Taylor Swift is paving the way for the next generation of artists to profit off of their recordings in a world where buying records has gone out of style and been replaced by streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify. Now, the remake of her hit album “1989,” dubbed “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” has received the biggest Billboard debut in her entire career.
The best debut for an album in her career, “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” is now number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart just days after its release. The record also smashed the former best sales that Swift had ever seen from an album, already moving 1.6 million units in the United States and a whopping 3.5 million units worldwide.
Through this album, Swift is showing gameplay for plenty of other artists who find themselves in disadvantaged contract situations where record labels are gouging them in the era of streaming services. When Taylor realized that she was unable to take full ownership of the original rights to the original albums, she decided to remake the hit that boosted her career into one of national acclaim.
Upon releasing the new album, Taylor wrote this message to fans, according to People. “I was born in 1989, reinvented for the first time in 2014, and a part of me was reclaimed in 2023 with the re-release of this album I love so dearly. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the magic you would sprinkle on my life for so long.”
Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour has been one of the biggest cultural phenomena in the music industry in the last decade. Millions of fans have flocked to the destinations that Swift has decided to bring her business to. Economists have marveled at the added GDP that Taylor Swift has added to cities when she visits, bringing with her thousands of fans ready to spend their money.
Her remake of “1989” also saw her traveling down memory lane. She shared in an Instagram post that getting to work once again with rapper Kendrick Lamar was an inspiring moment.
She wrote, “Watching @kendricklamar create and record his verses on the Bad Blood remix was one of the most inspiring experiences of my life. I still look back on this collaboration with so much pride and gratitude for the ways Kendrick elevated the song and the way he treats everyone around him.
"*" indicates required fields
“Every time the crowds on The Eras Tour would chant his line ‘you forgive, you forget, but you never let it… go!’, I smiled. The reality that Kendrick would go back in and re-record Bad Blood so that I could reclaim and own this work I’m so proud of is surreal and bewildering to me.”
Taylor Swift appears to be ushering in a new era of music rights ownership in which artists begin to make more money on their old songs. In many ways, this new trend should allow singers to express more artistic freedom in their creations and hopefully will allow them to benefit more from their works.