website. “… I have already completely re-recorded my entire debut album, and I really love how it sounds now. These two albums can have their time to re-emerge when the time is right…”
Maybe another way to see it is that Swift made all this money just to buy back her catalogue one day. As much as I love to hate and complain, this is inspiring and shows her dedication and love for her music and fans—not just the money. I truly am excited to see where she goes from here and how the fans react.
“There is no price on happiness,” wrote @Getaway89car on X (formerly Twitter). “The fact this happened at all in the first place still hurts but at the end of the day it’s all over. They are home.”
