Pure greed: How Taylor Swift describes her new album

Pop star Taylor Swift pulls no punches when it comes to the inspiration behind album release ‘not approved by me’.

Taylor Swift’s new album ihas been released by the record label Big Machine, on which she recorded her first six albums, against her wishes. On Twitter earlier this month she announced all her live appearances and performances for 2020 would be cancelled, "in an effort to keep fans safe and help prevent the spread of COVID-19". Picture: Valerie Macon/AFP

The release of an album by the pop megastar Taylor Swift is normally met with elation but in this case even the artist herself has described it as tasteless and “just another case of shameless greed in the time of coronavirus”.

The album in question, titled Live From Clear Channel Stripped 2008, has been released by the record label Big Machine, on which she recorded her first six albums, against her wishes.

After Swift left the label in 2018 the music manager Scooter Braun acquired it along with most of the musician’s master recordings, in a purchase financed with funding from a private equity group.

The deal drew protests from Swift, who claimed that Mr Braun and his backers were “controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them”. She threatened to rerecord the songs to diminish their value.

She described the release of a new live album as “not approved by me”. She said that the live performances dated back to a radio show she appeared on aged 18.

She believed that Mr Braun “and his financial backers” had released it after they “realised that paying dollars 330 million for my music wasn’t exactly a wise choice and they need money”.

The complaint follows nearly two years of acrimony, in which Swift, 30, left, claimed that Mr Braun was stopping her from performing her own songs.

Mr Braun denied the claims but they were picked up by fans and by powerful politicians including the Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren, who was at the time a frontrunner for the party’s presidential nomination. Ms Warren said that Swift was “one of many whose work has been threatened by a private equity firm. They’re gobbling up more and more of our economy, costing jobs and crushing entire industries.”

Swift kept up the dispute in social media posts and in a music video for a track from her latest (authorised) album, which imagines how much easier life might be as a man, and features a shot of a suited gent, peeing against the wall of an underground train station. On the wall, written in graffiti, are the titles to Swift’s first six albums. Among them is a sign saying: “Missing: if found return to Taylor Swift” and another barring the use of scooters.

I'm so sad I won't be able to see you guys in concert this year, but I know this is the right decision. Please, please stay healthy and safe. I’ll see you on stage as soon as I can but right now what’s important is committing to this quarantine, for the sake of all of us. pic.twitter.com/qeiMk2Tgon

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) April 17, 2020

The Times