After years of pleading for the chance to own her entire music catalog, Taylor Swift has finally gotten her wish.
“All the times I was this close, reaching out for it, only for it to fall through. I almost stopped thinking it could ever happen after 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away,” Swift, 35, expressed in a detailed letter shared on her website on Friday, May 30. “That’s all in the past now. I really get to say these words: All of the music I’ve ever made now belongs to me.”
Swift’s previous record label, Big Machine, transferred the rights to her first six albums to music manager Scooter Braun in 2019. The following year, Braun, now 43, passed the catalog to Shamrock Capital for $300 million.
Although Swift did not disclose the specific amount she paid Shamrock, various sources have suggested that she disbursed nearly the same sum as the venture capital firm in 2020. People magazine reported that Swift paid the company less than $1 billion, while Billboard claimed the payment was closer to $360 million.
Swift confirmed in her Friday letter that she could “buy back [her] music” with the profits from her record-breaking Eras Tour.
“All I’ve ever wanted was the opportunity to work hard enough to be able to one day purchase my music outright with no strings attached, no partnership [and] with full autonomy,” Swift said. “I will forever be grateful to everyone at Shamrock Capital for being the first people to ever offer this to me.”
Shamrock also hasn’t publicly disclosed the nature of the deal, though the pop star won’t ever forget her negotiations with their team.
“The way they’ve handled every interaction we’ve had has been honest, fair and respectful,” Swift wrote. “This was a business deal to them, but I really felt like they saw it for what it was to me: My memories and my sweat and my handwriting and my decades of dreams.”
She added, “I am endlessly thankful. My first tattoo might just be a huge shamrock in the middle of my forehead.”
After Swift’s records were initially sold to third parties, she vowed to record her first six albums with a “Taylor’s Version” title attached. After releasing the rerecorded versions Fearless, Speak Now, Red and 1989, all she had left were 2017’s Reputation and her 2006 self-titled debut album.
“Full transparency: I haven’t even re-recorded a quarter of [Reputation],” Swift added in her letter. “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 purposefully misunderstood, that desperate hope, that shame-born snarl and mischief.”
She continued, “To be perfectly honest, it’s the one album in those first six 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 unreleased vault tracks from that album to hatch.”
Swift, however, has finished a cut of Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version).
“I’ve completely rerecorded my entire debut album, and I really love how that sounds now,” Swift noted in her letter. “Those two 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 could have. It will just be a celebration now.”
The news of Swift’s discography purchase has been celebrated by everyone from her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, to noted fan Flavor Flav. Braun also shared his congratulations.
“I am happy for her,” Braun said in a statement to Us Weekly.
