Taylor Swift has regained control of her music, buys back first 6 albums

Advertisement

Advertise with us

NEW YORK (AP) — Taylor Swift has regained control over her entire body of work.

Read this article for free:


or

Already have an account? Log in here »

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Subscribe and receive a limited-edition Free Press branded hat or tote.

Digital Subscription

One year of digital access for only $205*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles

*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional

$1 for the first 4 weeks*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles
Start now

*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/05/2025 (494 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEW YORK (AP) — Taylor Swift has regained control over her entire body of work.

In a lengthy note posted to her official website on Friday, Swift announced: “All of the music I’ve ever made now belongs to me.”

The pop star said she purchased her catalog of recordings — originally released through Big Machine Records — from their most recent owner, the private equity firm Shamrock Capital. She did not disclose the amount.

FILE - Taylor Swift performs at Wembley Stadium as part of her Eras Tour June 21, 2024, in London. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - Taylor Swift performs at Wembley Stadium as part of her Eras Tour June 21, 2024, in London. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP, File)

In recent years, Swift has been rerecording and releasing her first six albums in an attempt to regain control of her music.

“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,” Swift addressed fans in the post. “The best things that have ever been mine … finally actually are.”

“I am happy for her,” Braun said Friday.

“We are thrilled with this outcome and are so happy for Taylor,” Shamrock Capital said in a statement.

Swift’s rerecordings were instigated by Hybe America CEO Scooter Braun’s purchase and sale of her early catalog and represents Swift’s effort to control her own songs and how they’re used. Previous “Taylor’s Version” releases have been more than conventional re-recordings, arriving with new “from the vault” music, Easter eggs and visuals that deepen understanding of her work.

She has also released new music, including last year’s “The Tortured Poets Department,” announced during the 2024 Grammys and released during her record-breaking tour.

So far, there have been four rerecorded albums, beginning with “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” and “Red (Taylor’s Version)” in 2021. All four have been massive commercial and cultural successes, each one debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

Swift’s last rerecording, “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” arrived in October 2023, just four months after the release of “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).” That was the same year Swift claimed the record for the woman with the most No. 1 albums in history.

Fans have theorized that “Reputation (Taylor’s Version)” would be next: On May 19, “Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor’s Version)” aired nearly in full during the opening scene of a Season 6 episode of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Prior to that, the song was teased in 2023’s Prime Video limited-series thriller “Wilderness” and in Apple TV+’s “The Dynasty: New England Patriots” in 2024. Also in 2023, she contributed “Delicate (Taylor’s Version)” to Prime Video’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty.”

But according to the note shared Friday, Swift says she hasn’t “even rerecorded a quarter of it.”

She did say, however, that she has completely rerecorded her self-titled debut album “and I really love how it sounds now.”

Swift writes that both her self-titled debut and “Reputation (Taylor’s Version)” “can still have their moments to reemerge when the time is right.”

Representatives for Swift and HYBE did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Report Error Submit a Tip

More Stories

Letters, Oct. 6

6 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

High road not so easy

Re: Khan should’ve taken high road: Goertzen (Oct. 3)

Politics is a tough game. Just ask former provincial Liberal leader Dougald Lamont. He got thrown under the bus by a prominent Manitoba/Canadian Liberal who advised people to vote NDP in the last provincial election.

As Lamont said when he lost the election, he is “human” and what happened to him “hurt.” Khan is also human. It is easy to criticize him for not taking the “high road.”

Three could prove an awkward crowd

Maureen Scurfield 4 minute read Yesterday at 2:00 AM CDT

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My girlfriend and I — two women in our late 20s — are finally getting married.

Previously, we were both living with guys and it didn’t ever work for us. She thinks marriage itself was not her problem, but that guys are basically not suited to “loving” in the special ways two women can love.

So, here I am getting ready to give marriage another go — but with her! She’s a woman who’s a wonderful chef, decorator and a mother of two from her previous marriage. The problem we have as partners? I don’t care for the domestic arts myself — but I’d still like to have a child of my own.

