When Life Gives You Lemons...
how Taylor Swift defied the music industry and created the Eras Tour
It’s been a big year for Taylor Swift. Her blockbuster run of concerts in the US, the Eras Tour, broke records for attendance and ticket sales, as well as boosting the economy of every city she visited by hundreds of millions of dollars, which during a cost of living crisis is very welcome. The tour is currently making its way through Central and South America, and will come to Asia, Australia, Europe, and Canada next year. It is set to become the highest-grossing tour in history.
The show itself is a truly impressive feat of musicianship and athleticism: Swift performs for almost 3 hours, taking the audience on a journey through her musical career up to now — each album gets its own dedicated section, hence the ‘eras’ gimmick. If you’ve been on the internet at all this year, you probably haven’t been able to get away from people talking about it or the video clips of performances people have been posting.
My personal favourite part of the shows have been the ‘acoustic sets’, where Swift ditches the band and the backup dancers for a while to perform two solo songs on the piano or the guitar – different ones every night, and sometimes featuring special guests. Hearing these stripped-back versions of her songs without any fancy production or effects inspires new appreciation for the sheer skill of her songwriting, melodic craft, and clever lyricism.
But if you want to find when exactly the Eras Tour originated, you’ll have to go back to the year 2019, when Swift received a significant blow to her sense of ownership over her music.
The year before, Swift’s contract with Big Machine Records had expired, and she signed a new deal with Republic Records. Come 2019, Big Machine founder Scott Borchetta was looking to sell the company, and the buyer ended up being Scooter Braun, a music executive and artist manager with whom Swift had long been in dispute over allegations of bullying, and whom she claims tried to sabotage her career.
Under US copyright law, a music recording has two different copyrights attached to it: one for the specific recording, or the master, and the other for the song itself as a composition. As the primary songwriter for all of her songs, Swift owns the publishing rights, but the masters of her first six albums were owned by Big Machine, as was agreed upon when Swift originally signed with them. As a result of Braun purchasing Big Machine Records, all of Swift’s masters now belonged to someone she felt was against her. She was, as you’d expect, outraged. Swift had been offered the chance to purchase her masters before, in return for an extended contract with Big Machine, but she felt the terms of that agreement were inadequate and too restrictive. Braun eventually sold the masters in 2020 to a private equity firm.
The dispute was covered extensively in the media, and prompted widespread discussions about artists’ rights, intellectual property, and the way artists are treated by the music industry. Swift’s response — a colossal power move — was to rerecord all of her old material, once her contract with Big Machine allowed her to, and release it again on her own terms. This would mean that she would fully own the copyright for the new recordings, and have full control over the licensing, as her deal with Republic gives her ownership of her masters as well as the publishing rights. The new recordings, dubbed ‘Taylor’s Versions’, feature the albums in full, recorded pretty much exactly as they were, as well as featuring a number of bonus ‘From the Vault’ songs which had never before been released.
The first one to be released was Fearless (Taylor’s Version), in 2021. Later that year came Red (Taylor’s Version), which was a huge success, propelled by the release of the 10-minute version of fan-favourite track “All Too Well”, which also received the music video treatment in the form of a short film. In July 2023, strategically in the middle of the Eras Tour, Swift released Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), and just last month, 1989 (Taylor’s Version). The remaining re-recordings, of her debut album Taylor Swift, and her last album with Big Machine, reputation, are yet to be released.
Swift has taken an unfortunate situation and turned it into something amazing. The re-recordings have been embraced by fans and radio stations alike, and along with the releases of three albums of new material — folklore, evermore, and Midnights — which were also very successful, the last few years have made Swift a force to be reckoned with. And now, with the Eras Tour being the “economic juggernaut” that it has been, she appears to be unstoppable. If her masters had never been sold in such an underhand manner, she would never have pursued her re-recording project, and if that had never happened, she likely wouldn’t have had the idea for the Eras Tour in the first place. It goes beyond merely a silver lining.
How Swift has prospered so much from what would normally be considered a defeat for an artist is astonishing. It helps that her fans basically lap up anything she gives them, but she has been gaining respect widely from the music industry and beyond for her approach which puts the music, and the fans, first. Similar disputes between artists and their labels have occurred before — such as in the case of Prince, for example — but never with these kinds of results. In this new era (wink wink) of music where streaming dominates and artists are increasingly expected to be their own promoters, the role of labels is becoming less important and artists are demanding more ownership over their music. It’s a hopeful change, and, as Swift demonstrates, it works pretty well.
But the most incredible thing about it is that Swift is having so much success by basically doing what she loves: making music and sharing it with people. It’s a dream many of us can aspire to. Although it has to be said that her savvy business instincts have played a part in it, her ability to capitalise on her success reads more like playing the system to her advantage than manipulating her audience. Watching her perform, it’s clear that she’s having the time of her life up there, and it’s a joy for us to watch as well. Swift has used her influence to democratise the music business, or at least move the needle further in that direction, towards the point where artists themselves control the means of production and distribution of their work. Let’s hope the trend continues.
Sources:
TIME - The Staggering Economic Impact of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour
Wikipedia - Taylor Swift masters dispute
TIME - Here’s Why Taylor Swift is Re-Releasing Her Old Albums
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Shadow Work in Taylor Swift's "Midnights"
Like a lot of people, I have been listening to Taylor Swift’s latest album, Midnights, since it came out a couple of months ago. I’m a recent convert to being a proper fan of hers, after being really impressed by her last few albums - seeing how she has matured as an artist, and the emotional tone of her recent work, has made me appreciate her much more.
always well done, Jack!!🌱