Taylor Swift Revisits How Kelly Clarkson Advised Her to Rerecord Her Music
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Pop megastar Taylor Swift is recalling the moment when Kelly Clarkson suggested that she should rerecord her masters. Back in 2020, her enemy Scooter Braun sold her old masters Shamrock Holdings under the condition that he keeps profiting from it.
Taylor Swift Talks Why She Decided to Reclaim Her Masters
After getting named as Time‘s Person Of The Year for 2023, Swift shared how she’s been re-recording her albums. In the cover story, the pop singer reflected on what convinced her to redo her discography.
“With the Scooter thing, my masters were being sold to someone who actively wanted them for nefarious reasons, in my opinion,” she said. “I was so knocked on my ass by the sale of my music, and to whom it was sold. I was like, ‘Oh, they got me beat now. This is it. I don’t know what to do.'”
As a quick backstory, Swift used to be with Big Machine Records ahead of transferring to Universal Music Group. However, she wasn’t given a chance to purchase the rights to her masters as Big Machine CEO Scott Borchetta sold the same to Scooter Braun.
In her interview with Time, Swift recalled being advised by Clarkson to rerecord all songs she failed to have masters of.
“I’d run into Kelly Clarkson and she would go, ‘Just redo it,'” she said. “My dad kept saying it to me, too. I’d look at them and go, ‘How can I possibly do that?’ Nobody wants to redo their homework if on the way to school, the wind blows your book report away.”
Now that she’s almost done redoing her music, she’s thankful that she took the courage to begin recording again. Such hard work was obviously worth it as her rerecordings have earned her several awards.
Clarkson Previously Revealed Braun “Took Offense” at Her Suggestion
It may be recalled that after the public knew that the singer lost her masters, Clarkson dropped the suggestion. On Twitter, Clarkson told Swift to put a twist on her stolen music.
“@taylorswift13 just a thought, U should go in & re-record all the songs that U don’t own the masters on exactly how U did them but put brand new art & some kind of incentive so fans will no longer buy the old versions,” she wrote. “I’d buy all of the new versions just to prove a point.”
Earlier this year, Clarkson stated that Braun took offense at her advice to Swift.
“We ran into each other, and I think he reached out at the time to my manager,” she said. “It wasn’t anything against him. When she came out and said that and I heard about it, I was like, ‘Whatever, re record them, your fans will support you.'”
Looking back, Swift failed to publicly address Clarkson’s piece of advice. Nonetheless, the singer clearly took the tip seriously.
“It’s all in how you deal with loss. I respond to extreme pain with defiance,” she said.
