The music industry is a tricky business. There’s a lot of it we don’t understand, mostly because we just care about the boppy tunes and lyrics that resonate -- what happens behind the scenes isn’t necessarily our concern. But the country/pop princess herself, Taylor Swift, has brought a huge problem to light, and you bet I, as a diehard Swiftie*, am going to break down exactly what’s going on. Starting with who the hell named a human being “Scooter.”
*There is probably a good amount of bias running throughout this analysis. Sorry, but not really sorry.
Background
You know Taylor Swift. She’s a huge musical sensation, a singer-songwriter who launched her career when she was 14 and has transcended genres as we know it. Is she a country artist? Yes. Is she a pop artist? Also yes.
Swift made waves two years ago when she released “reputation,” an album off the heels of celeb scandal after scandal (her standing with the Kardashian-West clan isn’t great) that basically threw a middle finger up to the haters. Swift was pretty much in hiding for a couple of years before “reputation” dropped, but then she went on to sell out stadiums with her accompanying tour and broke records. As you do.
More recently, Swift has reemerged from the metaphorical ashes of “reputation,” and her seventh studio album, “Lover,” is due out August 23. I, for one, am loving her sparkly aesthetic.
Swift is releasing “Lover” through Republic Records, a contract she entered into last year when her deal with Big Machine Records -- she was pretty much their first client ever -- expired. Her six other albums remain under ownership of Big Machine, (previously) owned by Scott Borchetta; Swift was easily the label’s most lucrative client, her streaming and sales accounting for 35.6 percent of the company’s market share for 2018, according to the Comments by Celebs podcast. This fact is the meat and potatoes of the whole thing.
So, on to Scooter Braun, owner of SB Projects. He’s probably the most famous talent manager in the game. His client roster includes Justin Bieber (Braun is the one who introduced then-YouTube sensation to Usher, and the rest is history), Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato and, previously, Kanye West. He’s worth about $400 million, with stakes in huge companies like Uber and Spotify. We should add that he uses his wealth well: He claims that his companies grant more Make-A-Wish Foundation wishes than any other organization around.
What happened?
Scooter (real name Scott, obviously)’s SP Projects acquired Big Machine Records on Sunday (officially) for $300 million. As a result, the company owns all master recordings (so, the original recordings of the artist from which all future copies are made) of all of Swift’s released music to date. The “masters” basically refer to all rights to music or a song, meaning that whoever owns those rights has control of all financial gains. It’s a complete ownership situation. It’s important to note that with her new deal with Republic, Swift now owns the masters to any new music she releases. But as far as past recordings, nada, zip, zilch.
News of the acquisition took flight when Swift posted an Instagram story depicting a screenshot of a (now deleted) Instagram post by Justin Bieber (I’m not even going to go into his response, which you can read here, because Bieber is a loser). In it, Bieber is Facetiming with Scooter and Kanye West, whom Swift was feuding with at the time, and used the caption “What’s up Taylor Swift.” Swift edited the shot to draw a circle around Scooter’s face, identifying him as “bullying” her “at her “lowest point.” The post linked to a blog on Tumblr where Swift detailed how she felt about someone she’s had negative history with now owning all of her music; namely, “sad and grossed out.”
She detailed how she had attempted to strike a deal with Big Machine wherein she would become the sole owner of her master recordings, which her attorney has corroborated. When it wasn’t feasible, she said she made a choice to “leave her past behind,” but that “never in [her] worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter.”
Swift also claimed that Scott Borchetta knew the extent of Swift’s history with Scooter.
Borchetta denied what Swift said about him in the post, writing in a Big Machine blog that Swift’s father, a shareholder in Big Machine, was notified of the impending sale over a week before it was announced and that he personally notified her himself. As far as the contract renegotiation that was in the works before she switched to Republic, well -- that seems like a subjective matter for the two parties involved.
Swift has gone pretty much radio silent since that Tumblr post, refusing to meet with Borchetta or Scooter.
What do we think about it?
Regardless of who’s involved, the issue is bringing up a larger matter: Ownership of music is a big deal. The fact that there are contracts out there that don’t allow an artist to have control over what they create seems crazy, and it’s something no one ever really thinks about. Is Swift leading the narrative in a way that fits her opinion of it? Sure. Is the sale still a pretty sh*tty situation? Absolutely.
Swift is known for taking things public simply to make a point (remember when she took someone to court for a single dollar?), so I imagine that this is just more of that. If anything changes as far as her master recordings, I’d be shocked, but at least now we know.
What does everyone else think?
A lot of celebs are coming to Swift’s defense, but most of them are already her friends. One of the most vocal, Todrick Hall, who’s been featured in Swift’s music videos, went off on Twitter, both standing by Swift and expressing his own gripes with Scooter:
Halsey chimed in:
And so did Cara Delevigne (see the Instagram comment here), Camila Cabello (in her own way) and Brendon Urie (NSFW):
Then there’s Scooter’s side. Yael Braun, his wife, also took to social media, but to defend her husband and call out Swift for being cowardly.
Demi Lovato added her two cents, which no one really cared about, claiming that she’s dealt with bad people in the music industry but that “Scooter is not one of them.”
Other Scooter clients, meanwhile, like Ariana Grande, have chosen to stay radio silent. Probably for the best.
As far as the general public, it’s tough for me to get an objective sense of the opinions, namely because my own social circles and feeds are inundated with Swifties. They, at least, are furious.
Need a drink?
Inspired by Swift’s latest single, we have the “Calm Down”:
- 1 part rainbows
- 2 parts butterflies
- A dash of snakeskin
- Shake (it off) and pour into a martini glass