Amazon Prime Day is now, like, a holiday. It’s a holiday worthy of a concert with multiple performers, including one of the richest women in music, Taylor Swift. Taylor joined Dua Lipa and Becky G at the Amazon Prime Day Concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York on Wednesday. Jane Lynch was the host. Honestly, it doesn’t have to make any sense. Amazon has billions of dollars to burn and if they want to throw themselves a concert, so be it. As for Taylor’s look – chica loves hot pants. She always has loved that hot-pants/romper look.
Taylor agreed to perform at this concert because her new album, Lover, is coming out soon. This will also be her first album with Republic Records, as part of the new deal she signed last year with the label. Her Republic contract gives her full control and ownership of her masters from here on out. But the masters for her first six albums now belong to Scooter Braun. There are about a million new stories about Taylor’s Summer Beef with Scooter, but I found this Page Six item interesting/sketchy/mean and funny:
Taylor Swift was crowned the world’s highest paid celeb Wednesday, according to Forbes, with more than $185 million raked in over the past year. But music industry insiders are accusing the star of “playing victim” in her attack on Scooter Braun last week for buying her former label, Big Machine Records, and say she could’ve scooped up the label herself.
Swift posted after Braun bought the label, “Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy” and, “This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen.” But an insider said of Swift: “Everyone knows she’s playing the victim. She has five homes, a private jet. She even summons her boyfriend [UK actor Joe Alwyn]. She sends a jet to London to pick him up and bring him to her when she needs him.”
Swift wrote in the lengthy post: “For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work. Instead, I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in.”
But a source pointed out that Swift comes from a family of finance pros, and her dad, Scott, is a Big Machine shareholder. “She’s omitting the fact that someone acquired the company. She could’ve bought it!” exclaimed a source of the deal. “Her dad is a multimillionaire shareholder. It’s a business transaction, and she’s making it all about her.”
Another insider told us Swift did try to purchase her masters — and the label — on several occasions, but was met with stipulations. “It was a s - - tty deal. She tried to buy it multiple times, but they wouldn’t let her cut a check like Scooter,” the source said. Swift’s lawyer, Donald Passman, has said, “[Big Machine CEO] Scott Borchetta never gave Taylor Swift an opportunity to purchase her masters, or the label, outright with a check in the way he is now apparently doing for others.”
While I enjoy this tea – “She has five homes, a private jet. She even summons her boyfriend. She sends a jet to London to pick him up and bring him to her when she needs him” – I also don’t think it has anything to do with the subject of “why wasn’t Taylor allowed to buy her masters?” I would be very interested to know what this “sh-tty deal” was and what those negotiations looked like. Because the argument of “Taylor is super-rich” isn’t really a good rationale for “and that’s why she shouldn’t own her work/masters.”
Photos courtesy of Getty.
I think the argument is that Taylor is super rich, other artits don’t get to own their masters either (while not being so super rich) and playing the ‘victim’ doesn’t look good on a multi-millionaire who can absolutely afford the lawyers to make a new deal with the new owners of the label now.
She still has not explained why the fact that Scooter Braun owns her masters now stops her from trying to buy them again…
Because it’s about control, not money. If every successful artist was “allowed” to buy their masters, or a label, music business owners like Scooter and Scott would lose their power. Of course Scott would take Scooter’s deal over any offer he got from the TS front, because people look after their own, and Scott isn’t an artist, he’s a business man. And if we realize those people aren’t actually doing anything other than moving money around, they lose their appeal.
It seems to me that what she’s complaining about is why, if her masters were for sale, she wasn’t able to cut them a check and buy them the way Scooter did. On the contrary, she was offered a renewed contract to get her masters, which tied her to that company for another 10 years. She has the money, she was not given the opportunity to spend it. She was more valuable to the label as an artist chained to a contract than her millions.
^^This. If people find out the men behind the curtain are disposable, the whole business model that made them rich and powerful collapses.
She should have set up a private LLC and had a trusted ‘CEO’ third party agent of her LLC buy them for her. I’m surprised her dad didn’t advise her to do that.
