Hot Happenings in Music (Taylor's Version) 🎵
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Season 2: Episode 39 Description
In today’s episode: Calling all Swifties! 🤩 We are talking about why Taylor Swift is re-recording her old songs. Correspondent Sarah Namias fills us in on Taylor Swift's big plan. 🎤 From naming records to naming bugs? 🪲 Hear which superstars have insects named after them. 🗞️ In the news: Watching Omicron, the new COVID variant and new NASA rockets. 🚀 And test your musical instrument knowledge in today's Trivia on the Ten. ✅
Sources for the episode
Artists Who Have Fought for Ownership of Their Music | PEOPLE.com
How Does the Music Industry Work? A 10-Part Guide | Soundcharts
10 new species named after musicians | All media content | DW | 11.03.2020
What to know about omicron, the new COVID variant : Coronavirus Updates : NPR
Jennifer Snowpez? Kids get creative with snowplow names | AP News
NASA Launches DART Asteroid Deflection Mission - ExtremeTech
20 Bizarre and Interesting Musical Facts | Shine School of Music (shinemusicschoolonline.com)
What’s So Special About Stradivarius Violins? | Britannica
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TRANSCRIPT:
Sound Bit 0:02
I find it funny thinking about if I were to have like a, like a party for all the songwriters on that song. Really? Yeah, cause it would just be me.
Bethany Van Delft 0:09
Why would one of the biggest music stars on the planet spend time re-recording their old songs?
Sound Bit 0:16
I've always wanted to own my own music since I started making my music and if you probably don't know this, but most of your favorite artists do not own their work.
Bethany Van Delft 0:24
Today, we're grabbing the mic to fill you in on hot happenings in the music biz. I'm Bethany Van Delft. It's Thursday and this is The Ten News.
Various Voices 0:34
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Bethany Van Delft 0:42
Taylor Swift, Britney Spears. Two very famous names in the music industry have been making headlines in recent weeks and correspondent Sarah Namias is here to tell us what all the song and dance is about.
Sarah Namias 0:58
Give a holler if you're a Taylor Swift Fan. 11 time Grammy Award-winning pop icon deserves the applause. You don't have to be a diehard Swiftie. Who me, to appreciate the serious trailblazing that Taylor Swift has been up to. Earlier this month, Taylor released a new album, Big whoop, right? Well, what makes this news so exciting is that the album is actually not new at all. Yep, you heard that right. Taylor's latest release, titled, Red Taylor's Version is essentially a redo of one of the most successful albums that she recorded nearly a decade ago. So why would a super successful artist re-record songs that are already mega hits? Well, in Taylor's case, the reason is pretty awesome. She's reclaiming what is rightfully hers. Let's break it down. Back in the early 2,000s, when young Taylor Swift was just starting out in the music business, she signed a deal with a record label called Big Machine Records. As part of her contract at the time, it was agreed that all her master recordings would be owned by the label. What does that mean? Sounds confusing. It's actually pretty simple. Stick with me. A master recording or master for short is just a fancy way of saying the original version of something. And in the music biz, whoever owns the master, aka the original essentially holds all the rights to those songs. They have the final say on where when and how the songs are used, like say on a movie soundtrack or a streaming site, or anywhere songs can be heard by the public. This also means that the holder of the master has control over the profits. And those profits can be a lot in 2020 alone Billboard magazine estimates that Taylor Swift's music made $23.8 million, making her the number one highest-paid musician last year. So bottom line, even though your favorite artist is the one who sings, performs, and often writes the music if they don't own the master, they don't have complete control over their own art. In Taylor's case, she didn't own the masters from her first six albums, which was all fine and good, until her then label was bought out by a guy named Scooter Braun. Unfortunately, Swift and Braun had a rocky history, and Taylor didn't feel comfortable with him owning and controlling her entire life's work. It got so tricky that Taylor claims she wasn't allowed to perform one of her own songs on stage at the American Music Awards. So she decided to take matters into her own hands. You go girl. Taylor has been hard at work over the last year, re-recording all six albums, and she will have full ownership of all the new material. That means she gets to do it her way. The newly released Red, Taylor's Version includes some of her biggest hits, along with lots of additional treats and never-before heard songs, and her fans are eating it up. The album is already topping the charts. Taylor's trailblazing move may just pave the way for future artists to have more control over the work they create. And speaking of other artists, we can't sign off without mentioning another pop legend, who's also been making news for standing up for what's right. Heard of Britney Spears? If not ask your parents and don't be embarrassed when they start belting out some catchy tunes.
