Taylor Swift is celebrating, after buying the masters to her original back catalogue, following a years-long battle to own her own music.
The 35-year-old announced the news in a lengthy letter posted on her website confirming she’d purchased the rights to “all of the music I’ve ever made”.
“You belong with me,” she captioned a photoshoot on Instagram.
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The singer’s seen in the new photos with the covers for her first six albums displayed in front of her.
The vinyls include: Taylor Swift (2006), Fearless (2008), Speak Now (2010), Red (2012), 1989 (2014) and Reputation (2017).
It marks the first time Swift’s ever had control over her entire catalogue.
Swift said the excitement of the news had seen her burst “into tears of joy at random intervals” and also teased getting her “first tattoo” before thanking her fans.
“I can’t thank you enough for helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to, but have never owned until now,” she wrote online.
“You’ll never know how much it means to me that you cared.”
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The battle to own her music rights – after the singer’s former label Big Machine sold them to music executive Scooter Braun in 2019 – prompted Swift to release (Taylor’s Version) editions of each of the six albums.
The idea to re-record the albums, given to Swift by fellow singer Kelly Clarkson, devalued the original recordings.
It also saw her loyal fans rush out to buy the new albums, which also featured tracks “from the vault” that hadn’t made it onto the original.
Braun sold the masters in November for a reported $US300 million ($468 million) to private equity firm Shamrock Capital, who then dealt with Swift and her team to sell it back to her for an undisclosed sum.
It’s rumoured Braun encouraged the sale back to the singer after years of backlash from Swifties.
“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,” Swift wrote in the letter.
“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.”
Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version) were released in 2021, while 1989 (Taylor’s Version) and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) were released just four months apart in 2023.
There are still two albums within the set to have re-recordings released – Reputation and her self-titled debut – but the singer says they’re still on the way for fans, at an unknown date in the future.
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While many thought “Rep TV”, as fans call Reputation, would be the next to be released, Swift warned that isn’t the case.
“Full transparency: I haven’t even re-recorded a quarter of it. 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,” the singer revealed.
However, her debut album re-recording is in the can.
“I really love how it sounds now,” she admitted.
“Those two 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.”
Fans were recently treated to a Taylor’s Version of her hit single Look What You Made Me Do from Reputation, which featured almost in full across the opening scenes of one of the final Handmaid’s Tale episodes.
Swift’s also managed to release another five original albums – Lover (2019), Folklore (2020), Evermore (2020), Midnights (2022), and The Tortured Poets Department (2024) – and complete a record-breaking The Eras Tour as her battle to regain control of her music played out.
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