Taylor Swift to release a remake of "Love Story" 1:11
(CNN Business) -
Taylor Swift announced Thursday on Good Morning America that a new recording of one of her early albums, "Fearless," will be released on April 9.
But why do you take the time to re-record an album that one of the most important artists in music released 13 years ago?
"Fearless" - for those who don't live and breathe the news of Taylor Swift - is their most successful album.
He sold more than 7 million albums.
However, the pop star does not own the master recordings of the songs on that album, or any songs from the albums he recorded before "Lover" in 2019. That includes big hits like "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together "," Mine "and" Shake It Off ".
By re-recording her hits, Swift can regain control over her recordings, or at least the new "Taylor version" of them.
“The recordings he originally made were made at a different time and under different contractual and legal objections.
She's not happy with this, ”Serona Elton, director of the music business program at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, told CNN Business.
"Now she has full control of the recordings, although this does not change the control of the old recordings," he explained.
When an artist signs with a label, the typical legal arrangement gives the record company ownership of the copyright in the recordings.
This is commonly known as a "master" recording.
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"The artist is paid a percentage of the income generated by the recording, but he is not in control," Elton added.
Now Taylor makes these tapes and publishes them.
What happens to them is entirely up to her, "he explained.
Taylor Swift's strategy
Rerecording her songs is a "great strategy" for Swift, according to Elton.
"Taylor has a very dedicated and loyal fan base, and her voice is powerful enough to persuade her listeners to ditch her old recordings and listen to the new ones she now owns," he said.
Owning master recordings of hits like "Love Story" - whose new recording was released at midnight on Friday - will likely bring Swift a great deal of money.
But owning your recordings goes beyond a matter of money.
Taylor Swift's new recording of her hit album "Fearless" is released on April 9.
For most of her career, Swift had a deal with Big Machine Records.
When it ended in 2018, the singer signed a new deal with Universal Music Group.
This granted him the ownership of his master recordings in the future.
His previous Big Machine catalog was sold to a company owned by music manager Scooter Braun.
Braun's Ithaca Holdings acquired Big Machine Label Group as part of a deal reportedly worth $ 300 million in 2019.
Swift said this was the "worst case scenario" as she claimed Braun bullied her for years.
“This is what happens when you sign a 15-year deal with someone for whom the term 'loyalty' is clearly just a contractual concept,” Swift wrote on Tumblr in 2019. “And when that man says' music has value 'means that its value is in debt to men who did not participate in its creation.
'Artists should own their own work'
After Thursday's announcement for "Fearless (Taylor's Version)," Swift detailed why she was re-recording her songs.
"I've talked a lot about why I'm redoing my first six albums, but the way I chose to do this will hopefully help illuminate where I'm coming from," Swift wrote on Instagram.
"Artists should own their own work for many reasons, but the most obvious is that the artist is the only one who really knows that body of work," he added.
For Swift, re-recording "Fearless" is a project that adds to a very prolific period.
He released two albums during the coronavirus quarantine, "Folklore" and "Evermore," which topped the charts.
Marianne Garvey contributed to this report.
Taylor Swift