Taylor Swift is set to become the world’s best Taylor Swift cover act.
The Grammy-winning superstar told CBS Sunday Morning she intends to re-record the bulk of her back catalogue, after she lost the rights to much of her discography in a controversial record label deal involving pop mega-manager Scooter Braun.
In case you missed that ordeal the first time around, here’s the recap.
Swift rose to stardom releasing albums under the Big Machine Records banner, which owned the master recordings of her hit records. The arrangement seemed mutually agreeable until earlier this year, when Braun’s label Ithaca Holdings acquired Big Machine.
To say Swift has prior history with Braun is a bit of an understatement. The dude manages Kanye West, a frequent antagonist in the Swiftiverse; after the sale, she used a Tumblr post to say it was her “worst case scenario” and claimed Braun was behind “incessant, manipulative bullying”.
In the end, Braun acquired the rights to her master recordings, which, in theory, gives Ithaca Holdings the power to do whatever it wants with Swift’s back catalogue.
It didn’t happen without some disputes. There were arguments over when Swift was made aware of the pending Ithaca Holdings deal, and Big Machine chief Scott Borchetta, who worked with Swift from her days as a country-crossover prospect to an arena-filling megastar, said he actually offered Swift a fair chance to effectively ‘buy back’ the rights to her recordings.
She apparently disputed the ‘fair’ part of his deal, saying “I left my past in Scott’s hands and not my future.” She signed a fresh deal with Universal Music Group, and her upcoming record Lover will be released on the new imprint.
Which leads us to Swift’s new statement. While Ithaca Holdings now has rights to the master recordings – the actual tracks laid down by Swift and her studio collaborators – they are still her songs. If she wants to record brand new versions of Teardrops On My Guitar or We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, that’s her damn prerogative.
In a yet-to-be-aired interview, The Hollywood Reporter states CBS Sunday Morning host Tracy Smith asked Swift if she intended to redo any of her earlier hits.
“Yeah, absolutely,” Swift said.
.@taylorswift13 tells @CBSSunday‘s @thattracysmith she plans to re-record her earlier songs after the rights were sold in a business deal.
Swift also talks about songwriting, her career, her haters, her life today and much more.
More: https://t.co/nhz4tU0sLn
Sun. 9A ET pic.twitter.com/DoZcIF6p90
— CBS News PR (@CBSNewsPress) August 21, 2019
If you couldn’t already guess from the title of the show, the full interview is slated to arrive on Sunday, local time. Watch this space for Swift’s big Back To The Future act – and the inevitable chart resurgence of her older tunes.