I will give a couple of examples of artists waging battle for their music rights…Tom Petty risked his career and going completely broke to go against the entire music industry while making major changes, obviously the indentured servitude model didn’t die. Petty’s label, Shelter Records was being sold to MCA records (It’s original parent company after being sold to ABC records). His songs had been taken away from him before he even knew what publishing was, The record deal was just as bad. Long story short, Petty tried to get out of the deals, MCA and Shelter sued him and he wasn’t allowed to work for anyone so he funded his own album, went broke doing it, wasn’t allowed to release it, filed bankruptcy WHICH MAKES ALL CONTRACTS VOID. He told them he would “sell peanuts before ever giving in to them”. I was working for Interscope when, after Tragic Kingdom being such and enormous hit, No Doubt was allowed/able to renegotiate a deal to get out of the usual sh^tty deal because their fans gave them power. I worked for Prince’s Business manager when he became “the artist formerly known as”, his name was a symbol he sent to all of us on a disk to be loaded onto our computers and wrote SLAVE on his cheek. George Michael sued Sony unsuccessfully and said he was in a “contract of professional slavery.” Paul McCartney and Michael Jacksons personal friendship and professional relationship ended for the rest of Michael’s life when Michael bought the Lennon/McCartney catalogue. Obviously McCartney wanted it…obviously Swift wants her music…it’s the sh^tty person who outbids them that is the POS
Here’s probably a dumb question: Is she still allowed to perform her old songs in concert now? Assuming so since she has been since leaving Big Machine, but if something has changed since Scooter bought it or she decides not to, the concerts on these next tour are gonna be pretty short.
in my music world, masters are the official recordings which were released, the final product of a recorded song. so, as far as I know, she can perform every song on a concert, if it’s not by using the exact master recording?
She can. The master ownership doesn’t have much to do with that, specially when Taylor is also the main composer and writer, but he will get a cut of the money whenever the song is reproduced in it’s recorded form. It has more to do with the way her earlier music will be packed and how it will be released from now on. If Scooter wants to release 10 “best of” Taylor’s albums with the song masters he has, right now, he can.
She really is, as always, playing victim. This is actually a standard for the musical business. Most artists don’t have the ownership of their masters. Some buy them back, like Rihanna or Paul Mccartney who bought some of the Beatles masters back but couldn’t buy the earlier works.
I think Taylor’s wealth is leverage in these conversations. She has changed the structure of at least 2 separate business deals that set precedence for other artists (the streaming one and this new one). I don’t mind that she is trying to advocate for more artist autonomy and ownership, but it does seem to be a messy process.
if she did it with honesty, it would be okay. But that’s not how she always choses to proceed.
I mean, we know the business world is cutthroat and she is one mean businesswoman, but don’t try and play victim.
I think every single person involved in high level, capital-oriented business tells partial truths – the Tom Pettys of the world are very rare and incredibly admirable.
This isn’t just about Taylor and her terrible approach to her public image. I am separating the two.
She can still performs the songs like they were recorded and will still get money from sales bc she will always have the songwriting royalties. Only thing that’s changed is that Scooter also gets part of that money instead of Borchetta.
Also this subject is getting tiring, all of them are spoiled white filthy rich brats.
I believe he’s also got licensing rights. So he decides commercials, movies, and tv shows that can use it, or he could let someone make a Mamma Mia type musical or movie with her songs.
She still owns the publishing rights so they would both have to sign off on any licensing deal.
Interesting, so could he block licensing deals that she wanted to pursue? It sounds like aside from that and him getting a portion of the profits, he can’t really do any harm to her “brand” by owning her masters.
I get why she’s pissed that she didn’t get the opportunity to just write a check, but it sounds like her main beef should be with Borchetta rather than Braun.
Yes I believe they would both have to sign off on using the songs in TV ads/movies, etc but if he wanted to say, license her work to a new streaming service, she has no recourse.
Taylor Swift may not be totally right, but she’s also not wrong. Powerful industry executives do NOT want their property, oops “artists,” thinking they get to call the shots, so putting Swift in her place is only to their benefit.
It just came out today that Swift was the highest paid entertainer on the planet last year, if she or other artists end up not needing those middlemen between her and her public, the fortunes they’ve accumulated based on the work of others is in jeopardy.
