Taylor Swift Says She Will Rerecord Her Old Music. Here’s How.

What could stop her?

On the one hand, not many practical concerns, given that this is Taylor Swift, one of the most connected, wealthy and powerful people in the modern music industry. “She certainly has the money to be able to do this, which is always going to be an issue in this situation,” said Mark Tavern, a former major-label record executive and a professor of music business at LaGuardia Community College. “It’s one thing to make acoustic versions, it’s another to do a full pop production and make them competitive” with the originals, he added.

If Swift were to attempt a note-for-note recreation that could replace the old versions in loyal fans’ collections, she would probably need the support of her past collaborators, from co-writers on her early songs, like Liz Rose, to the pop producers Max Martin, Shellback and Jack Antonoff. “That would be smoother and prevent backlash in public,” Tavern said, adding: “Each of those co-writers stands to make a ton of money from any of those rereleases.”

Still, Swift’s past contracts with Big Machine, where she first signed as a teenager in 2005, could include language that would complicate things. Restrictions on rerecording songs have been common since the Everly Brothers put out fresh versions of past hits on a new label in the early ’60s, according to Tavern. Such terms typically bar artists from releasing rerecorded work for three to five years, or more, from its release. In Swift’s case, “We haven’t seen the contracts, but it’s pretty standard language in everyone’s contract,” Tavern said.

Swift’s first album on Big Machine, her self-titled debut, came out in 2006, while her most recent, “Reputation,” was released in 2017. In theory, should her contracts have time restrictions in place, she could begin releasing new versions on rolling basis, starting at the beginning.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/22/arts/music/taylor-swift-rerecord-albums.html?emc=rss&partner=rss