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Scooter Braun has reacted to Taylor Swift’s announcement that she bought back the rights to her entire discography.
“I am happy for her,” Braun, 43, told Us Weekly in a Friday, May 30, statement.
Swift, 35, revealed several hours earlier that she purchased the rights to her music from Shamrock Capital. (Braun had previously sold the catalog to the venture capital firm after he bought it from Big Machine Records.)
“I almost stopped thinking it could ever happen, after 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away,” the Grammy winner wrote in a lengthy letter. “But, 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.”
She added, “To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it,” she said. “To my fans, you know how important this has been to me — so much so that I meticulously re-recorded and released four of my albums, calling them ‘Taylor’s Version.’ The passionate support you showed these albums and the success story you turned The Eras Tour into is why I was able to buy back my music. I can’t thank you enough for helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to, but have never owned until now.”
In her statement, Swift noted that she has full ownership “with no strings attached” of her songs, music videos, concert films, album photography and unreleased tracks, in addition to “the memories, the magic [and] the madness.”
Big Machine sold the rights to Swift’s first six albums to Braun in 2019, much to the pop star’s dismay. Swift claimed at the time that she was never given the option to own her work and thus planned to rerecord the LPs. To date, Swift has released the “Taylor’s Version” of Fearless, Speak Now, Red and 1989, with Reputation and her self-titled debut left in the vault.
Swift noted on Friday that she hadn’t even rerecorded “a quarter” of 2017’s Reputation.
“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,” Swift wrote. “All that defiance, that longing to be understood while feeling purposefully misunderstood, that desperate hope, that shame-born snarl and mischief.”
She added, “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 completed Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version).
“I’ve completely re-recorded my entire debut album, and I really love how that sounds now,” Swift continued in her note. “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.”
