Taylor Swift took to her Instagram story to slam her former record label Big Machine’s alleged plans to release an album of her live performances titled Live from Clear Channel Stripped 2008.
The 30-year-old singer wrote: “Hey guys – I want to thank my fans for making me aware that my former record label is putting out an ‘album’ of live performances of mine tonight. This recording is from a 2008 radio show performance I did when I was 18. Big Machine has listed the date as a 2017 release but they’re actually releasing it tonight at midnight.”
She said the label didn’t ask her permission to release the album which was listed as 2017 when in reality, it will be released at midnight.
Taylor continued: “I’m always honest with you guys about this stuff so I just wanted to tell you that this release is not approved by me. It looks to me like [label owner] Scooter Braun and his financial backers, 23 Capital, Alex Soros and the Soros family and The Carlyle Group have seen the latest balance sheets and realized that paying $330 million for my music wasn’t exactly a wise choice and they need money.”
She called the label’s move shameless, “In my opinion… just another case of shameless greed in the time of Coronavirus. So tasteless, but very transparent.” A source close to Big Machine Label Group claimed the album is “not a new release.”
“It was distributed via Target and others 12 years ago,” the source said. “All that’s being done is taking music available through YouTube and Target since 2008 and distributing it to streaming services so fans can enjoy wherever they listen. This is standard practice.”
In a Tumblr post in July 2019, Taylor accused the manager of “manipulative bullying” and said it’s an example of Braun “controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated” with him.
“These are two very rich, very powerful men, using $300 million of other people’s money to purchase, like, the most feminine body of work. And then they’re standing in a wood-panel bar doing a tacky photoshoot, raising a glass of scotch to themselves,” She told Rolling Stone. “Because they pulled one over on me and got this done so sneakily that I didn’t even see it coming. And I couldn’t say anything about it.”
Borchetta previously claimed the deal he offered to Taylor gave her “100% of all Taylor Swift assets … to be transferred to her immediately upon signing the new agreement.”
Taylor’s lawyer Donald Passman told PEOPLE in a statement: “Scott Borchetta never gave Taylor Swift an opportunity to purchase her masters, or the label, outright with a check in the way he is now apparently doing for others.”
Barun finally opened up about the whole fiasco during a Q&A with Variety. “I haven’t talked about this in six months, not once,” he said. “I haven’t made a statement about it and that’s hard, because when you have a lot of things being said and a lot of different opinions — yet the principals haven’t had a chance to speak to each other — there’s a lot of confusion. I think that I’m not gonna go into details here because it’s just not my style.”
“What I’ll say is, people need to communicate and when people are able to communicate I think they work things out,’’ he added. ‘’I think a lot of times things are miscommunicated, but I believe that people are fundamentally good.”
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