Taylor Swift has announced that her new label home will with Republic Records and Universal Music Group after her contract with Big Machine Label Group (BMLG) expired on the 1 year anniversary of her 6th studio album, Reputation. Included in this contract were two key points. The first being that she gets to keep the original masters to the music she creates moving forward with Republic Records and Universal Music Group. The second being that “any sale of their [Republic & UMG] Spotify shares result in a distribution of money to their artists, non-recoupable.”
This is not the first time that Swift has stood up for other artists in streaming. In 2015, she wrote a letter to Apple explaining she would be withholding her album 1989 from streaming services. Stating that the lack of payment for writers, producers, or artists during the 3 month free trial period for users was “shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company.”
She did, however, eventually allow all of her music to be included on streaming platforms on June 9 of last year (although her latest release Reputation was not available to stream until almost a month after its initial release.)
She wrapped up her instagram announcement about the label move with a thank you to Scott Borchetta, the founder and owner of Big Machine Label Group, who signed Swift when she was just 14 years old. “I want to express my heartfelt thanks to Scott Borchetta for believing in me as a 14-year-old and for guiding me through over a decade of work that I will always be so proud of.” Swift is currently wrapping up the Reputation Stadium Tour.
With only 2 shows left in Japan at the Tokyo Dome on November 20 and 21, it appears she has already begun thinking about her next album cycle. At the 2018 AMAs she stated she looks at albums “as chapters” in her life and that she is “even more excited about the next chapter.”
https://twitter.com/AMAs/status/1049844283950264320
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