What exactly happened with the Taylor Swift controversy and lessons we can draw.
Taylor’s history and background:
When Taylor was 16, she was a regular performer at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville. She was then close friends with Scott Borchetta (then owner of Big Machine Records), who was a regular at the cafe and would turn up as Taylor’s audience. Recognising Taylor’s talent, Scott decided that Taylor has huge potential in the music industry, and hence signed Taylor on. 16 year old Taylor, being young, innocent and overly enthusiastic about a potential music career, jumped at the chance without hesitation.
Little did Taylor know, the then small, budding Big Machine Records (BMR) would grow to become a successful company and reign terror on Taylor a decade later.
16 year old Taylor Swift
Taylor’s worst nightmare:
“My worst case scenario.” ~ Taylor Swift, 30 June 2019
30 June 2019 was when all hell broke loose.
On 30 June, Scooter Braun of Ithaca Holdings announced the acquisition of BMR for $300 million, including the rights to Swift's music. This spelled trouble for Taylor as her rights to her music were fully owned by BMR. As such, decades of her hard work now laid in the hands of a stranger. According to Taylor, the “music I wrote on my bedroom floor and videos I dreamed up and paid for from the money I earned playing in bars, then clubs, then arenas, then stadiums.” were now stripped away from her. All rights to Taylor’s music were lost, let alone any profits made from the albums that she produced in the past decade.
Adding fuel to the fire, Scooter Braun is Taylor’s long-time nemesis as he had teamed up with Kanye West and Kim Kadarshian to relentlessly harass Taylor, like by calling her a b***h in a song, from way back in 2009. Taylor and Kanye’s bad blood first started during the MTV VMAS (MTV Video Music Awards) when Kanye rudely disrupted Taylor’s acceptance speech by playing her down and announcing that Beyonce had “one of the greatest videos of all time”. With a crushed ego, Taylor released a song Innocent in 2010 about Kanye. Feud started to simmer between the two, with Kanye’s ex-wife Kim Kardashian joining in the fiasco (I, however, would not be elaborating about the drama in detail for it would never end).
Essentially, Taylor’s music, which was her life source and her motivation to keep going, fell into the hands of Scott, and then Scooter; both of whom backstabbed her and yearned to tear her music career down.
Taylor logged onto Tumblr that very same day to express her disgust and disappointment towards the actions of the two men.
Taylor Swift’s Tumblr on 30 June 2019
Taylor rises against the odds:
On 9 April and 12 November 2021, Swift re-recorded her old albums Fearless and Red respectively. These albums were also renamed Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version) to emphasise that these re-recorded songs are now 101% owned by Taylor herself.
Having signed a contract with a much better company, Universal Republic Records, Taylor now owns the rights to her music from 2018 to present.
Fearless (Taylor’s Version) Red (Taylor’s Version)
3 lessons we can draw from Taylor’s BMR saga:
1. Resilience
Although Taylor was faced with the vile and unconscionable acts of Scott and Scooter, she decided to look past them and focus on the future. To err is human, but what is more important is that we need to learn and grow from them. Re-recording her old albums is certainly a herculean task as Taylor intends to utilise the same crew and re-invite the same singers who collaborated with her a decade ago. Looking past all these inconveniences, Taylor told herself that she had to fight for her future and her rights to her music. Afterall, if she had admitted defeat and exited the music industry in 2019, we would never get to enjoy Taylor’s new pieces today.
2. The world is sadly pragmatic
There is hardly anything as “loyalty and friendship” on business terms. Regardless of industries, some people will only consider their own survival and can go to the extent of exploitation just to satiate their vested interests. “Loyalty is clearly just a contractual concept.”, Taylor wrote in the Tumblr post on 30 June 2019. Even though Scoot signed Taylor into his company on the basis of loyalty and friendship, such non-materialistic principles are hardly valid in this highly competitive society. In today’s rat race, society has deteriorated into becoming more selfish, with backstabbers and traitors lurking in your social circle. Caution still has to be taken even towards those closest around you.
3. Reading contracts
Always read the terms and conditions before agreeing to anything. In the absence of a contract, always ask for one. The consequence of failing to read a contract can be catastrophic as some words in fine print might have monumental impacts on you in the far future. For Taylor’s case, her innocence and naivety eventually led to her downfall a decade later. Due to her overwhelming excitement that her music career was about to take flight, the lack of a clear contract or careful contract-reading haunted her eventually.
To end off, Taylor urges all young and aspiring musicians to remember that “you deserve to own the art you make.”
Written by: Chan Wen Hui, Cheryl (21S74)
Edited by: Lim Yu Shu (21S74), Caroline Ong (21A10)
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