Artists with new single releases on Spotify’s New Music Friday include Taylor Swift, 5SOS, and BROCKHAMPTOM. Others include Charlie Puth, The 1975, Lizzo, Lana Del Rey, Mura Masa, G-Eazy, Bea Miller, Yung Gravy, and Tainy. The standout track is Torn by Ava Max.

Taylor Swift said in a CBS interview that she plans on rerecording her old material. Why? Because Justin Bieber manager Scooter Braun bought the rights to all Swifts master recordings. Taylor called this “my worst case scenario.” She plans to sidestep Scooter Braun by rerecording her entire catalog of songs minus her new music on Republic Records. Upon signing with Republic Records, she now owns the master rights to all of the music she creates going forward.

Shawn Mendes, Lizzo, Lil Teccs, Taylor Swift, Drake, Ariana Grande and Post Malone have topped the U.S. Spotify streaming chart. Lewis Capaldi bumps to #14 with 727 million streams.

Taylor Swift – Lover, Swae Lee – Won’t Be Late (feat. Drake), Normani – Motivation, Miley Cyrus - Slide Away, Young, Thug - Bad Bad Bad (feat. Lil Baby), ILLENIUM - In Your Arms (with X Ambassadors), ROSALÍA – Yo x Ti, Tu x Mi
Quality Control – Pink Toes (Offset, DaBaby feat. Gunna), Diplo – Heartless (feat. Morgan Wallen), Jorja Smith – Be Honest (feat. Burna Boy), FLETCHER – All Love, Kiana Ledé – Title, Lil Tecca – Ransom (with Juice WRLD) – Remix
Daya – Keeping It In The Dark – From 13 Reasons Why – Season 3 Soundtrack, YONAKA – You Need To Calm Down – Recorded At Abbey Road Studios, London, BROCKHAMPTON – BOY BYE, JPEGMAFIA – Jesus Forgive Me, I Am A Thot, Ambjaay – Ice Cream, Chelsea Cutler – How To Be Human, Macklemore – Shadow (feat. IRO) [From Songland]
Charli XCX – Cross You Out (feat. Sky Ferreira), Highly Suspect – 16, Martin Garrix – Home (feat. Bonn)
Quality Control – Pastor (Quavo, City Girls feat. Megan Thee Stallion), A$AP Ferg – Jet Lag
Red Hearse – Born To Bleed, phem – SWEATER, grandson – Rock Bottom, Gabrielle Aplin – Losing Me

Taylor Swift created controversy when she accused Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande manager Scooter Braun for buying Big Machine Music Label which owns her masters. First, Taylor is not entitled to own her master recordings because she signed a contract with a music label. The music label spends money in marketing and promotion, hence owns the masters. Why would any company shell out millions of dollars and not own the masters? It doesn’t make sense. Think about it, 99% of artists who are signed do not own the masters.

Pop singer Kelly Clarkson is siding with Taylor recommended that she re-record her songs. Is this legal? No, and even if it were, she would cannibilize her own songs. You are essentially creating a black market.

“You become a competitor of your record label if you re-record and own new master recordings from the same compositions,” Brian Caplan, an intellectual property lawyer at the New York firm Reitler Kailas & Rosenblatt LLC tells Billboard.

“Caplan says that standard recording agreements have a re-recording restriction that prohibits an artist from re-making a song that was previously delivered to the record company (sometimes even ones that were not released during the contract’s duration) for a set period after the deal expires, a term that typically runs three to five years.”

“A lot of us are Monday morning quarterbacks on these contract issues, but 99 percent of artists signed to labels don’t own their own masters! It’s just the way it is,” he notes. The re-recording language in most contracts is fairly boilerplate, and as a fierce artist advocate, McPherson says it’s always something a lawyer tries to make as favorable as possible during negotiations.

“I’ll say two things: ‘it has to be released by you during the term’ — this master with this song — so if I record a song during the term but you don’t release it, I should be able to re-record that. That helps you if you get dropped and you don’t release your album; if you can’t negotiate a buy-back of your masters you can just go re-cut it. And you just try to make the post-term period as short as possible.”