Taylor Swift to release re-recorded versions of Love Story and 2008 album Fearless

It's the latest twist in the long-running drama over who owns the rights to Swift's master recordings
US-ENTERTAINMENT-MUSIC-SWIFT
1/72
Jochan Embley11 February 2021

The rumours (or rather, exactly what she said she’s going to do) are true: Taylor Swift is re-recording and re-releasing her old music, starting with a brand new version of one of her earliest hits, Love Story.

The song, which is set to drop at 5am UK time on Friday February 12, is the first track to arrive from a new studio version of her 2008 album Fearless, which is set to include six never-before-heard songs "from the vault", Swift said.

A statement posted on Instagram featured a series of deliberately capitalised letters which spelt out the words 'April Ninth,' hinting at the album's release date.

It’s the latest development in a series of protracted wranglings between Swift and Scooter Braun. In 2019, Braun’s Ithaca Holdings bought the Big Machine label, which in turn granted him ownership of the masters across a portion of Swift’s back catalogue — something the singer herself has been vehemently opposed to.

Swift’s catalogue has since been sold, allegedly without her knowledge or approval, to a private equity firm called Shamrock Capital for a fee somewhere in the region of $300m. As part of the deal, Braun continues to profit off Swift’s music.

This is where things get interesting. Although Shamrock now owns the masters — in other words, particular recordings of particular songs — Swift still owns the intellectual property to the songs’ lyrics, melodies and so on.

And, thanks to a clause in the contract Swift signed in 2006, as of November 2020, Swift is now free to perform and record all six albums she released via Big Machine, starting with her self-titled debut album and up to Reputation in 2017.

So that’s exactly what she’s done. Rumours of the news being confirmed were greeted with the typical level of hysteria from Swift’s fans — the announcement was made on US TV programme Good Morning America, with Swifties sending furious tweets at the show’s Twitter account for deciding to first report on the snow.

Back in November, Swift tweeted to say the process of re-recording "has already proven to be both exciting and creatively fulfilling. I have plenty of surprises in store."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in