Taylor Swift buys back first six albums in shocking move: ‘You belong with me’

After years of drama surrounding the ownership of Taylor Swift’s music catalog, the Midnights and Tortured Poets Department superstar made a surprise announcement to her fans who have been closely tracking the turmoil.

In a stunning business move, Swift bought back her first six albums. Posting a photo of herself surrounded by the vinyl editions of these titles, she wrote, “You belong with me.” She then published a lengthy letter to her official website in which she stated, “All the music I’ve ever made…now belongs…to me.”

“To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it,” Swift writes in the letter. “To my fans, you know how important this has been to me — so much so that I meticulously re-recorded and released 4 of my albums, calling them Taylor’s Version. the passionate support you showed those 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 fro helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to, but have never owned until now.”

She continued, “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, with full autonomy. I will be forever grateful to everyone at Shamrock Capital for being the first people to ever offer this to me. the way they’ve handled every interaction we’ve had has been honest, fair, and respectful. 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. I am endlessly thankful. My first tattoo might just be a huge shamrock in the middle of my forehead.”

But, wait! What about the Taylor’s Version of Reputation? Swift released her re-recording of the revenge track to that album, “Look What You Made Me Do,” as part of the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale. Is the rest of it now finished?

Swift has an answer for that, too. “Full transparency: I haven’t even re-recorded a quarter of it,” she writes. “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 purposely misunderstood, that desperate hope, that shame-born snarl and mischief. To be perfectly honest, it’s the one album in those first 6 that I thought couldn’t be improved upon by redoing it. Not the music, or photos, or videos. So I kept putting it off.”

She confirms, “There will be a time (if you’re into the idea) for the unreleased vault tracks from that album to hatch. I’ve already completely re-recorded my entire debut album, and I really love how it sounds now. Those 2 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 wish I could have. It will just be a celebration now.”

It’s been a tremendously long journey for Swift. The rights to her discography were first sold against her will by Big Machine Records in 2019, which then prompted her to issue re-recordings of those albums. But she never lost sight of her main goal, which was to reclaim ownership of her own work.

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Her announcement today confirms she purchased her earlier albums from the current rights holders at Shamrock Capital for an undisclosed sum. Variety reports it’s upwards of nine figures. The New York Post, when first signaling the news last week, cited an amount between $600 million to $1 billion, though there are conflicting reports.

Entertainment Weekly reached out to representatives for Swift for comment.

“I’m extremely heartened by the conversations this saga has reignited within my industry among artists and fans,” Swift concludes her letter. “Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in the record contract because of this fight, I’m reminded of how important it was for all of this to happen. Thank you for being curious about something that used to be thought of as too industry-centric for broad discussion. You’ll never know how much it means to me that you cared. Every single bit of it counted, and ended us up here. Thanks to you and your goodwill, teamwork, and encouragement, the best things that have ever been mine…finally actually are.”

Read Swift’s full letter on her website.