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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Alright, so at this point, re-recording and re-releasing her most beloved album seems like one of the smartest things Taylor Swift's ever done. All too well. Parenthetical 10-minute version, parenthetical Taylor's version, parenthetical From the Vault.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Might be perhaps the clunkiest song title in the history of popular music, but it also broke the record for the longest song to take the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It also managed to get the internet extremely mad at Jake Gyllenhaal. Taylor ended up with three of the best-selling albums of the year, and only one of them was new.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She picked up a Grammy nomination. She's on a tear, but most of the excitement is about these old albums she's recording, but it didn't always seem like such a sure thing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There was a time where this seemed like a big gamble, and on the show today, we're gonna revisit that time. It was back in April of this year.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: A bunch of your dad's favorite songwriters have been selling off their songs. Late last year, Bob Dylan sold the rights to more than 600 of his songs to Universal Music for an estimated $300 million.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Shortly after that, Neil Young sold 50% of the rights to his 1,000-plus songs to a British investment firm. Stevie Nicks sold off 80% of her publishing rights. Lindsey Buckingham went with 100%.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And just last week, Paul Simon sold off his entire catalog to Sony. COVID has probably expedited the thinking for a lot of these legends. Touring's out, merch is out, everyone's sitting at home streaming, which has dramatically increased the value of back catalogs.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Instead of dying and having everyone come out of the woodwork to fight over the rights to their music, a la Prince Aretha Franklin and Tom Petty, artists are cashing out before they did. Call it end-of-life planning.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But all the while, one of the biggest singer-songwriters working in popular music today, maybe the biggest, is doing something very different. Cause baby, now we got bad blood.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: At what you could argue is the artistic peak of her career, Taylor Swift is re-recording her first six albums. You know it used to be mad love.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And she's doing it because she's in a very different place than the singer-songwriters of yore. Taylor Swift doesn't own the rights to her first six albums.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So take a look what you've done. But by re-recording them and convincing fans to listen to the new versions, she can win back the rights to her music.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Cause baby, now we got bad blood. Hey! Shirley Lee wrote about Taylor Swift's gambit for The Atlantic.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She says it's a big deal for two reasons. Reason one. I think it's important for the business at large because this is something that a lot of musicians and artists wouldn't really attempt to do.
--:-- Shirley Li: So if she can really do this, re-record everything and have it be successful, that's kind of a proof of concept for other pop stars to do the same thing, to own their work fully.
--:-- Shirley Li: Reason two. Creatively speaking, it's interesting to see how an artist reinterprets their previous work.
--:-- Shirley Li: And for her, as someone whose music is diaristic, is based on her life, it'll be interesting to see how she reinterprets the past Taylor.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Full disclosure, Shirley's a fan. They call themselves Swifties.
--:-- Shirley Li: I am now a Swifty, and I have been a Swifty in the past, but I will say that my Swiftiness has waxed and waned over the years.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She's had a long career. It's true. She's only like 31 and she already has like what, nine albums?
--:-- Shirley Li: So let's talk about where this story begins. How does Taylor come to want to rerecord the first six of them?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The timeline is a little bit blurry here, but let's just say around the time of her peak, her world domination with the album 1989.
--:-- Shirley Li: That was back in like 2014. She dropped that album. This one's got like blank space for all the people at home. who are maybe not paying full attention but caught a couple songs here and there?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This one has Blank Space. This one has Shake It Off.
--:-- Shirley Li: This is when she becomes Taylor Swift, pop star, and she's building up her squad.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And she ends up becoming perhaps a little overexposed.
--:-- Shirley Li: Shortly before the Grammy Awards, shortly before she wins Album of the Year for a second time in her career, Kanye West, who she also has a very long history with, he's the artist who interrupted her acceptance speech way back when in 2009.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yo, Taylor, I'm really happy for you. I'm gonna let you finish. but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time.
--:-- Shirley Li: One of the best videos of all time. But they made up. It was all good.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Now before this Grammy, he releases a song called Famous. South Side niggas that know me best.
--:-- Shirley Li: I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. Why? I made that bitch famous. Goddamn! I made that bitch famous.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In which he claims that he made her famous because of that incident in 2009.
--:-- Shirley Li: But basically she takes offense to the fact that he claimed that he made her famous and also the fact that he calls her a bitch in the song I made that bitch famous. Goddamn. I made that bitch famous.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Not to mention the video features like a bunch of naked mannequins in bed with Kanye West and his wife, including Taylor Swift.
--:-- Shirley Li: Yeah, yeah. So she didn't like any of that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And during her speech at the Grammys, she expresses how she, her fame, her success is not owed to anybody else except for herself.
--:-- Shirley Li: There are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He and his wife then release a video in which she can be heard over the phone approving the lyrics.
