“Take a look what you’ve done. …Now we’ve got bad blood!” Taylor Swift’s Bad Blood goes. The multi-award-winning pop star may very well sing this hit once again after she has figured herself in another rift with not just one but two people after she launched a scathing tirade against them who are both considered a whos-who in the music industry.
As much as we hate to admit it, we feed on juicy drama. So naturally, when Tay-Tay aired her dirty laundry, almost everyone was up for it.
Taylor Swift’s Dirty Laundry
Just in case you missed it, the fierce singer, who, by the way, has a massive fan base, didn’t mince her words when she expressed her disappointment via an explosive, lengthy Tumblr post in June over Ithaca Holdings’ acquisition of the Big Machine Label Group. Taylor was mad, to say the least, about this and referred to it as her “worst-case scenario,” pointing out that she felt betrayed by her former record label’s Scott Borchetta because she heard of the news along with the world.
Ithaca Holdings’ Scooter Braun, whose clients include Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber and previously Kanye West, was accused of being a manipulative bully. Taylor particularly was outraged because the manager’s company buying Big Machine Label Group means that all her master recordings will be owned by the 38-year-old. So what does that imply?
Master Recordings
Before we understand everything, let’s backtrack for a while. Taylor was catapulted to stardom when she was 15 under the Big Machine Label Group and remained with the company until last year when she signed a mega-deal with Republic Record under Universal Music Group, which was highly publicized. The move to another label certainly was intriguing because she’s been there for more than a decade.
Even so, the deal was cordially done, or so we thought, so no one suspected that there were issues behind this – only until now that Taylor has decided to speak up. What’s really the matter? All master recordings of the country singer-turned-pop star remained with her old record label and that being purchased by Scooter means all of it will be owned by him.
Master recording is the original recording of a song, which is used to make copies for streaming or for CDs. So basically, all Taylor’s song up until she decided to transfer to another company is owned by Big Machine Label Group – so whenever someone asks permission to use her song, for example, You Belong With Me, he/she will have to get an approval from the owner but not necessarily from the singer. This is usually the case for most artists.
No Opportunity at All
But the ME! hitmaker had long been fighting to change this rule. So when she finally signed with her new label, one of her conditions was that she will own the master recording to her album pushing forward. Now, Taylor is airing her beef with Scott for not giving a fair opportunity to buy her own master recordings to all her albums and also for betraying her loyalty – which may stem from Scooter being friends with Kanye West.
According to her, Scott did give her a chance to get her master recording one at a time but in exchange, she needs to release an album under the Big Machine. Taylor said she refused to sign the contract that would sell her future to Scooter. But Scott retaliated and claimed that the 29-year-old is not being honest – contrary to what his former client said, the deal was that all of her assets will be given to her once she signed a new contract.
Taylor’s attorney Donald Passman relayed his client’s new statement about Scott’s reply, saying that the singer wasn’t really given an outright chance to buy her music catalog the way he offered it to other people. Let’s see how this drama will go.