This is what I’ve thought from the beginning: that Taylor DID try to by her masters/the company outright, and the deals were so terrible that it didn’t make good business sense so she was basically forced to pass. Then in her post she shorthanded that to “wasn’t allowed” because she either thought non-music industry insider people wouldn’t understand the minutia, or there were NDA stipulations around her negotiations and she couldn’t legally give details. That was a mistake, if so, she shouldn’t have misrepresented like that. But there was no way she didn’t try to buy her masters somehow, and for her to pass on it, the offers had to be horrific. I absolutely believe Scooter was just allowed to hand over money in a way Taylor was not. How many times has this site said how brilliant a business woman she is? She wouldn’t take a shitty deal just for artistic reasons.
yea that last sentence about how it was a shitty deal is crazy…like she should have been offer the same ish scooter was….
and the dropping of tea on her and her boo….is just like who cares…dude she is a boss woman (who i dont always like but watev) in her own right…..
which leads me to my next thing….. i think taylor may have met her match…scooter and dem have dirt im sure on her and her comings and goings and are willing to not so much drop receipts but out her and destroy her privacy and reveal her glass closeting …..and while i feel like im ready for all that tea….that would be a SHIT way to go down you know
Her having private jets and multiple homes really doesn’t have any bearing on this conversation (although I do think it’s hilarious that she “summons” Joe whenever she “needs him”).
She wasn’t offered a deal to buy just her masters because that would have lowered the value of the label and been a poor business decision for Scott Borchetta. I’m not sure why he wouldn’t have allowed her to buy the label outright like Scooter did, unless she didn’t want to, or she would have dissolved the label because she doesn’t want to be a label-owner and he was looking out for the other, smaller artists on his label.
Or maybe he was just pissed that she was leaving after they helped her become a mega-star, and he didn’t want to give her a good deal. I don’t know! I don’t think he sold specifically to Scooter just to screw her, though.
Yeah I thought she had a sh*tty deal but didn’t think the Scooter thing was a personal attack on her…until recently. They are releasing her old songs on vinyl for the 13 year anniversary (she always makes a big deal about 13) and it just seems like a particular dig to do it right now.
Music executives are absolute sleaze and always have been.
I’m so confused by people saying “Why didn’t she just buy the whole label?” like owning a record label is real estate. It would be an incredible amount of time and money for someone who’s one of the biggest entertainers in the world to manage a label, even a small one. And not to mention Taylor was Big Machine’s golden goose for a decade. They have some legacy artists (Reba and Sheryl Crow) but their younger artists have never really popped. Scott Borchetta has a good eye for talent but not for developing artists. And for all of her faults, Taylor does seem to genuinely care about other artists and the idea of the fate of a dozen or so careers being in her hands was probably not something she was interested in.
I read Lady Antebellum, Florida Georgia Line, and Rascal Flatts were all involved in some way, like they were currently signed or had been so their masters were included in the deal
I don’t really care about Taylor’s drama, although I do enjoy reading the heavy handed “poor Taylor!” stuff from her fans because they get so elaborate and it’s comical. I do care that she’s performing with Amazon and that nobody seems to care about it. Jeff Bezos is not a good person. The wealthiest man on the planet who doesn’t pay taxes is not ok. Amazon has many, many issues with regards to human rights violations akin to Walmart, which should be a bigger concern for everyone; Tay’s record label woes are such small potatoes comparatively.
I’ve read complaints from her fans about her performing at Coachella and other Goldenvoice festivals/shows because Goldenvoice has ties to anti-LGBT companies. I doubt I will hear anything from those same fans about taking a check from a company that abuses it’s workers and whose owner has plenty of money to fix its problems, along with lots of other problems, but would rather play games with tax loopholes.
Lol the video of her emphasizing “the dirty, dirty cheats in the world” all indignant-like while on an Amazon stage was pretty hilarious.
She probably didn’t want to buy the whole company though she likely could have persuaded Borchetta to sell whole co to her if she wanted, but how could Borchetta sell his business for a great price if he’d first sold her masters back to her in a standalone deal? Her masters were what made it a $300 million bonanza for Borchetta! That doesn’t make him a sleaze or the deal sleazy and unfair. Do you blame the guy? Seems retirement age. Nice way to go out if that’s his plan.