Taylor Swift (Sequoia’s version)

BY SARINA SANGHVI AND LUCIA KITCHING Staff Reporters

With over 80.3 million listeners per month on Spotify and 12 Grammys, Taylor Swift is one of the most successful artists of recent times.

“Even if you’re not a fan of pop music, there is definitely a Taylor Swift song for everyone,” senior Jessica Wagner said.

Over the course of her music career, each of Swift’s new albums correlated to a different “era” with different styles of music and personalities. From her early country music to the edgy, bold vibes of “Reputation”, to the upbeat pop of “Lover”, to the poetic lyrics of “Folklore”, she covers a wide variety of genres.

Despite writing all of her own music over the past 17 years, Swift’s first six albums were owned by “Big Machine Records”. She tried to buy them but never gained ownership of the master recordings of her albums because of record executive Scooter Braun. This led to many feuds between Swift and Braun and finally in reaction, Swift decided to re-record all of her past albums, renaming them “Taylor’s Version”.

“They chose to undermine her so her reaction was totally valid,” senior Eva Smith said.

In April 2021, “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)”, the rerecording of her 2008 album “Fearless” was released, and “Red (Taylor’s Version)”, the rerecording of her 2012 album “Red” was released in November 2021. Even though it was not new music, “Taylor’s Version” (TV) became extremely popular and broke streaming records and charts.

“Her community grew at the time when she released [her albums] folklore and evermore, and so her fans were spreading the message about “Taylor’s Version” and people realized how important it was,” Wagner said.

“Red (TV)” became the most streamed album from a female artist in one day with 90.8 million streams on its release date. She became the single most-streamed female artist in a day on Spotify. After four days, “Red (TV)” surpassed the original in streams and social media attention.

“People should support her and her music and not the people who just want money from it,” Wagner said. It is easy for small, independent artists to be taken advantage of by large record companies who solely want profits.

Taylor Swift is a role model for many of these artists and shows them that they should be able to take ownership of their work and passion.

“I think that it sets a really cool precedent specifically for newer, more independent artists to recognize the value that their music has,” Megan Chatham, English II ICAP and English IV teacher said. “And hopefully by her recording her own versions and by owning her masters, that sets a precedent for newer artists to do the same thing to not end up in situations where they signed contracts that might potentially leave them without any ownership of their music.”

Many people argue that Taylor Swift is extremely wealthy and successful, so the version of her songs that you listen to doesn’t matter because she will be gaining money regardless. However, gaining ownership of her work is less of a financial issue and more of a choice to come back from being taken advantage of.

So I think whether or not she owned her versions of the songs or not, like financially isn’t that big of a deal, but on a more personal level,” Chatham said. “I think she promotes the importance that when you create art, it should belong to you and it shouldn’t be other people deciding how that art gets produced, and who reaps the benefits of that art.”

With the upcoming “Eras” tour, more people are listening to and streaming Taylor Swift than ever. In addition to preparing for the highly anticipated tour covering all of her previous eras, she is also actively releasing new music and rerecordings. The night before her opening in Glendale, Arizona, also known as “Swift City”, she released three new recordings as well as a brand new single, “All the Girls You Loved Before”.