Taylor Swift Re-Recorded Her Albums, Then Bought the Originals

1. The Original Recordings

Taylor Swift released her first six studio albums through Big Machine. Their original sound recordings belonged to the label, while songwriting rights were a separate matter. In 2019, Scooter Braun’s company acquired Big Machine. Swift publicly objected to the transaction and to the resulting ownership of the recordings from those six albums.

She announced a plan to make new versions of the recordings.

2. A Second Set of Masters

Swift said she intended to re-record the early albums when her contracts allowed it. The new performances would create recordings she owned under her later arrangement with Republic Records. Making them would not transfer ownership of the old recordings. Both sets could exist, with different owners, even when they contained performances of the same songs.

Before the first re-recorded album arrived, the original catalogue was sold again.

3. Another Sale

In 2020, Shamrock Holdings bought the original recordings. Swift disclosed that the company had contacted her and explained why she was not joining its proposed arrangement. Work on her own recordings continued. The project would require new studio performances, with the resulting releases clearly identified as her versions of the earlier albums.

Fearless was the first album released through that project.

4. Fearless Again

Fearless (Taylor’s Version) arrived in April 2021. It contained newly recorded versions of songs from the earlier album and additional material identified as vault tracks. The release put the distinction into the album title itself: listeners could choose the new recordings, while the original album remained a separate recording owned by Shamrock.

Red followed later in the same year.

5. A Longer Red

Red (Taylor’s Version) was released in November 2021, including a ten-minute version of All Too Well. It was another new recording project rather than a deletion of the old album. Swift now owned the replacement recordings for two of the first six albums, but the original masters remained outside her ownership.

Two more re-recorded albums arrived in 2023.

6. Four Re-recorded Albums

Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) followed in 2023. That brought the released re-recorded albums to four. Her debut album and Reputation had not joined that released set when the ownership story changed in 2025. The six original albums and the four new versions were still distinct groups of recordings.

The next change came through a purchase rather than another re-recorded release.

7. The Purchase

In May 2025, Swift announced an agreement with Shamrock Holdings to acquire her earlier masters. Her announcement also described related materials included in the acquisition. Ownership of the original recordings was now returning through a transaction with their holder, years after she had begun creating replacement recordings in response to the earlier sales.

The purchase covered the originals, including albums without released re-recorded versions.

8. Two Routes to Ownership

Swift announced in May 2025 that she had bought the original recordings from Shamrock. Four of the six early albums had already received Taylor’s Version re-recordings. The purchase therefore returned the older masters alongside the newer recordings she had created and owned. The transaction concerned ownership of recordings, distinct from the songwriting rights involved in the songs themselves.

The original masters and the re-recordings were both hers.

Sources

• Original narrative adaptation — CC BY-SA 4.0
• Wikipedia contributors — Taylor Swift masters dispute (CC BY-SA 4.0)