--:-- Shirley Li: I mean, yeah, I mean, go with whatever line you think is better. It's obviously very tongue-in-cheek either way. Yeah.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I really appreciate you telling me about it. That's really nice.
--:-- Shirley Li: Oh, yeah. I just had a responsibility to you as a friend, you know, and I mean, thanks for being, like, so cool about it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But not specifically the lyric that calls her a bitch. That feud is back on.
--:-- Shirley Li: What happens next is Taylor kind of disappears.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Everyone is going onto her social media feeds, leaving the snake emoji calling her a snake.
--:-- Shirley Li: Kim is calling her a snake. Her reputation, which is then the name of her next album, is, you know, destroyed in her perspective, in Taylor's perspective.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I think we have to go through all of this because Kanye at that time, as far as we know, was managed by Scooter Braun.
--:-- Shirley Li: And who is Scooter Braun? Scooter Braun is a music executive who manages a lot of artists you probably have heard of or have listened to.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Justin Bieber being the big one. I got my peaches out in Georgia. Oh, yeah, shit. I get my weed from California.
--:-- Shirley Li: Ariana Grande being another one. Thought I'd end up with shine.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: More recently, Demi Lovato. So he has a lot of influence in the music industry.
--:-- Shirley Li: And he's got a relationship with Kanye West at a time when Kanye West has a lot of beef with Taylor Swift.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yes. In terms of what Scooter Braun's looking for, he's a businessman. He's a big music executive. He's always looking for opportunities to expand his portfolio.
--:-- Shirley Li: And Scott Borchetta, the owner of Big Machine Records, Taylor's old record label, she was basically Big Machine.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She was the main artist over there. And Scott Borchetta is looking to, I guess, unload, you know, an artist who is no longer really operating in the country space.
--:-- Shirley Li: Because at this point, Taylor's made this transition to being a full-fledged pop star.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah. At this point, Taylor has pretty much shed her country roots. She's gone full-blown pop.
--:-- Shirley Li: Hmm. So what happens next? So when, in 2019, Scooter Braun then purchases Taylor's library, her first six albums owned by her old record label, Taylor sees this as something that she cannot stand for.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How much does it cost to buy the rights to Taylor Swift's first six albums, including 1989? Hundreds of millions of dollars, about a reported 300 million.
--:-- Shirley Li: And how much of that does Taylor Swift get? Zero.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hmm. She responds with a letter that she posts to social media explaining how Scooter Braun to her is someone who has been a bully in the past and who would be the last person that she would want owning her music and making money off of it.
--:-- Shirley Li: Scooter's team wanted me to sign an ironclad NDA stating I would never say another word about Scooter Braun unless it was positive before we could even look at the financial records of BMLG, which is always the first step in a purchase of this nature.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So I would have had to sign a document that would silence me forever before I could even have a chance to bid on my own work.
--:-- Shirley Li: My legal team said that this is absolutely not normal, and they've never seen an NDA like this presented unless it was to silence an assault accuser by paying them off.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He would never even quote my team a price. These master recordings were not for sale to me.
--:-- Shirley Li: So how do Taylor Swift's fans respond? So most of Taylor Swift's fans rallied behind her. They saw Scooter Braun as the big bad. They needed to protect Taylor's work.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They saw Taylor as kind of this David against Goliath being this entire music industry in the way that it doesn't prioritize artist ownership over their own creative work.
--:-- Shirley Li: But the thing is, this is the internet, so things escalated quite quickly. And as with any passionate fandom, a subset of fans were aggressive towards Scooter Braun and towards Scott Borchetta.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How aggressive do these Taylor Swift fans get? Well, some of them ended up, you know, pummeling Scooter Braun with death threats.
--:-- Shirley Li: Taylor Swift fans, the Swifties issue death threats? his family with death threats specifically.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah, and so Scooter had to come out with a statement, I believe an open letter to, well, to advise Taylor Swift basically to get a control over fans.
--:-- Shirley Li: I assume this was not your intention, but it is important that you understand that your words carry a tremendous amount of weight and that your message can be interpreted by some in different ways.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: While I'm disappointed that you've remained silent after being notified by your attorney four days ago these ongoing threats.
--:-- Shirley Li: I'm still hopeful we can fix this.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hmm. It sounds like she doesn't have a lot of love for Scooter Braun, but is he really doing anything terribly untoward here?
--:-- Shirley Li: Oh, man. I think if you ask a hardcore Swifty, it's the former. If you look at it from a business perspective, It's very much the latter. It's Scooter Braun being the businessman he's always been.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He sold Taylor Swift's back catalog. A little over a year after he acquired the rights to Taylor Swift's back catalog, he sold them to a private equity firm called Shamrock Capital.
