Taylor Swift Shocker: Singer Buys Back and Will Reissue First Six Albums — Even as ‘Reputation (Taylor’s Version)’ ‘Can Still Have a Moment to Reemerge’ Later
In one of the most significant commercial developments in pop music history, Taylor Swift has purchased her entire catalog of recordings, originally released by Big Machine Records, after six years of transfers and turmoil. She acquired these six albums and their associated soundtrack from their last owner, Shamrock Capital, for an undisclosed nine-figure sum, a price Swift described as "very fair and reasonable."
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| Taylor Swift |
“To say this is my greatest dream come true is an understatement,” Swift wrote in a handwritten letter to her fans. She thanked the label that sold her the rights, adding, “All I’ve ever wanted was the opportunity to work hard enough to one day be able to buy my music outright, with no strings attached, no partnerships, and completely independently. I will be forever grateful to everyone at Shamrock Capital for being the first to offer this to me. ... My first tattoo could be a giant shamrock in the middle of my forehead.”
The singer will reissue her older albums from Big Machine, which the label first sold against her will in 2019. But now, two fully certified copies of each album will be available, as she says the remastered “Taylor Editions” will remain available alongside the originals. Two of those bonus releases, including the long-awaited "Reputation (Taylor's Version)," have yet to be released, and her statement says this deal won't prevent the release of the remaining two versions of the album—perhaps because it also makes clear she's in no rush with them now.
The New York Post first reported on the potential sale of Shamrock to Swift, but a source familiar with the negotiations disputed some elements of the story, saying the reported price was wildly inflated and that Scooter Braun had no involvement in the deal. His company, Ithaca Holdings, purchased the catalog in 2019 before Shamrock acquired it from him a year later. Braun no longer shares in any profits from the sale, and Swift's team insists he had no role in Shamrock's decision to sell.
The source familiar with the sale said, "Contrary to a previous false report, no outside party 'encouraged' this sale. This opportunity was solely the work of Shamrock Capital Partners and Taylor's management team in Nashville. Taylor now owns all of her music, and this moment finally happened despite Scooter Braun, not because of him."
The source added, "The alleged price range is completely inaccurate." While a final price will not be announced, insiders say the seller was interested in a bona fide deal, and the final price was much closer to the reported $300 million Shamrock paid in 2020 than the exorbitant price tag the newspaper assumed in its report, which ranged between $600 million and $1 billion.
In response to the news, Braun only responded briefly to Variety: "I'm happy for her."
As she explains in her letter: “I know, I know. What about Rip TV? Total transparency. I didn’t even re-record a quarter of it. Reputation was dedicated to that period of my life, and I hit a wall every time I tried to recreate it. All that defiance, that longing to be understood while feeling willfully misunderstood, that desperate hope, that screaming and mischief born of shame. To be completely honest, it’s the only one of those first six albums that I thought couldn’t be improved by re-creating. Not the music, not the pictures, not the videos. So I kept putting it off. There will come a time (if you’re interested) when unreleased ‘Volt’ tracks from that album will appear. I’ve already re-recorded my entire album, and I really like the sound of it now. Those two albums could still re-appear in due course, if that’s something you’re excited about. But if… if it does, it won’t be out of melancholy and longing, I hope. It’ll just be a celebration.” Now.
The deal will grant Swift the rights to everything from her albums, music videos, and private concerts during that period, to artwork and prints, all of which have been off-limits for the past six years.
Her sentence begins: "I'm trying to put my thoughts together into something coherent, but my mind is just a flashback to all the times I dreamed, wished, and wished so hard for the opportunity to tell you this. All those times I was close, reaching for it, but failing. I almost stopped thinking it was possible, after 20 years of being tempted by the carrot and then snatched away. But all that's in the past now. Since finding out this is happening, I've burst into tears of joy from time to time. I can't help but say these words:
"All the music I've made... is now mine."
She lists what that also means: "And all my music videos. All the concert films. The album covers and photos. The unreleased songs. The memories. The magic. The madness. Every era. All my life's work."
