After her back catalogue was bought by pop manager Scooter Braun, Taylor Swift has now hit back - confirming that she ‘absolutely’ intends to record new versions of her songs. When asked on the CBS Sunday Morning show whether she planned to re-record the old material, the singer replied saying she would ‘absolutely’ do it. In another interview, with Good Morning America on Thursday, Taylor said she would be re-recording her first five albums when her contract allows her to do so next year.
It comes after the singer hit out at Braun over the talent manager’s $300 million acquisition of her former label Big Machine Label Group last month. In a statement posted on her Tumblr, the pop star criticised both Braun - the rep for Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande - and Big Machine’s founder/CEO Scott Borchetta, describing the deal as her ‘worst case scenario’. She also accused Braun of years-long ‘incessant, manipulative bullying’. The deal reportedly included the ownership of Swift’s first six records from her 2006 self-titled debut album to her latest Reputation.
‘I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and “earn” one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in,’ Swift wrote. ‘I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future. I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past. Music I wrote on my bedroom floor and videos I dreamed up and paid for from the money I earned playing in bars, then clubs, then arenas, then stadiums.’
‘Like when Kim Kardashianorchestrated an illegally recorded snippet of a phone call to be leaked and then Scooter got his two clients together to bully me online about it,’ she wrote. ‘Or when his client, Kanye West, organised a revenge porn music video which strips my body naked. Now Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy. Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.’
She continued, ‘Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them. In perpetuity. That means forever.’
Borchetta responded with a statement titled So It’s Time For Some Truth… claiming that Swift had known about the acquisition a day prior to the official announcement. He alleges that he had ‘personally texted Taylor’ on Saturday night so ‘she could hear [the news] directly from me’.