Taylor Swift’s former label said on Nov 18 it reached an agreement that will allow the pop star to perform songs from her early catalogue at an awards show this month.
It’s the latest update in a months-long public feud between Swift and the Nashville-based Big Machine Label Group, her former label for more than a decade, over the rights to the master recordings of her first six albums.
In a statement obtained by AFP –which does not mention Swift by name –Big Machine and Dick Clark Productions, the producer behind the American Music Awards, said they had “reached a licensing agreement that approves their artists’ performances to stream post show and for re-broadcast on mutually approved platforms,“ including the AMAs set for Nov 24.
Swift’s publicist did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment, and the pop star has not reacted publicly.
Last week the international superstar said on Tumblr that Big Machine heads were “exercising tyrannical control” over her, telling her she’s “not allowed to perform my old songs on television because they claim that would be re-recording my music before I’m allowed to next year.”
The superstar also said Big Machine was preventing her from using “older music or performance footage” for a Netflix project, which the label did not explicitly refer to in the latest statement.
The company last week had denied the allegations.
“It should be noted that recording artists do not need label approval for live performances on television or any other live media,“ Monday’s statement said.
“Record label approval is only needed for contracted artists’ audio and visual recordings and in determining how those works are distributed.”
Swift began publicly sparring with industry mogul Scooter Braun this summer over his purchase of her former label of more than a decade, which gave him a majority stake in the master recordings of her first six albums.
The 29-year-old then vowed to re-record her early albums to create copies she owns herself, saying her contract allows her to begin re-doing albums one through five in November 2020 –when she plans to be back in the studio doing just that.
Swift signed a new deal with Universal Music Group in 2018 that gave her ownership of her masters going forward, including for her recently released seventh album Lover. - AFP
