As Taylor Swift's fans catapulted the hashtag #Taylor'sVersion to the No. 1 Twitter trends spot following the release of her new version of "Love Story" last week, her bestie, Selena Gomez, was among the Swifties cheering for the singer on Instagram.
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Taylor announced on Thursday, Feb. 11, that a newly re-recorded version of "Love Story," from her 2008 album, "Fearless," was the first track being made available to fans ahead of April 9, when she's due to release, "Fearless: Taylor's Version," a 26-song take on the original. The release launches Taylor's campaign to re-record her first six albums after her nemesis, Scooter Braun, bought and later sold the rights to them via her old label, Big Machine Records.
"SO proud of you, as always Tayโฆ," Selena shared on her Instagram Story, urging her followers to, "LISTEN to THIS album."
The new versions of Taylor music, for which she will own her own masters via Republic Records, will all come with a "Taylor's Version" subtitle, presumably to underscore the fact that she's reclaimed the music while helping fans differentiate between the two.
"Fearless" first came out around the time Taylor and Selena were becoming good friends in 2008, when they were both dating members of the Jonas Brothers, according to the Daily Mail.
"I always gravitated towards 'Fearless' because I think that, as an album, it was a real coming-of-age," Taylor recently told Republic Records / MCA Nashville. "And I look back on that album and it fills me with such pride, and it was an album about hope, and lessons learned, and the effervescence of teenage youth and all that."
Taylor previously said she fought for access to the masters for her work before Scooter swooped in and snapped them up in June 2019 when he acquired Big Machine Records, reportedly for $300 million. According to Variety, Taylor's six albums were worth $140 million at that time.
Calling Braun a "bully" and an example of "toxic white male privilege," Taylor said of the sale: "This just happened to me without my approval, consultation or consent. After I was denied the chance to purchase my music outright, my entire catalog was sold to Scooter Braun's Ithaca Holdings in a deal that I'm told was funded by the Soros family, 23 Capital and that Carlyle Group. Yet, to this day, none of these investors have bothered to contact me or my team directly โ to perform their due diligence on their investment. On their investment in me. To ask how I might feel about the new owner of my art, the music I wrote, the videos I created, photos of me, my handwriting, my album designs.
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"The fact is that private equity enabled this man to think, according to his own social media post, that he could 'buy me.' But I'm obviously not going willingly."
Her contract allowed her to re-record the music from the albums beginning last year, which she has set out to do.
Scooter sold the master rights to Taylor's first six albums last fall in a deal Variety reported at the time was "viewed as a big win for the pop manager," who "profited handsomely from his investment" in Taylor's work.