Swift also wrote: "I'm so encouraged by the conversations this story has sparked in my industry between artists and fans. Every time a new artist tells me they've renegotiated their master recording rights in their recording contract because of this disagreement, I'm reminded of the significance of all this. Thank you for your curiosity about something that was previously considered too central to the art world to discuss widely. You'll never know how important your interest has been to me. Every step has been valuable, and it's gotten us here."
She concluded: "Thanks to you, your goodwill, your teamwork, and your encouragement, the best things I've ever had are finally..." She concluded, describing herself as "happy and amazed."
This long and complicated story began nearly six years ago, in the early hours of June 30, 2019, when Braun announced that his company, Ithaca Holdings, had agreed to acquire Scott Borchetta's Big Machine Group—and the recording rights to Swift's first six albums—for approximately $300 million.
Swift had left Big Machine the previous year when her contract expired and had partnered with Universal Music Group, Big Machine's longtime distributor, in a partnership that gave her ownership of her original recordings, while UMG handled the production and distribution of her future recordings and helped promote them through its Republic label. In a social media post at the time, she thanked Borchetta "for guiding me through over a decade of work that I will always be proud of," but noted that she was "excited to know that I will own all of my original recordings going forward."
Hours after the album's sale to Ithaca was announced, Swift lashed out at the deal in a lengthy Tumblr post, saying she learned of the deal "as it was announced to the world"—though other sources insisted she would have known it was discussed at a Big Machine shareholder meeting five days earlier, even though her father, Scott Swift, a shareholder, said he recused himself from the meeting immediately upon learning what was being discussed. Swift also stated that she had tried to acquire the album herself, but that Borchetta's terms were onerous, including a requirement that she remain with Big Machine and receive royalties on one previous album for every new one she released.
The post included a lengthy attack on Braun, whom she said had bullied her, sometimes along with management agents Justin Bieber and Kanye West. She said, "Like Kim Kardashian orchestrated the leak of an illegally recorded phone call, and then Scooter rounded up his agents to cyberbully me about it." Now, Scooter has stripped me of my life's work, which I never had the chance to buy. In short, my musical legacy is about to fall into the hands of those who tried to dismantle it.
On August 25, less than two months after the Ithaca deal, Swift announced her plan to re-record her first six albums—a move previously taken by other artists, including Def Leppard, in an attempt to own the recording rights to their most famous songs. However, it had never happened on the scale Swift announced.
The situation escalated in November around the American Music Awards, where Swift was honored as Artist of the Decade. She alleged that Braun and Borchetta refused to let her use any songs from her previous albums at the awards show, though Big Machine eventually granted her permission.
On November 22, Braun said he and his family had received "numerous death threats" because of the situation. He wrote to Swift, "I assume this was not your intention. But it's important to understand that your words carry tremendous weight, and that your message may be interpreted by some in different ways."
A year later, in November 2020, 17 months after his acquisition, Braun sold the Big Machine catalog—including the rights to Swift's albums—to Shamrock Holdings. Swift again claimed she was denied a reasonable opportunity to purchase the catalog herself, saying Braun requested a non-disclosure agreement before negotiations began. She wrote, "He never set a price for my team. These original recordings were not for sale to me."
On April 9, 2021, she released her first remaster, "Fearless (Taylor's Version)," a meticulously remastered version of 13 tracks from the 2008 album, with over a dozen additional tracks. She did the same for three more albums, which formed the basis of her successful 2023-2024 "Eras" tour—which has grossed an estimated $2.2 billion—leaving only "Reputation" and her self-titled debut. These copies are licensed for advertising and use in films and television. The new owners of Swift's albums were unable to exploit the old recordings they purchased without obtaining the necessary secondary approval from the copyright holder, Swift herself.
In June 2021, Braun told Variety that he "regrets" the situation. "I regret it, and it saddens me that Taylor had this reaction to the deal," he said. "The whole thing was so confusing and without any basis in reality."
While the two continued to trade barbs over the following years, Swift's re-recordings, along with the five new albums she's released since leaving Big Machine, played a significant role in boosting her already dominant global popularity and propelling her to billionaire status. More importantly, the entire dispute taught countless millions of people, especially creatives, the value of owning artwork.