Swifties are celebrating after Taylor Swift revealed that she finally regained ownership of her masters after six years of drama.
Rumblings that the original recordings of Swift’s first six albums were up for sale once again started earlier this month. On Friday, the "Anti-Hero" singer confirmed that her team had negotiated a deal for her to buy them back from Shamrock Capital.
"I've been bursting into tears of joy at random intervals ever since I found out that this is really happening," she wrote in a letter shared to her website. "I really get to say these words: All of the music I’ve ever made… now belongs… to me. And all my music videos. All the concert films. The album art and photography. The unreleased songs. The memories. The magic. The madness. Every single era. My entire life’s work."
Swift losing the opportunity to purchase her masters has been a major plot point in the narrative of her life ever since Scooter Braun swooped in and purchased Big Machine — and the masters — for $330 million back in 2019.
The two already were already known to have a contentious relationship, and his new ownership led to Swift re-recording four of the six albums to encourage fans’ decision to boycott streaming the original recordings. Even Braun’s decision to sell the masters to Shamrock in 2020 didn’t end the standoff, as one of the conditions of the sale was that he continue to profit from them.
In her letter, Swift expressed gratitude to Shamrock for how they handled the recent sale, calling their dealings "honest, fair, and respectful," and joking that "my first tattoo might just be a huge shamrock in the middle of my forehead."
Despite the joyous turn of events, it’s clear that any bad blood between her and Braun still remains. Page Sixpreviously claimed Braun was the one encouraging Shamrock to sell to Swift, but a source told People that he had absolutely no involvement in the deal.
"This moment finally happened in spite of Scooter Braun, not because of him," they said.
It’s given the celebration on Swift’s behalf a delightfully petty bent to it, as fans simultaneously cheer on her success and Braun’s continued slide into irrelevancy.
"taylor got all her masters back and scooter got fired by all his A-list clients... THE WORLD IS HEALING."
"taylor swift owning her master while justin bieber had to sell his, kanye at his lowest, kim irrelvant, and scooter braun going broke taylor swift always wins in the end"
"and one last FUCK YOU to scooter braun and scott borchetta !!!!!!!!"
"wishing scooter braun + scott borchetta an absolutely horrible day as always may everything continue to go wrong in your miserable lives for what you did!! xx"
"me going to add again the original versions of all Taylor Swift albums to my Spotify library"
At the time of purchase, Swift still has two more albums for which she intended to release re-recordings — her self-titled debut and 2017's Reputation. She also shared an update on where both of those currently stand, telling fans that her debut has been fully re-recorded but that she's barely gotten through a quarter of Reputation.
And unfortunately for fans clamoring for the latter, it doesn't sound likely that's going to change any time soon.
"The Reputation album was so specific to that time in my life, and I kept hitting a stopping point when I tried to remake it," she admitted. "To be perfectly honest, it’s the one album in those first 6 that I thought couldn’t be improved upon by redoing it… So I kept putting it off."
However, Swift did hint that she may still share the unreleased tracks that didn’t make the original album cut, and that fans shouldn’t fully give up hope on hearing Taylor’s Version of either her debut or Reputation just yet.
"Those 2 albums can still have their moments to re-emerge when they time is right, if that would be something you guys would be excited about," she said. "But if it happens, it won’t be from a place of sadness and longing for what I wish i could have. It will just be a celebration now."
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