Eagled-eyed fans have spotted a potential clue that Taylor Swift might be teasing a new album after buying back her masters.
On Friday (May 30), Swift revealed that she now has control over her entire catalogue after originally losing the rights to it in 2019, when music manager Scooter Braun and his media holding company, Ithaca Holdings LLC acquired Swift’s old label, Big Machine Label Group.
When news first broke of Braun gaining the rights to her masters, Swift, who had made the move to Republic Records by that time, wrote in a Tumblr post that this was “the worst-case scenario” for her, calling him out for his “incessant, manipulative bullying”, and confirming her plans to re-record songs from her first six records in a bid to take control over her music once again.
The story then hit headlines again in late 2020 after Swift confirmed that the ownership of her back catalogue had changed hands again for the second time within two years, when Braun sold the rights to the private equity company Shamrock Holdings in a $300million (£230m) deal. The singer shared a statement at the time, in which she said that the master recordings “were not for sale to me”.
In Friday’s announcement, Swift joyfully shared that she bought her masters – as well as her videos, concert films, album art and photography and unreleased songs – back from Shamrock.
“I almost stopped thinking it could ever happen, after 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away,” she wrote in the letter to fans. “But that’s all in the past now. All of the music I’ve ever made … now belongs … to me.”
Fans took note of the line: “All the times I was thiiiiiiiiiiiis close, reaching out for it, only for it to fall through.” Swifties have seized on the fact she used 12 “i’s”, which they are hoping means a follow up to The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD), her 11th studio record, is in the works.
Some pointed out that the letter head design was no longer ‘TTPD’ themed, and was instead an almost Great Gatsby-esque art deco graphic.
🚨 TAYLOR SWIFT’S LETTER HAS 12 ‘i’s pic.twitter.com/hyzENdycVp
— Kush (@kush07_) May 30, 2025
miss taylor swift are you doing broadway, or is gatsby going to be part of your 12th album because 12 i’s in triumphant pic.twitter.com/eFe3MNT00N
— chloe⸆⸉ | ✰ ✰ |⚢ (@uconnsbarca) June 2, 2025
In order to regain control over her music, and to devalue Braun’s investment, Swift began re-recording all six albums, dubbing them ‘Taylor’s Version’ and adding “From the Vault” tracks that had been written around the time of the original songwriting sessions but never released.
Between 2021 and 2023, Swift released ‘Taylor’s Version’s of her albums ‘Fearless‘ (originally released in 2008), ‘Red‘ (2012), ‘Speak Now‘ (2010) and ‘1989‘ (2014), with the re-recordings cumulating in billions of streams that broke Spotify records.
Re-recorded versions of the songs have since been used in film and TV synchs, including an updated version of ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ – from the currently unreleased rerecording of 2017’s ‘Reputation‘ – which appeared in the new series of The Handmaid’s Tale earlier this month.
‘Reputation’ and Swift’s 2006 self-titled debut album are the only albums that have not been re-recorded, and fans have been speculating about their potential release dates for the past six years.
However, now that the singer has reacquired her masters, there is less reason to release their ‘Taylor’s Version’.
Concluding her letter to fans, the pop star directed the conversation towards artists’ rights to their masters, after it was reported that major labels such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group were looking to put a stop to artists following in Swift’s footsteps, and were said to have overhauled contracts for new signees in 2023.
“Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in their record contract because of this fight, I’m reminded of how important it was for all of this to happen,” she wrote.
“Thank you for being curious about something that used to be thought of as too industry-centric for broad discussion. You’ll never know how much it means to me that you cared. Every single bit of it counted and ended us up here.”