The Disruptor
Contrarian and drawn to the edge; challenges the settled answer.
Taylor Swift earns The Disruptor designation not by working within industry power structures but by confronting them. Her decision to re-record her entire back catalogue after the master ownership dispute with Scooter Braun was an unconventional wager that reset how the business values artist rights and catalogues.
“The other was a nice moment where ringtones started cushion some of the revenues. Basically, there was a moment where basically CDs tanked because everybody realized I want to listen to all the music and I don't really want to pay for it. CDs are expensive. From a listener point of view, no wonder we were unhappy.”
“There are people getting better label deals than ever before because they are building their own fan bases. There are all kinds of new ways to participate. I mean, it puts us a bit more into the world and conversation of content creators.”
“So there was some that was similar. Now we have three big labels. Then we had four big labels. EMI eventually got Bapa Universal. But a lot of consolidation in the label side. But obviously the big difference is that the whole industry was a physical goods business, as you said, buying CDs in stores.”
“I was immediately skeptical during the lockdown period in which all of a sudden everybody in music was like, you gotta join this live chat. We're talking about crypto. It's the future of music. Again, it stood as an admission of like we can't sell this stuff. The music's not valuable.”
Wikiquote: “Public record read”
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