--:-- Shirley Li: So then he made about $300 million off of that deal.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So again, businessman doing business.
--:-- Shirley Li: So wait Scooter Braun even owns Taylor Swift's back catalog is still making money off of it In the deal with Shamrock he managed to still be siphoning off some of whatever profits come from licensing that old music.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And she's not going to stand for it? Yeah, she's not going to stand for it.
--:-- Shirley Li: So the next step she takes is she decides to rerecord those first six albums. She can't own the old stuff, but because of the terms of her contract, she can own all the new versions if she re-records them?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah, all of the music that she had already released, she decides to go back in the studio, try to bring back, you know, her old collaborators from more than a decade ago and re-record those songs.
--:-- Shirley Li: She does not want Scooter Braun making any money off of her earlier work. She wants to be the owning her songs, licensing her songs, and ultimately devaluing the songs that Scooter Braun now owns.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Huh. So for the time being, Scooter Braun's still getting paid off Taylor Swift songs. She doesn't like it and she's going to do something about it.
--:-- Shirley Li: Yep. That is the plan.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And all you're ever gonna be is mean. Someday I'll be big enough so you can't hit me.
--:-- Shirley Li: And all you're ever gonna be is mean. Why you gotta be so mean?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: After the space, whether this plan's gonna work. You, with your switching sides and your wildfire lies and your humiliation.
--:-- Shirley Li: Support for today's show comes from Adio. What is Adio?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Adio is an AI-native customer relationship management system built specifically for the next era of companies.
--:-- Shirley Li: They say it's extremely powerful, adapts to your unique data structures, and scales with any business model.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: According to Adio, Adio takes less than a minute to set up, and within seconds, you will have your email and calendars synced.
--:-- Shirley Li: You'll see all your relationships in a fully-fledged platform, they say, all enriched with that actionable data.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And they say you can build AI-powered automations and use its research agent to tackle some of your most complex processes so that you can focus on what matters, building your company.
--:-- Shirley Li: You can join industry leaders such as Flatfile, Replicate, Modal, and so much more. You can go to atio.com slash todayexplained to get 15% off your first year.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's A-T-T-I-O dot com slash todayexplained.
--:-- Shirley Li: We all have moments where we could have done better, like cutting your own hair. Oh, yikes. Or forgetting sunscreen so now you look like a tomato. Ouch. Could have done better.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Same goes for where you invest. Level up and invest smarter with Schwab. Get market insights, education, and human help when you need it. Learn more at schwab.com.
--:-- Shirley Li: Are you ready for it? I guess the million-dollar question, Shirley, or maybe the $300 million question in this case, is Taylor Swift is going to re-record her back catalog. Will it work?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That is the $300 million question. So far, it's working. Really?
--:-- Shirley Li: We already know? Well, so far, she's released one re-recording, and that is Love Story, parentheses, Taylor's version.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that, when it was released, topped the US iTunes chart. It topped the charts.
--:-- Shirley Li: You have to remember, she's a massive, massive star. I would argue that if, you know, anybody lower than that tier of A-plus list attempted this, you probably wouldn't see this happen.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You wouldn't see a re-recording top the chart immediately.
--:-- Shirley Li: I'm glad you brought this up, Shirley, because I believe Rolling Stone magazine last year, the one before that, released a small but thorough piece of journalism about the band Weedus.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Do you remember Weedus? Do you remember Teenage Dirtbag From the soundtrack to the movie Loser with Jason Biggs Surely Do I remember Cause I'm just a teenage Dirtbag baby Yeah I'm just a Teenage Dirtbag baby Listen to Iron Maiden Baby with me
--:-- Shirley Li: Well, Teenage Dirtbag, like I feel Taylor Swift is for you, was a huge part of my growing up.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And apparently they lost the masters. Like it wasn't the label's fault. It wasn't the management's fault. It wasn't the band's fault. But just no one could find the masters to this song.
--:-- Shirley Li: So that when people wanted to license the song, the band actually couldn't do much. when they wanted to remix the song, the band couldn't provide the original tapes.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So the lead singer went and re-recorded the song and I wanted to support him. He like found all the old instruments they use and we're trying to figure out, oh, what is that thing that happens in the bridge and all this stuff?
--:-- Shirley Li: But it just didn't sound as good. That's disappointing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Is Taylor Swift going to be dealing with the same thing or does she have some sort of, you know, superpower of recreation here.
--:-- Shirley Li: I do think that Taylor has the capability of making these re-recording sound just as good. She's become a better singer. She has more control over her voice.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She is also someone who has a lot more influence than the Taylor Swift in the very beginning of her career.
