The Background
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will know that on June 30th Scooter Braun bought Big Machine Records and Taylor Swift’s back catalogue for $300 million. Swift wrote a scathing post on Tumblr, accusing Braun of bullying her and saying she felt betrayed by Scott Borchetta – Big Machine’s former owner. The post led to a backlash from some of Braun’s famous clients including Justin Bieber and Demi Lovato. Both have had public disputes with Swift in the past. However, there was a noticeable silence on the matter from Braun’s most successful client – Ariana Grande.
Borchetta’s response tried to dampen down many of Swift’s statements. For example, he said that they tried to negotiate with Swift so that she could stay with the label and own her music, whereas Swift says that there was no other option for her other than staying with the label; she couldn’t buy back her Masters.
Swift seemingly came to terms with the fact that she would not be able to own her older music. But she found a way around it. On August 24th, she announced on CBS Sunday Morning that she would be re-recording all her albums from Fearless to reputation. This is legal for her to do and she says she is looking forward to reliving how she felt when recording those albums.
The New Allegation
On Thursday evening, Swift posted another lengthy letter on Tumblr (and later on Twitter), saying that she will be given the Artist of the Decade Award at the American Music Awards and she wanted to perform a medley of her old songs along with some newer ones, as you would. Swift claimed that Borchetta and Braun wouldn’t allow her to do this as it would preempt the agreed date of re-recording. She also said that they weren’t allowing her to use any older music in the Netflix documentary about her life. The only way she could perform her older songs was if she agreed to halt her plans to re-record her entire back catalogue. She called on other artists to persuade Braun and Borchetta to change their minds. The support came flooding in. #WeStandWithTaylor was trending on Twitter on Friday morning.
https://twitter.com/GiGiHadid/status/1195181464922546176
.@Camila_Cabello’s Instagram story #WeStandWithTaylor 💕 pic.twitter.com/PExI4uYNPx
— Camila Updater (@CCUpdater) November 15, 2019
Selena via Instagram Stories! #IStandWithTaylor pic.twitter.com/jdSu7p6UdA
— Selena Gomez Fan (@SelenaGomezNews) November 15, 2019
The Response
Big Machine’s statement denied all of Swift’s allegations and implied that she was being uncooperative with their attempts to come to an agreement in private. The quote that caught my eye was “Taylor, the narrative you have created does not exist.” Swift’s publicist, Tree Paine, has responded to this rebuttal:
https://twitter.com/treepaine/status/1195353721808596997
I am leaning towards believing Swift because what reason would she have to lie about this? Whereas Big Machine Records have every reason to lie about this as it makes both Braun and Borchetta look very bad. It seems like Braun is enjoying exercising his power and control over one of the biggest pop stars in the world.
Featured image via @taylorswift and @scooterbraun
