Taylor Swift’s Music Business Lesson for All of Us
Today’s Artist of the Day: Lonestar, by Norah Jones
Okay, so let's talk about Taylor Swift.
Variety just recently reported that Taylor Swift is re-recording her masters and hoping that by doing so, her fans will then turn to support her directly. I want to share a quote with you here before we move on. It's from Hunter S. Thompson and many musicians will know this, but it says that
“the music business is a cruel and shallow money trench... A long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.”
Now, obviously, Hunter S. Thompson was being a little sarcastic, but truth be told, it's actually the truth. The music business is a very corrupt business at certain levels of it, and unfortunately, this is another situation where an artist was taken advantage of very early on in their career, and unfortunately does not have the right to their own music. So what do I mean? Chances are, your musician that's watching this, but early on, these people who come in and invest in you are constantly trying to take advantage of you in the future income you might make by maybe not charging... You are a lot of money upfront to record all of these songs, but basically owning the master recordings of these songs, rather than you owning the master recordings as the songs... And by you, I mean the artist.
Anyway, about Taylor Swift rerecording her stuff I think that's really interesting, and I also think that it's a trend that could be coming in the future, I mean, there's a lot of people out there that own massive catalogs of music that we all know and love, but who wouldn't wanna hear... Say, If you're a fan of Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift reinvent some of those songs that she did early on in a brand new ways, so that you can enjoy them in a brand new way from an artist's perspective, it's usually something we don't do...
Usually when we create something, we just kinda leave it there and that sort of marks a specific time in place to where we were thinking in which we created the art and then released it, but with the way the music business is as far as owning masters and such, if there's means to be able to go back and rerecord those things to free yourself from people who own your masters and then remarket those songs that already have traction to an established fan base that you have. It may be a really nice way for somebody to get reenergized about your past work. I definitely could see this becoming a trend with artists that have the means like a Taylor Swift or a nationally known artist that has the financial resources available to do this, if they're unhappy with their current arrangement as it pertains to who owns our master's and for how long... And for those of you who don't know, a lot of times, artists will negotiate deals that after a certain specific amount of time, you'll be able to buy back or be automatically given back your master recordings. Because that's where a lot of people make the money that the record labels or the ownership group sort of invested to make that art for you, they use those masters to then collect the money that they had originally put out for you.
Oftentimes, artists don't have the money to effectively record and promote and go out on the road and do the whole thing to bring awareness to their product, and this is a really quick and dirty way to sort of fast forward the productivity of your brand, but you're obviously signing away a lot of future royalties when you give away your Master's, so that's how Taylor got into this predicament from the beginning, she signed an unfavorable deal, put out a lot of hit songs, the company knew that she was probably gonna be a hit or had a really strong inclination and took the risk, and now she wants her master's back because she feels like they're her songs, and that's true, but someone else owns those recordings, and if there was no expiration date on these recordings as far as the masters coming back to Taylor, then they own them in perpetuity and they can sell them to whoever they want to, and in this particular case, they've been sold twice in the last year and a half.
I just literally had a conversation with someone that's new to the area in which I live in Atlanta, and he was very excited, and he was talking about how he just moved to town, and he has this song that he was really excited about, and he met this producer, and this producer is out there and he sees this kid and he's like, Oh, come into my studio, we're gonna record you. We're gonna promote this single... We're gonna do all this kind of stuff. And the first question I asked the kid, I was like, Well, how much are they charging you? And the kids sort of gave me a sort of a dumbfounded look like, Well, he didn't say anything about what he was gonna harge me, and I was like, red flag, you gotta think about what people are charging you and what they want, you gotta know what they want, they're gonna want some percentage of future royalties or if they're giving you something for free upfront.
It's better to save the money and to learn how to record at home as best you can, and just pay upfront if you believe in your art so much, and it is everything that you want to do. Figure out a way to pay for your art upfront and own your stuff from the beginning and build your empire with all the free social media networks that we're all allowed to use and have available and invest in yourself that way until the point somebody comes along and then wants to do a deal with you. You always have more control over your art that way, and I think that's important for artists to know like you potentially... Or if you're an experienced musician and you've had your masters taken from you, or maybe you've negotiated for your masters, leave a comment below and help the community grow in knowledge.