--:-- Shirley Li: So she is able to recruit whatever artists she wants onto these re-recording albums.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So all of this is just to say that I'm afraid Taylor Swift is a much bigger star than Weedis and does... Oh, shots fired out here.
--:-- Shirley Li: And she does have the power to make these re-recordings work.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, another recent example of someone doing something like this is Cat Stevens, who re-recorded Father and Son.
--:-- Shirley Li: And there's this great episode of the podcast Song Exploder about this re in which he kind of sings the song as an older Cat Stevens to a younger Cat Stevens And the song changes. It's got like a lot more strings. It sounds a little more schmaltzy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But is that what Taylor's doing here? Is it let's do a faithful re-recording as best we can of the original six albums? Or is it let's have, you know, Taylor Swift plus 10-ish years re-imagine her original music?
--:-- Shirley Li: It's somewhere in the middle between those two notes it's closer to the faithful end of the spectrum so far just given what we've heard from her first re-recording she has faithfully you know re-recorded the song itself in terms of production in terms of the lyrics but I think she understands fundamentally that the people who are going to be seeking out these re-recordings are not people who are new to Taylor Swift.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The people who are going to be listening to this album as soon as it drops, those people are the ones who have been Swifties for a long time and want to hear how she thinks about her music now.
--:-- Shirley Li: And so again, I know I'm speaking in kind of abstract terms, but it's largely faithful with the difference being that she is kind of playful with it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, she's not a teenager anymore singing Love Story. Her interpretation of the song does sound more mature, not just because her vocals have matured, but because of the way she's playing with her tone when she's singing.
--:-- Shirley Li: So she gives a little clip to certain words. She sounds warmer. It's not as pleading of a song.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Still, though, it does seem like a bit of a risky venture, even if you're one of the biggest pop stars in the world, because it's just going to take a ton of time, right?
--:-- Shirley Li: I mean, what's the potential payoff here for Taylor? Well, here's the thing. Taylor's music is very specific to her, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Her music has always been diaristic. It is about her life. She's written all of her music or co-written it.
--:-- Shirley Li: So I think she feels a sense of ownership over her music in a way that a lot of other artists might not.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She wants to feel ownership. She wants to stop feeling like her music and her soul got sold off to someone she dislikes and has considered a bully throughout her career.
--:-- Shirley Li: On the business end though, this does allow her to be the one owning the music and licensing the music and profiting off of the music.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She has always been an advocate for artist ownership. Over the years, I think she's written op-eds about how important it is for artists to be compensated for their work when they land on streaming platforms like Spotify.
--:-- Shirley Li: She's always thought about it from a business perspective. And presumably if someone wants to license Shake It Off for an upcoming Care Bear movie, if they go to Scooter Braun for the original version, Taylor Swift will come out and say, they're going to Scooter and not me for my new version.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Swifties attack. Well, so far, it doesn't seem like she has done that because a Care Bears movie has not happened.
--:-- Shirley Li: No, but it does seem like what she could do is re-record Shake It Off immediately and say that this is the version that I would like to be used.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I am the artist who wrote this song. I'm the artist who recorded this song. I'm the one who's singing it. Please use this one instead.
--:-- Shirley Li: And as a very powerful musician, chances are the powers that be would listen.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah, yeah. That seems to be what's happening.
--:-- Shirley Li: But it will ultimately be up to fans about which version to listen to, the old version or the new version, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And there's something very powerful here when it comes to nostalgia. If your ear is keen enough, you're going to hear a difference.
--:-- Shirley Li: And both versions might end up being on streaming platforms like Spotify or Apple Music or whatever it's called at this point.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And fans will have the ultimate choice here. Is that right?
--:-- Shirley Li: Yeah, that is right.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think, you know, her most devoted fans have seen this as a chance to take a moral stand.
--:-- Shirley Li: So they're going to be the ones who are really looking at which version they'll be listening to.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They've probably already removed, you know, the old versions off of their Taylor Swift playlists.
--:-- Shirley Li: And I think what we're seeing with Taylor's music is that she understands it's not just the song. She really wants to get her fans on board with the idea that she is in this process with them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That nostalgia is not just about the art itself, but it's about your connection to the art.
--:-- Shirley Li: I think this entire endeavor is an example of how Taylor Swift is not just an artist, but also a shrewd businesswoman, which I think has always been there, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Her father is a businessman. She's picked up some tricks, I think, over the years.
--:-- Shirley Li: But I think this just goes to show she's both able to go tit for tat with a businessman and continue to be a creative storyteller through her music.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'd be the man. Shirley Lee is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where she writes about culture.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can find her work at theatlantic.com.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Rameswaram for him. This is Today Explained. I'd be the man. Could I be separated from my good ideas and power?