That brings up another issue. I also have a male friend who’d be happy to get me pregnant — an old pal of mine who is a bachelor and would like to be a father and continue being platonic friends with me. He’d also help support the child financially.

MPI lowers speed limit on tech upgrade with ‘IT roadmap’ following Project Nova debacle

Carol Sanders 5 minute read Preview

MPI lowers speed limit on tech upgrade with ‘IT roadmap’ following Project Nova debacle

Carol Sanders 5 minute read Updated: Yesterday at 9:44 PM CDT

Manitoba Public Insurance is now using an “IT road map” and phasing in new technology and systems after pulling the plug last year on its failed $164-million overhaul known as Project Nova, its annual report says.

Read
Updated: Yesterday at 9:44 PM CDT

Clocks stay in daylight saving, but analysis backs permanent standard time

Ashley Joannou, The Canadian Press 6 minute read Preview

Clocks stay in daylight saving, but analysis backs permanent standard time

Ashley Joannou, The Canadian Press 6 minute read Updated: Yesterday at 6:15 AM CDT

VANCOUVER - Ralph Mistlberger's light is adjustable, allowing him to have the full spectrum of options depending on what his internal clock needs.

"You want cool in the morning. You want warm in the evening or warm in the afternoon," he said.

"And so, it goes from being more bluish in the morning to more reddish in the evenings. Both of those are important because artificial light affects your clock."

Mistlberger knows real sunlight is better than a lamp, but after more than 40 years as a neuroscientist studying sleep and the body's circadian rhythms, he's preparing for what's to come Nov. 1.

Read
Updated: Yesterday at 6:15 AM CDT

The election of our discontent: City at a crumbling crossroads, grumbling residents say in poll

Matthew Frank 7 minute read Preview

The election of our discontent: City at a crumbling crossroads, grumbling residents say in poll

Matthew Frank 7 minute read Updated: Yesterday at 3:16 PM CDT

There’s an undercurrent of unhappiness running through the Winnipeg electorate as the municipal election day approaches.

One-half of Winnipeggers believe the city is heading in the wrong direction, according to a new Abacus Data poll, with nearly one-third unsure if Winnipeg is regressing or progressing.

Only 21 per cent of residents believe the city is on the right track, the Free Press-commissioned poll found.

That discontentment extends to how the city spends its tax dollars, with four in 10 Winnipeggers believing they receive poor value for what they pay in property taxes.

Read
Updated: Yesterday at 3:16 PM CDT

Real journalists matter in an AI world

Paul Deegan 4 minute read Preview

Real journalists matter in an AI world

Paul Deegan 4 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

An algorithm can decide what you see, but it doesn’t report the news. Nunatsiaq News, an award-winning newspaper in Nunavut, recently reported that a so-called “news” website was posting AI-generated articles about the north by stealing real news stories produced by real journalists.

The articles were supposedly written by Nunavut correspondent Leah Qammaniq — a fake journalist, with a fake photo and a fake bio.

Governor General Louise Arbour warned us of fake news in her installation speech in June. She said, “We must continue to protect the public space in which our national debates take place: from schools and universities to the media, political parties, unions and civil society organizations …With instant access to vast amounts of information, it is very tempting to pay little attention to the reliability of sources. The lines between knowledge and belief, between truth and falsehood, between facts and assumptions, are increasingly blurred. AI could be threatening not only the way we live and work, but also the control we exercise over our own destiny.”

The Government of Canada has recognized the problem as well. Its recent discussion paper, Enhancing trust in artificial intelligence through increased transparency, stated, “Canadians encounter news reporting, product reviews, and audio-visual content across the internet, often without any indication of whether it was written by a person, generated by an AI system, or produced through some combination of both … A particular concern within this broader landscape is that generative AI greatly enables the creation and dissemination of deceptive or misleading content.”

Read
2:00 AM CDT