Taylor Swift Previews New “Love Story”

ok that's decently funny haha

 

This is so fascinating to me, like a lot of things Taylor Swift does. Very few people have the pull or the power she does to actually impact some of these things in the music industry, and I think it's just so interesting watching her "take one for the team" so to speak, especially considering the risk of what she has to lose. I truly love "give no fucks" Taylor.

I find the decision to re-record her old music especially fascinating. When she first announced it, I didn't believe she would go through with it. I figured she would just set her sights on the future and just focus on continuing to create new music. I don't think re-recording the whole catalogue is absolutely necessary, but watching her take the power back and de-valuing her old catalogue to those that would continue to profit off of it puts a big smile on my face.

 

I only watched it once but is that Hilary Swank?

 

Nope.

 

I'm curious how this works. When she re-records it all will it replace what is on streaming platforms? Like right now if you look all of her music says 'Big Machine Label Group, LLC' on it in Spotify and Apple Music. Does this give her the ability to remove those in place of her new ones or would both sit out there simultaneously?

 

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in this, but here's what I understand. The existing music would remain as is, but by Taylor re-recording and re-releasing her entire catalogue, it makes those existing recordings less valuable and less profitable for who owns them. Likely, her huge following would then opt to only listen to & support the newer recordings out of support for Taylor in this situation, thereby reducing the money made on the old recordings. Also, one of her primary reasons for re-recording is so she would own the masters, which she does not on the old ones, so she takes a bigger cut of the profits. Not to mention, once she releases this, she's going to get a huge initial boost from people wanting to listening to the new mixes. This is going to seriously cut into what Big Machine and the current catalogue owners is making from those old recordings. For Taylor, this becomes a double punch, because not only does she get some deserved revenge on the other parties for selling her catalogue, but her bigger goal here is around ownership of recordings, something she is advocating strongly for in the industry.

 

I'm not sure most of her fan base will just listen to the new recordings. A huge portion of music listeners don't care/know about the artist not owning their own music and casually listen. Also people hate change so if the new ones sound to different that can easily turn off young listeners and actually any listener pending on their preference. I'm a huge fan of Tswift and but I'm not sure this is essentially that big of a deal other then what it stands for in the music industry. She will get a big boost at the start but as time passes people will be more inclined to listen to the old songs OR whatever pops up first in a a search whether it be google, youtube, spotify, itunes, etc. People won't spend extra time to find other versions other then die hards.

 

You're right, most people won't notice or seek it out. My guess is that the newer recordings will be featured more prominently upon release so that might steer people to the newer ones. It still de-values the old recordings significantly.

However, I disagree that this isn't a big deal overall. An artist re-recording their entire catalogue is pretty unprecedented, at least at a level like Taylor Swift. And the ramifications of her essentially taking back ownership of her art by owning the masters of a re-recording could have pretty significant lasting effects. She is leading a charge among other artists who also want to fight the fight around ownership of their art.

 

I didn't mean it wasn't a big deal. It is a big deal in the music business itself, I was referring to her fan base seeking out the new recordings. Just meant casual people won't care that much about the new versions. I think its great what shes doing and agree with what you said.

 

Oops I re-read your previous post and I definitely read it wrong when I responded!!

 

"There is nothing I do better than revenge."

 

It will take 5 minutes for me to delete all the Tswift in my Apple Music and replace them with her recordings, and im a casual fan.

I think you’re underestimating the intelligence and admiration of her fan base.