We can agree to disagree on the long term value, because past efforts of re-recording have proven to be ineffective in the long term of undercutting the value of original catalogues, but then again I could very well be wrong because Taylor is on a whole other magnitude so she could definitely pull this off. It might not actually be an index fund but what I was referring to is the Hipgnosis Song fund which is publicly traded and includes catalogues from Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, jack antonoff, journey, and a bunch others
this is going to be long as fuck and i am sorry but i have a lot to say. so to start off, hipgnosis is an investment company. it isn’t trading artists’ catalogues, but rather its own shares - and its line of business is music. they also own publishing more than masters. at the technical level there are differences but UMG, taylor’s label, is publicly traded as well, but that doesn’t mean people are investing in the music, but rather in a company that happens to work in music.
that aside, it’s true that what taylor is doing is unprecedented in many ways and that other artists haven’t found the success she is looking for in doing the same. but i also think there are a number of key differences between her and anyone else who has tried.
she owns her publishing rights and she’s a maverick about them. she rarely granted syncs at all during in her career and now she’s refusing them entirely on her own catalog, to the point where she herself has said if it means she’s ruining her legacy, then so be it, unless she’s in control. those rights means that there’s virtually nothing that the current owners can do unilaterally, and with her not agreeing to shit, in practice, nothing at all.
she is absolutely meticulous about making music. she’s always been intimately involved in the process of creating a song and so can easily make versions that are basically carbon copies, because she knows exactly what ingredients to add. she’s not going to release any re-records where she isn’t 300% satisfies with the quality and certain that it lives up to the original in her mind, which has a much higher standard than the GP and even us. and she cares so deeply that they’re not going to lose any spark or energy - her entire soul was in the music to begin with and it’s in it even more now. i’m not even sure many other artists are as close with their catalog as she is with hers emotionally.
she’s positioned this to make it not about just herself. she as a human and as an artist deserves to own her music, but she knows this is a bigger fight than that. by positioning it as a move she’s making for the greater good for artists and also for women - and it is - she has a lot of goodwill. scooter and scott also played into that by treating her like absolute shit.
she has us. no one at her level has done this before and very few artists have a fan base that is both as loyal as we are and as educated about the music industry. we are her unforeseeable factor and we can literally kill the old versions if she asks us to, which she has.
thanks for reading this essay!
vaporwave
yousharknotpass
blakekathryn
titsay
