The Taylor Swift vs. Scooter Braun saga has been the latest celebrity feud for quite some time. The latest round? Swift has taken it out by a landslide.
You may recall that it all began late last year when Braun purchased Swift’s former label Big Machine Records and then acquired Swift’s music catalogue right from under her nose. This purchase gave Braun the ownership of her all her masters dating pre-Lover album and prohibits Swift from performing her old music, recording her old music, and releasing any content featuring her old music.
The first major battle in the saga was late last year when Swift was originally denied performing the songs that made her ‘Artist of the Decade’ at the AMAs. After rounds of gaslighting, angry Swifties storming social media, and artists dedicating support to Swift, Braun conceded and Swift went on to perform a medley of all her hits.
We have since witnessed Swift release her signature Easter Eggs in music videos and Instagram posts. Her film clip The Man (her latest single release) made no shortage of references to Braun.
You can see the ban on scooters sign, the graffiti art of all the titles he owns and “If Found Return to Taylor Swift” poster and the word ‘Karma’ front and centre. It’s no surprise that Taylor has used her music to make her grievance known. After all, she is notorious for it.
Swift’s latest chess move? Something so underhandedly brilliant that you have to give it to her, she really is the best at revenge. Swifties have been curious about Taylor’s movements since she released an Instagram post four weeks ago captioned “Not a lot going on at the moment.” She is, of course, referencing the iconic shirt she wore in her music video for “22” (that Braun now owns).
Swifties eagerly awaited more news, stalking the entire photo to desperately find an Easter Egg. It wasn’t until two weeks later that Taylor posted this on Instagram:
Here she is referencing her album Reputation which features the bombastic, revenge fueled single “Look What You Made Me Do” (also owned by Braun now). At the time, Swifties thought this Easter Egg may be a hint at a collaboration with former enemy-turned-friend Katy Perry.
Instead, in true Taylor Swift fashion, it was much bigger than anticipated.
Yesterday, Swift announced that a cover of “Look What You Made Me Do” by Jack Leopards & The Dolphin Club would be the theme song of one of her favourite television shows “Killing Eve.” Swifties quickly jumped on the case to find that the band Jack Leopards & The Dolphin Club didn’t have any history of music, and only appeared on Spotify and Instagram that day. The song credited Taylor Swift as one of the writers, and Jack Antonoff and Nils Sjoberg as the producers. For anyone who recalls the Calvin Harris vs. Taylor Swift drama, she used the pseudonym ‘Nils Sjoberg’ when writing his hit song “This Is What You Came For.”
Swifties continued the sleuthing to work out that it is in fact Swift’s younger brother Austin who sings this new cover and that the band’s image featured a young Austin Swift wearing a shirt that says “Dolphin Club.” It didn’t take long for them to also work out that ‘Jack’ in “Jack Leopards & The Dolphin Club” was for Jack Antonoff and ‘Leopards’ was for Swift (perhaps a reference to a leopard doesn’t change its spots?).
This cover? This fake band? This pseudonym? All one clever way of denying Scooter Braun any royalties on a song he had no input in. He doesn’t own any part of this cover, and has no control over it. This gives Swift the power of ownership, of which she doesn’t have over her original.
The cover’s pretty phenomenal, as one would expect from Swift. Check it out and stop listening to the Scooter Braun controlled original.
Battle Count-
Swift: 2 Braun: 1
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