Can you even call yourself a celebrity if you haven’t had a bust up with Taylor Swift?
From chief spud among them Kanye West to his pneumatic missus Kim K, all her exes (list too long for the purposes of this piece), Justin Bieber, Demi Lavato to her latest nemesis, music exec, Scooter Braun. The 29 year old music sensation is certainly not afraid of a little public confrontation.
Taylor Swift in her music video You Need To Calm Down
There may be something of a victimhood thread to her bust-ups corroborated by omitting details, but the singer-songwriter, worth an estimated $360 million dollars, has the canny knack of channelling her personal life into gold.
Scooter Braun giving a talk on the music industry
It’s a big reason why she’s sold 50 million albums alongside 150 million single downloads. Taylor Swift is extremely talented.
You might easily forget such mega powerful artists usually don’t own the full rights of the master recordings of their own music.
Swift was only 14 when she signed with Sony/ATV Music Publishing House before signing a six album contract with Scott Borchetta of Big Machine Records, essentially losing the rights to the masters in the process.
Taylor Swift starting out her career as a 14 year old singer songwriter
It all blew up this week when the multi-award winning star took to Tumblr to fume about Scooter Braun, the music exec who’s company now owns all of Swift’s music from 2006 when she was just starting out as a 15 year old whirlwind to 2017.
She writes, “I learned about Scooter Braun’s purchase of my masters as it was announced to the world. All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years”.
Swift goes on to write: “Like when Kim Kardashian orchestrated an illegally recorded snippet of a phone call to be leaked and then Scooter got his two clients together to bully me online about it. Or when his client, Kanye West, organized a revenge porn music video which strips my body naked. Now Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy. Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it”.
Image from Kanye West’s music video for Famous
Cue: pile in, Wild West style. It’s messy out there with accusations and counter accusations bashing off each other in a haze of dust clouds. Cara Delevigne is Team Taylor, Justin Bieber, Team Scooter. One thing is clear. Taylor Swift has been telling porkies…again, like that time she omitted to tell us about the Kanye call seeking permission to mention her in his song Famous, before Kim K put it up on Snapchat. Swift’s fans won’t hear a word of it accusing Australian singer Sia of blackface after she called Braun, her music manager, ‘a good, kind man’.
Taylor Swift fans accuse Australian singer Sia of ‘blackface’
Sia said she was simply painting herself into the backdrop for a music video. Like I say, it’s a bunfight. Ultimately we know this is going to make some rivetting lyrics and must watch music videos. The endgame? Taylor is lining up some great tracks she will actually own and all this drama will go a long way to making it delectable. As she said in her post, “ Thankfully, I left my past in Scott’s hands and not my future”.
