If you listen closely you can hear it: The crisper sound of the banjo playing, the drums sounding more pronounced, a more mature voice singing, but the biggest difference, the song is owned by Taylor Swift with the added (Taylor’s Version) after the name of the song. 

As you may not know, Taylor Swift does not own the masters to her first six albums. They are owned by Shamrock Holdings. So Swift is re-recording her albums so she can own her work.

But how did it get to this point? 

Well, it started when a young Taylor signed to Big Machine Records in 2005. From there she rose to fame from a young age with hit songs like “You Belong With Me” and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”. She started her career singing county music in Nashville but crossed into pop with her albums “1989” and “reputation.” Swift has spiraled into fame, selling out massive stadiums and performing on major live events. 

In 2018 her contract with Big Machine Records ended and she signed onto a new label with Universal’s Republic Records. But Big Machine stills owns the masters, or original recordings, of her first six albums, which is typical with many recording deals. With her new contract, Swift made sure that she would own her future records and not her label. 

Why did Swift simply just buy her masters from Big Machine?

Well, Big Machine sold her masters already to a private-equity group called Ithaca Holdings, which is owned by music manager Scooter Braun who manages other superstars such as Kanye West and Justin Bieber. According to Swift, Braun has repeatedly bullied her, so she publicly slammed the sale and promised her fans that she would rerecord those original six albums, this time with her owning control of the masters. 

Taylor attempted to buy her masters from Braun, but she found out that Braun secretly sold her masters to Shamrock Holdings. Swift only found out about the sale through a letter from Shamrock Holdings, who reached out to her after the sale to let her know. This was the second time her masters had been sold without her knowledge. The letter Swift received said that they had wanted to reach out before the sale to let her know but Braun had required that they make no contact with Taylor or her team, or the deal would be off.

In a tweet from Swift, she said she tried to buy them but he wanted her to sign an NDA stating that she wouldn’t be able to say another word about Braun unless it was positive before she could even look at the financial records. She writes “He would never even quote my team a price. The master recordings were not for sale to me.” Braun would not let Taylor buy the rights back to the songs that she wrote and that she sang. 

Braun secretly sold her masters to Shamrock Holdings who reached out to Taylor after the sale to let her know. That was the second time her masters had been sold without her knowledge. The letter Swift received said that they had wanted to reach out before the sale to let her know but Braun had required that they make no contact with Taylor or her team, or the deal would be off.

 Immediately after Shamrock reached out, Swift began thinking of all the ways they could work together, but was disappointed to learn that under their terms Braun will continue to profit from her old music for many years. In a letter written to Shamrock by Taylor she writes “If I support you, as you request, I will be contributing to these future payments to Scooter Braun and Ithica Holdings. I can not in good conscience bring myself to be involved in benefiting Scooter Braun’s interest directly or indirectly.” Swift decided to not partner with Shamrock because Braun would still be benefiting from her masters. 

Since there is no way for Swift to buy her masters back, she decided to re-record them. She hopes that fans will listen to these new versions and override the old versions. “Artists should own their work for so many reasons,” she wrote in a March 2021 Instagram post. “But the most screamingly obvious one is that the artist is the only one who really knows that body of work.” She believes that artists should own their work so she is trying to accomplish that with her re-recordings. 

What’s different about her re-recordings?

Not much, her re-recordings so far sound very similar to the originals with small changes in the lyrics, music, and a more mature voice singing. She is also releasing several new tracks Swift calls “Vault” tracks on her re-records. Both “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” and “Red (Taylor’s Version)” are out now. The next album Taylor is re-recording has not been announced yet and fans are speculating which one will be next. They probably won’t have to wait very long because Miss Swift always has something up her sleeve.