It’s Liberation Day (Taylor’s Version)
"I've been bursting into tears of joy at random intervals ever since I found out that this is really happening. I really get to say these words: All of the music I've ever made... now belongs... to me," Taylor Swift wrote on her website on Friday.
Photo: Getty Images CelebritiesEntertainmentMusic
I’m currently in New Hampshire for my best friend’s wedding. We’re on a gorgeous property, enjoying the sunshine and fresh air, celebrating life, love, and friendship! I have a mango White Claw in hand and am surrounded by some of my favorite people in the world. So, I kind of have the day off—but as Jezebel’s resident Swiftie, I’d be remiss not to blog that Taylor Swift bought back her masters and now officially owns all her life’s work. This is the Liberation Day the world deserves.
“I’ve been bursting into tears of joy at random intervals ever since I found out that this is really happening. I really get to say these words: All of the music I’ve ever made… now belongs… to me. And all my music videos. All the concert films. The album art and photography. The unreleased songs. The memories. The magic. The madness. Every single era,” Swift wrote in a letter on her website on Friday. “My entire life’s work.” I’m not ashamed to write that I teared up reading the letter and announced the news to my friends like Paul Revere if he’d been riding around announcing that America won the Revolutionary War.
In 2019, Swift announced that Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings had purchased Big Machine Label Group, which controlled all her master recordings, with Braun later selling her masters to Shamrock Capital in 2020. At the time, Swift wrote that Braun had “stripped me of my life’s work,” and that the deal had put her legacy “in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.” Billboard reported on Friday that Swift purchased them back from the investment firm for “around $360 million,” and wrote in her letter that she will be “forever grateful” to them. “My first tattoo might just be a huge shamrock in the middle of my forehead,” Swift said.
Unfortunately, this means we’re not getting Reputation (Taylor’s Version), though she said she’ll give us the vault tracks at some point. Which, fine, fine, fine. Here’s what she said about her final two re-recordings:
I know, I know. What about Rep TV? Full transparency. I haven’t even re-recorded a quarter of it. The Reputation album was so specific to that time in my life, and I kept hitting a stopping point when I tried to remake it. All that defiance, that longing to be understood while Feeling purposely misunderstood, that desperate hope, that shame-born snarl and mischief. To be perfectly honest, it’s the one album in those first 6 that I thought couldn’t be improved upon by redoing it. Not the music, or photos, or videos. So I kept putting it off. There will be a time (if you’re into the idea) for the unreleased Vault tracks from that album to hatch. I’ve already completely re-recorded my album, and I really love how it sounds now. Those 2 albums can still have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right, if that would be something you guys would be excited about. But if it happens, it won’t be from a place of sadness and longing for what I wish I could have. It will just be a celebration now.
In 2023, Swift told Time that the Reputation vault tracks will be “fire,” so I really hope she doesn’t make us wait too fucking long. But the original “Out of the Woods” is also fire, so it’s a fair enough trade…for now.
“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,” she concluded. “The best things that have ever been mine … finally actually are.”
I’m so fucking happy for her, and I’m so fucking happy for us, the Swifties; I will literally be screaming, “Long live all the magic we made,” all weekend. And while I’ve never done heroin, playing the original “Holy Ground” this afternoon—for the first time since 2019—felt like what I imagine heroin must feel like.
Twitter has been a blast today. So enjoy these tweets, enjoy all of Taylor’s music, and enjoy your weekend. We deserve it.
taylor swift bailing on a project because she felt like it omg she’s so me