Paris 2024, but not only: Taylor Swift and the 300 million clash that split the world of music on Discovery+
Hot Summer for Discovery+ which tells every single minute of every single race at Paris Olympics 2024. But the streaming platform by Warner Bros. does not stop just at sports. It arrives exclusively “Taylor Swift vs Scooter Braun: Bad Blood”the $300 million fight that divided the music industry. Let’s see what it’s all about.
Taylor Swift vs Scooter Braun: Bad Blood on Discovery+ (when it airs)
In 2019, American entrepreneur and talent manager of some of the most famous music artists, Scooter Braun, purchased the record label Big Machine Records and with it the first six albums of Taylor Swift, the most successful pop artist of all time. With unprecedented media coverage for a business deal, the story has turned into what some say is a classic example of exploitation of women in the entertainment industry, while others argue that Taylor egged on her fan base for the sole purpose of reneging on a deal she didn’t like.
The all-new two-part documentary, Taylor Swift vs. Scooter Braun: Bad Blood (streaming Thursday, August 1 on discovery+), features exclusive interviews with lawyers, journalists and people close to Swift or Braun. The riveting new documentary delves into the complexities of music rights, gender dynamics in the industry, and the power of fans to influence, covering every aspect of the feud that is said to have irrevocably changed the music industry.
Taylor Swift on Discovery+, the two episodes of the docu-series
The first episode opens with an attempt to understand what made Taylor the most famous musical artist of her generation. Brian Mansfield, a journalist and her friend from Nashville, talks about Taylor at age fifteen. “Taylor has continued to grow with her fans, but at the same time she’s started to win over the kind of audience that never paid attention to her as a teenager, and so, not only has she managed to make the leap from a teen pop star to a huge adult music star, she’s actually gotten even bigger.” He believes it was this authenticity that made her fans stick around: “she found a way to connect with people who were just starting to listen to her music and turn them into admirers who started to consider her a friend.” Zack Hourihane, a big fan and podcast host, adds: “Taylor Swift is the best friend in the world” and attributes to her “a unique ability as a writer and performer to tell something very personal and make it seem general or universal.” As Alex Goldschmidt, a fan and friend, also explains, “in her career she’s always been careful to gratify […] fans and surprising them and, when possible, she was present at important moments to demonstrate the bond and love she felt for them.”
Has Taylor been left out of her own music catalog and blindsided by her record label, leaving her with no choice but to turn to her fans for support? The point was raised by Goldschmidt who says: “When she sings about something really heartbreaking or sad, you want to grab a pitchfork and say, ‘Who hurt Taylor? ‘”
As the legal battle threatening his career grew, Vice journalist Zing Tsjeng praised Taylor’s artistry, “to take something that to most people is a really incomprehensible, incredible situation, like when you’re fighting a board of directors and a record label, into something very relatable: ‘I made the songs, I created them, I wrote them, I sang them, I deserve to own them.'”
Dr Amelia Morris, a cultural theorist at the University of Exeter, argues that Taylor has had to deal with misogyny throughout his career: “Women in pop have historically been wrongly portrayed as cogs in the machine.” She goes on to say that Taylor “has been subjected to a lot of misogyny because she was judged by who she dated. The tabloids were obsessive about her, she was portrayed as the bunny, the one who dates someone just so she can write a song about them, and that reflects the double standard of how famous musicians are judged. She’s doing nothing different than artists like The Beatles or Harry Styles in addressing their love lives in their songs, but while some artists see that as cathartic, Taylor Swift’s songs are seen as the result of a certain victimhood.”
Was Taylor’s fight a stand against exploitation and a fight for what’s right? LA Times reporter Mikael Wood says, “Women are the driving force of the music industry. They generate the most passion, they sell the most records, they sell the most concert tickets, and yet the music industry, like so many others, is generally run by men.”
The second part of the documentary explores Scooter Braun’s version of events. Vice journalist Zing Tsjeng states at the beginning of the second episode: “I think it all comes down to where you stand. If you side with Scooter, Taylor is just someone who is using his fan base to make himself look like a victim and destroy a deal that everyone agrees is financially and commercially viable.”
Author and academic Dr. Jennifer Otter Bickerdike points out: “One of the really interesting things about the Taylor Swift phenomenon is that it all seems so perfectly orchestrated to perfectly control the story and the brand.” Dr. Bickerdike said that while Taylor could have chosen to celebrate women when she accepted the award at the 2019 Women in Music Awards, she “used it again to attack her enemy,” drawing attention to the legal battle over the sale of her masters.
The documentary also shows some people’s view that Taylor incited her fans with a Tumblr post writing “let Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun know what you think”, which may have led to a wave of online threats and harassment. Bloomberg reporter and columnist Lucas Shaw argues that “Swifties and Taylor Swift fans are probably one of the most powerful constituencies in the world. They’re these very hardcore fans who worship her and think she can do no wrong.”
“It’s a really interesting phenomenon, where she’s the victim but she’s also always been the winner, as if in the end she always manages to get the upper hand,” says Nola Ojomu, Senior Entertainment Reporter for the Daily Mail. In 2020, Scooter sells Taylor’s masters to Shamrock, a private equity group owned by Disney, but introduces a clause in the sale that allows him to continue to profit from any gains, Ojomu continues, “She always gets revenge. And she’s joked about it, she’s said it in her songs, ‘Karma,’ ‘look what you made me do.’ She waits and plans her revenge and when it’s done, it’s perfect.” Taylor Swift vs. Scooter Braun: Bad Blood (2 x 1-hour episodes) is available to stream Thursday, August 1 on discovery+.
#Paris #Taylor #Swift #million #war #divided #world #music #Discovery