Kelly Clarkson has offered support and advice to Taylor Swift after the You Need To Calm Down singer’s entire back catalogue was acquired by pop manager Scooter Braun.
Earlier this month, Taylor voiced her upset when it was announced that Scooter – who manages artists like Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande – had bought her old label Big Machine, and therefore now owned the recordings of her first six albums, up to and including 2017’s Reputation.
In a lengthy Tumblr post, the singer claimed that she had only been offered the chance to own the masters if she signed another contract with Big Machine, earning them back one at a time for each new album she recorded, while claiming she’d also been “bullied” by Scooter for a number of years.
However, Kelly Clarkson thinks she may have come up with a solution to Taylor’s woes - re-record and re-release her entire back catalogue.
On Saturday, Kelly tweeted: “@taylorswift13 just a thought, U should go in & re-record all the songs that U don’t own the masters on exactly how U did them but put brand new art & some kind of incentive so fans will no longer buy the old versions. I’d buy all of the new versions just to prove a point.”
And Kelly might have a point.
A few artists have done just that. British rock band Def Leppard re-released their music under similar circumstances when they refused to allow their longtime label Universal Music to use any of their original recordings for anything other than physical products.
That came about after the band felt they were being shortchanged on the digital value of their hits and soon after they began re-releasing replicas of their past music.
Whether Taylor can do the same will all be in the small print of her original recording contract, and it’s unlikely that it will feature the same favourable terms that Def Leppard obtained.
Kelly is the latest musician to come out in support of Taylor following her very public spat with Scooter .
However, others have been less understanding, including Scooter’s charges Demo Lovato and Justin Bieber, with the latter coming to the defense of his manager, criticising Taylor for “crossing a line” with her public reaction.
Big Machine CEO Scott Borchetta also claimed that Taylor had been offered “every chance in the world” to own her old recordings
She refuted this in a statement issued via her legal team, saying: “Scott Borchetta never gave Taylor Swift an opportunity to purchase her masters, or the label, outright with a cheque in the way he is now apparently doing for others.”