SUPERSTAR STANDOFF
Superstar claiming record executives were refusing to let her play her own music at the American Music Awards
Entertainment columnist looks at Taylor Swift’s battle with Big Machine Records
All the way back in 2006, when Taylor Swift was just 14 years old, she signed a deal with Big Machine Records. Throughout her 10 years at Big Machine, Swift put out six hit albums that all legally belong to the label.
In June, Scott Borchetta, owner of Big Machine Records, sold the label and with it, Swift’s master recordings. Although Swift has the money (she’s worth an estimated $360 million, which is exactly $360 million more than me) and wanted to buy her music back, she claims she was never given the opportunity.
To make the sale worse, Big Machine and the masters were sold to Scooter Braun (manager of stars like Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato), someone who Swift claims has bullied her and tried to derail her career. This is all conjecture, but with a name like Scooter, he was destined to be either a bully or a really great skateboarder.
In order to sidestep the business of buying and selling her original work, Swift planned to re-record her masters so she could license and perform them as she desires. This would drastically devalue Borchetta’s purchase and seemingly out of anger, Borchetta and Braun are trying to silence Taylor. On Nov. 15, Swift shared another message on social media: she claimed Borchetta and Braun were exercising tyrannical control over her by refusing to let her play her own music at the American Music Awards where she is being honoured as artist of the decade or during her upcoming Netflix special.
Fans and artists have been speaking out in support of Taylor and there’s been a lot of back and forth between Swift’s team and Big Machine since.
First, Big Machine said, “At no point did we say Taylor could not perform on the AMAs or block her Netflix special.” That statement conveniently leaves out the things Swift was actually accusing them of, which is refusing to let her play certain songs.
Big Machine also claims Swift owes them millions of dollars. Swift’s team responded by posting a quote from an apparent email sent by Big Machine saying they will not agree to issue licenses for existing recordings and fires back that Big Machine actually owes Swift $7.9 million in unpaid royalties. To which Big Machine responded again, claiming they’ve never tried to stop her from performing or using any of her music, which is like gaslighting 101.
Celebrities like Selena Gomez, Halsey, Tinashe, Sara Bareilles, Elizabeth Warren, Gigi Hadid, Lily Allen and more have written out in support of Taylor. I also stand with Swift, although I’m sure she would prefer it be just figuratively and from a distance.
It’s difficult to relate to all of this because the only thing that has control over me is my beagle, Sully, and the only thing I’ve created of value is some pumpkin muffins that I already ate.
Regardless, I’m looking forward to watching Taylor at the AMAs on Nov. 24 and seeing her Netflix special.