Taylor Swift’s first re-recorded album Fearless is available for streaming. The album features 26 songs featuring six unreleased songs from “the vault” namely: “You All Over Me” featuring her Reputation tour partner Maren Morris, “Mr Perfectly Fine,” “We Were Happy,” “That’s When,” featuring Keith Urban, “Don’t You,” and “Bye Bye Baby,” along with an Elvira remix of “Love Story.”
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Prior to the release, Swift had already released Mr Perfectly Fine and All over Me which is in collaboration with Grammy-winning country star Maren Morris.
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In Swift’s initial years in the industry, she was signed by Big Machine Records in 2005. Before the contract expired she had already come out with hits like “I Knew You Were Trouble” and had sold-out tours through the course of her six albums.
While switching labels she was successful in securing her future masters but not the past ones.
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In 2019 Big Machine sold off the masters and it ultimately came in the hands of Shamrock Holdings for over $300 million. The master recordings will mint profits whenever they are streamed online or bought at the music store.
Fast forward to March 2021 she quotes “Artists should own their own work for so many reasons” in an Instagram post.
The main takeaway from the tussle between the artist and her production team is that it has brought to attention the dark side of the music industry. At its core, every musician is part of a business that it only owns a small portion of. As the artist grows their piece grows smaller.
Through her re-recordings, she is giving her fans an ethical means of streaming her old albums.