Billboard staff reacts to Taylor Swift buying back her masters, our thoughts on 'Reputation (Taylor's Version)' not being re-recorded, how we feel about 'Taylor Swift (Taylor's Version)' coming out, what this means next for Taylor's career and more.
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00:00you know good for her all right she's not giving you a remix she's not giving
00:04you a reboot she's like it's perfect enjoy it people need to do that movies
00:09need to do that TV shows that it's perfect let it cook all right team so
00:15they are all Taylor's versions now Taylor Swift has bought her masters back
00:24you know after all the rerecords billboard where the people that reported
00:28she spent around 360 million dollars to get it all back how we feeling I mean
00:34that's pocket change for her I mean as a billionaire but I think it's like you
00:39know it's it's substantial because like not all artists own their masters and
00:43now she does and this isn't something that she's been trying to do and she has
00:49like set up she said when she started her Taylor's version this is like something
00:53she set out to do and if she had the opportunity to buy them she would I think
00:57it's a total boss move you know and it really props like here she is taking
01:01control of her art and her music like she got a group project though right yeah
01:07wait so she got the the one she rerecorded but then she got the originals now now
01:11she owns the original she's got two sets the same records so under her new record
01:18deal with the public she owned her albums so lover folklore evermore midnight
01:24the tortured coer's department and then all the Taylor's versions she owns the
01:27rights to those but her old record her old ones with her old label big machine
01:32records when they were bought out by UMG they she owned so now she owns them all
01:39the music videos all the you know all the movies everything she's like spent her whole life creating did she get like a refund though
01:55well she spent a bunch of money to rerecord but not only did she spend a
02:00bunch of money to rerecord them I feel like it was kind of a group project of the
02:03fans also buying those records the new records supporting her rerecords and then
02:08that money is probably what and the heiress tour obviously has funded her
02:12being able to buy the records back I also know how much she's gonna pay Kelly
02:16Clarkson for giving her the idea to record all of them she should at least go
02:20on their show and like do an interview I don't want to get the numbers messed up
02:23but I will say I have seen a lot of people say online like she spent three
02:26hundred and sixty million dollars for the masters when Shamrock I think spent a
02:30little less on when they bought them so they're like how does she end up paying
02:33more but what you do have to calculate in there is that those masters have been
02:38owning money over the years that Shamrock and even when Scooter Braun had them
02:41because people were using the old stuff and say like movie trailers and things
02:46like that and so you would start to notice like her rerecords would start
02:50popping up in new ones like you'd be like oh this is the first like rerecord off of
02:53reputation and you would see it like yeah that was yeah that was a new one
02:59which is funny because she said that she didn't report too much of that album
03:03we're not getting it that's the only one I wanted well we'll get to reputation I wanted to see
03:07Gerard's opinion because I feel like he's kind of like learning about this
03:09situation I have one good for her but two I'm just like you spent that money I'm
03:14cheap okay I'm cheap I don't have the millions so like five dollars is a lot so
03:19she spent money to do it her way her own way but then bought it back so what do
03:25you do with the do you do you merge it like how do you what version are we
03:30supposed to listen to now
03:31you can listen to any of them now she's making money off all of them
03:33and now the sweet people have to like chain you
03:36I know she does really self-title though because I was a big country Taylor fan like when it came out
03:45so yeah let's talk about those yeah because basically when she announced
03:49that she bought her masters like there's two albums that she hadn't
03:52rerecorded and rereleased that everybody's been waiting on
03:55reputation and self-titled she has said in her letter that self-titled she did
04:00finish rerecording it and she said in her letter she would be interested in
04:04maybe releasing it if it's something we wanted now that now that you can listen
04:09to original self-titled no guilt do we need a new version a rerecorded
04:15version I think it would be interesting because like when it was announced that
04:19she had bought back from Razzio I was listening to like all her music and I have like a Taylor Swift
04:25playlist of all her albums I was like some of the old Taylor songs came on there and it was just
04:33interesting to hear like some of her old music and like some of the things that she was singing
04:37about which was like she wrote these songs when she was like 15 16 and she has songs that like
04:41talk about like how when she was 15 or 16 she didn't know like her place in the world or what was
04:47gonna happen with her career or her future and now like a lot of that stuff she kind of knows now
04:56I would like to hear those songs from a more mature voice yeah it'll sound like it'll probably sound
05:02like more different from any of the other albums because like she was she didn't really know like
05:07what was gonna happen like when she was recording that first album and I also think like it would
05:12be nice for it to have like a moment in the song like if they didn't even get any play on the air
05:15store you know she didn't really acknowledge it that much she did like some of the surprise songs
05:20but like it would be and I think like country is doing so well and it's having like a moment so I
05:25think like it would be nice for her to go back to her roots what are those um tracks from self
05:31titled sound like on tour like were they different yeah she didn't do very many of them I mean she
05:36there was one that she did um a Mary song where she was singing about like 87 and 89 and she was
05:42like making kind of like a reference to Travis which is like the line of the song is like uh I'll be
05:48I'll be 87 you'll be 89 and she's talking about like this love story between her and this other guy
05:53that was in her neighborhood and now like she was making like a reference to Travis because his
05:58number is 87 so it kind of like is like interesting to like she could like interpret her
06:04her older music in such like a different way again because she's in like such a different part of her
06:09life but let's talk about being in a different part of her life because that's a great transition
06:12to talk about what everybody wants reputation reputation people have wanted that re-release so badly
06:19that they have clowned themselves into several times thinking she was about to release it and
06:25now we found out that she said in her letter she only recorded half the album she said she only
06:30recorded half her reputation because she felt like she couldn't improve upon it or make it better
06:34you know good for her all right she's not giving you a remix she's not giving you a reboot she's like
06:40it's perfect enjoy it people need to do that movies need to do that tv shows need to do that
06:46it's perfect let it cook and the thing that she said was that she didn't want to go back to that
06:52part of her life like she didn't want to relive you know that time she was also like in this
06:57relationship that ended up lasting like six years and then they ended up waking up like it was kind of
07:04like an interesting dichotomy that was happening to have to go and sing about your ex in the studio
07:09thing about your ex that was very significant like you so meant a lot to her no matter what anybody
07:14out there says um and like they spent a lot of time together especially because they were together
07:19during the pandemic and they spent a lot of years together and that's her longest relationship that
07:23she's ever had you know while she's been a celebrity and you know she was also like going through a lot
07:28of strikes with kanya and with kim and there was a lot of like drama happening at the same time
07:34publicly so she was falling in love and also like you know seemingly her career was you know
07:40in shambles in shambles look back at history she was killing it but yeah yeah i mean people had to
07:47like kind of be there for the whole cancellation moment because it felt much bigger than it does
07:52now which is like on top of the world and it feels like no one can stop her but yeah i mean i think
07:57i i mean i'm glad she's not re-recording it because i think like it would be hard for her to re-do
08:05but the good news is she said we might get to see the vault tracks there may be a way that we get the
08:11vault tracks which i'm more excited about because reputation is her only album that she doesn't have
08:15a deluxe for so it has like less fall i kind of like that she does it like keep it like the album
08:21that it is like succinct and like i like that album probably the best and so just now i can listen to it
08:27guilt-free