In August 2019, genre-defying superstar Taylor Swift announced her plan to re-record her first six albums in response to controversy over the ownership of her masters. Swift’s former record label, Big Machine Records, claimed ownership of the original recordings after Swift’s contract with the label expired in late 2018. After label founder Scott Brochetta and owner Scooter Braun denied Swift the right to even play the songs live or use them in any of her work post-contract expiration, Swift fought, and won, the rights to recreate the songs from scratch.

In general, Swift’s move is respectable from an artist standpoint. Artists should have the rights to the music that they create and perform. However, as the release of her fourth re-record, “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” approaches in late Oct., it’s clear that Swift’s re-recordings are snowballing into a part of her businesswoman master plan.

During the original 2019 dispute over the ownership of her masters, Swift released a statement on Tumblr detailing that she was “given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time,” but denied it because she wanted to own her work fully. But Swift has taken so long to re-record them on her own terms that she essentially is earning them back one by one. With each release, Swift is creating an entire era of her music, which is elongating this process to years, as opposed to if she did them all in 2020 when she gained the rights to do so.

Additionally, Swift’s line of merchandise for one re-recording is more than other artists can cover for multiple releases. From multiple CD and vinyl versions to dozens of shirt designs and even a “Red (Taylor’s Version)” branded tissue box cover, her website divided into albums and general merch is a maze to navigate to buy a simple shirt to support her. Even for die-hard Swifties, buying every single physical version or cute new sweatshirt is simply not possible. This culture of large amounts of merchandise is even spilling over to the next generation of pop stars, with younger artists like Olivia Rodrigo and Gracie Abrams following suit.

On the musical side, Swift’s re-records are also proving to be hit or miss. For a musical artist with so many fanatics, differences between song versions are not going to go unnoticed. Upon the release of “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” in July, fans became upset about a lyrical change in “Better Than Revenge” and the missing nostalgia from the record as her voice sounds much more mature. Additionally, the “From The Vault” tracks, supposedly written at the same time as the rest of the album, seem gimmicky, as many are repetitive and generally forgotten about after release.

Overall, Swift’s claims that this is a “passion project” to own her music seems to be false as she has turned it into a long process with no real end in sight. In reality, it seems like Swift is hoping her fan’s checkbooks have a “Blank Space” that they can save for her name.

This story was originally published on Zephryus on October 13, 2023.