Sarah Namias 5:04
Britney rose to fame in the late 1990s with a slew of number one hits. But the pressures of stardom caught up with her, and she went through a really tough emotional chapter that played out in front of the entire world. In the aftermath, her parents took legal control of Brittany's entire fortune, fearing that she wasn't well enough to manage it on her own. For the next 13 years, she was under what's called a conservatorship controlled by her father Jamie and a bunch of lawyers. This meant that her dad had a say in virtually every aspect of Britney's adult life from how she spent her money to decisions over her personal health. Eventually, Brittany, who's now 39 years old, put her foot down and asked a judge to end the conservatorship stating that she is of sound body and mind to make her own decisions. And earlier this month, she prevailed. The judge ruled in Britney's favor, giving her back control of her earnings and her life.
Bethany Van Delft 6:12
Big Ten New snaps to Taylor and Britney and thanks to you Sarah for that superstar update. Taylor Swift isn't the first musician to fight for the rights of her own music. Prince Kashia. Even the Beatles have taken legal action to control what happens to their music. To get a better understanding of how music goes from a musician's head to an audience's ear. Let's look at three really important areas of the music business. First up is the recording studio. When a musician has a new song they'd like to share, they can play it at a live concert. But in order to reach lots more people much of the time, they'll record the song in a recording studio, so it could be heard on the radio and found on streaming services cool. recording songs used to be very expensive, musicians traveled to a special studio and hired engineers and producers to make their music sound great. But in the last 10 years, more and more artists have been making music at home. Like Billy Eilish and her brother Phineas, her voice is always so much better than mine. Then there's the record label. That's the company that makes sure those recordings get heard. Musicians lucky enough to get noticed by a record label, you'll be offered a contract for a certain number of albums. Nice. The artist is paid upfront and the label owns the rights to the music, which the label promotes through concerts and distribution to audiences Okay, but what if a musician wants to control that themselves? Like Taylor Swift and other musicians, artists can create their own labels. These are called Indie labels, meaning they're independent of a large music publishing company. The artist controls what happens to their music and keeps more of the profits when the rights to their music are licensed or rented out for movies, commercials, and streaming services. That's great. Whether an artist signs to a big label or an indie label or even start their own label. They'll have to navigate other areas of the music business. Things like distribution, streaming, touring, publishing, and of course, their fans. We know you like to rock from the minds of musicians to the ears of the audience music takes a long journey. Now let's see what else is happening.
Bethany Van Delft 8:52
Scientists in South Africa recently detected a new COVID-19 variant called Omicron that has many more mutations than the other variants that have been identified so far. Researchers are looking at three main points, how easily does it spread? How sick can you get from it? And how well do our vaccines work against it? Once they know more, they can advise governments on any additional precautions we all might need to take. School kids in Vermont had a chance to choose names for the state's new snowplows and what they came up with is pretty brilliant. Some of our favorites are Snowbee-Won-Kenobi, Jennifer Snowpez, and my total favorite Polowy McPlowface. Ah. Last week, NASA launched a rocket that will crash into an asteroid on purpose sometime in 2022. The mission is an attempt to change the asteroid’s orbit, NASA is practicing in case one day becomes necessary to divert a colossal asteroid to keep it from crashing into Earth. There was a movie about that way wrong. And now for your...
Various Voices 10:09
What, what, what's the big idea?
Bethany Van Delft 10:13
Trivia on The Ten. Where would musicians be without their instruments? Do you know how many pieces of wood are used to make one violin? Is it a) 17, b) 70 or c) 140?
Bethany Van Delft 10:39
Did you guess it? The answer is B. It takes 70 individual pieces of wood to make a violin. And some violins are worth a lot of money. The Stradivarius violins made by Antonio Stradivari in the late 1600s and early 1700s have sold for as much as $16 million. Anyway, the music that comes from it is priceless. Times up, but before we go, here's a quick note for the grownups. Thanks for listening to The Ten News. Look out for new episodes on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and extras on Saturdays. The Ten News is a co-production of Small But Mighty Media and Next ChapterPodcasts and is distributed by iHeartRadio. The Ten News creative team is wearing cardigans while listening to Red Taylor's Version and includes Tracey Crooks, Pete Musto, Andrew Hall, Tessa Flannery, and Nathalie Alonso. Sarah Namias contributed to this episode. Our production director is Jeremiah Tittle and our executive producers are Donald Albright and show creator Tracy Leeds Kaplan. I am Bethany Van Delft, and thanks for listening to The Ten News. Does anybody else think Omicron sounds like a transformer? Just me? Okay.
