Taylor Swift buys back the rights to her first albums
The American pop princess announced on Friday that she had achieved her “greatest dream” by managing to buy back the rights to her first six albums from the Shamrock investment fund, which had held them since 2020.
In a message posted on her website Friday, Taylor Swift made no secret of her emotion. “All the music I've ever written is now mine. All my music videos. All the concert films. The album art and photos. The unreleased songs. The memories. The magic. The madness. Every era. My life's work,” she said.
“In her announcement, Swift expressed her gratitude and praised Shamrock for their handling of the deal, emphasizing that they understood the deeply personal significance of the transaction,” noted the music magazine Billboard . “My memories, my sweat, my writing, and my decades of dreams,” she wrote. “I am infinitely grateful. My first tattoo might just be a huge shamrock right in the middle of my forehead,” she quipped.
According to several sources consulted by Billboard , Shamrock "would have resold Swift's catalog for an amount relatively close" to that which he had paid to acquire it in 2020, or "around 360 million dollars" (317 million euros), according to the professional title.
For the American artist, a social phenomenon, pop icon and driving force of the global music industry, this acquisition puts an end to years of bitterness and pitched battles surrounding the fate of her first six albums – “Taylor Swift” (2006), “Fearless” (2008), “Speak Now” (2010), “Red” (2012), “1989” (2014) and “Reputation” (2017).
Recorded for the Big Machine label, the masters of the six albums fell into the hands of talent agent and producer Scooter Braun when Big Machine was acquired by his band Ithaca in 2019, before being sold a year later to Shamrock. In both cases, the singer had no say in the transactions.
“Over the years, Swift has been very public about her dissatisfaction with the fate of her masters,” Billboard notes. In 2019, she even “began re-recording Big Machine albums in an effort to regain control over her songs,” despite not owning the original recordings – which continued to generate profits for their owners.
“Swift’s six albums and two live albums recorded during her Big Machine years generated an average of about $60 million annually worldwide between 2022 and 2024,” according to Billboard estimates. Half of that revenue went to distribution, marketing, and Swift herself (as the song writer), “leaving Shamrock with an annual profit of about $30 million.”
Courrier International
