By Olivia Rynberg-Going, NWPC Political Planning and Action Intern
Taylor Swift Re-Records
Eleven-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor Swift, has rerecorded her 4th studio album Red, which was originally released in 2012.
Why is she re-recording her music? Put simply: she doesn’t own any of her previous music and re-recording will fix that. Swift signed a record deal with Big Machine Records and released her first six albums under their label. This meant that Big Machine owned the masters to every song on those six albums. In 2018, after Swift’s contract with Big Machine Records ended, she made several unsuccessful attempts to purchase her own songs’ masters. In 2019, those masters were sold to a third party for $300 million.
Even though Swift writes all of her own music, in U.S copyright law, the owner of the master owns every version of the song: downloads, streams, CDs, vinyl records, etc. Because Swift doesn’t own the masters for her first six albums, she needs permission from the masters’ owner to perform any of her previously recorded songs.
However, Taylor Swift does own the lyrics and written music to her previous work. Instead of continuing to seek permission, Taylor Swift has begun rerecording. Swift will own the masters to these re-recorded songs – granting her autonomy from the record label. While her re-recorded songs have the same names as their predecessors, each re-recording will have “(Taylor’s Version)” written after the song title. The re-recorded albums also feature songs “From the Vault”, that for various reasons, didn’t make it onto the first versions of each album.
Swift’s first re-recorded album was Fearless – originally released in 2008. Fearless (Taylor’s Version) was the first re-recorded album to ever top the Billboard 200 chart. The singles from Fearless (Taylor’s Version) reached the top 10 of the Billboard Hot Country Songs. Swift is only the second artist in history to top the chart with the same song twice – the original and the re-recording. Previously the only artist to accomplish this feat was Dolly Parton with, “I Will Always Love You”.
The album Red (Taylor’s Version) features 30 tracks, 20 of which are from the deluxe edition of Red released in 2012. Red (Taylor’s Version) boasts musical collaborations with amazing artists, including Phoebe Bridgers and Ed Sheeran. With this new album, Swift unveiled the long awaited 10 minute version of her song “All Too Well”. Swift also wrote and directed All Too Well: The Short Film which was released on November 12, 2021. Red (Taylor’s Version) broke the record for most single-day streams of an album by a female artist on Spotify.
Interestingly, Swift isn’t releasing re-recordings of her albums in chronological order. There are four albums yet to be re-recorded, and the order and timing of them continue to be a mystery.
Britney is FREEEE!!
Britney Spears, pop icon and one of the world’s best-selling musical artists, debuted her first studio album “…Baby One More Time” in January, 1999. Spears has won a grammy award, seven Billboard Music Awards, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and more than 23 million people stream her music on Spotify every month. Despite all of her fame and prestigious musical accomplishments, Britney Spears wasn’t allowed the freedom that most celebrities and every-day Americans enjoy.
For the past 13 years, Spears has been in a conservatorship, which in practical terms means that she was unable to make her own decisions. Conservatorships occur when an individual is proven in court to be incapacitated. The court then appoints an adult guardian, often referred to as a “conservator”. Conservatorships are usually reserved for people who cannot clothe or feed themselves. The purpose of a conservatorship is to make decisions for an individual while that individual is unable to do so for themselves. Conservatees are often elderly people, who suffer from confusion or illness, and are unable to make sound decisions around their medical care, finances, property, etc.
In 2008, Spears’ father, Jamie Spears, was appointed as Britney Spears’ conservator. Britney Spears’ very public mental health crisis and a custody battle, both of which included substance abuse allegations – were ongoing when her father became her conservator. Britney Spears’ conservatee status meant that her father controlled everything. He vetted every friend, boyfriend, and visitor with whom she interacted. Spears’ father made all of her medical decisions; He allegedly didn’t allow Spears to remove her IUD, disregarding her desire to have a baby. Spears’ father also controlled her work and travel schedules, which greatly influenced her income, which he also managed. Britney Spears’ grueling work schedule set under his conservatorship, increased the amount of money Jamie Spears managed – which caused him to increase his own pay. Spears’ father paid himself at least $5 million between 2008 and 2021. Meanwhile, as a conservatee, Spears wasn’t allowed to drive, nor did she have her own cell phone.
While Spears privately strove to end her conservatorship for years, activists publicly joined the fight in 2019. The Free Britney Movement, or “#FreeBritney” was led by dedicated fans and protestors who gathered outside of West Hollywood City Hall, attended virtual court hearings, signed petitions, and contacted their local representatives. The Free Britney Movement also
gained public support from celebrities, including: Iggy Azalea, Christina Aguilera, Paris Hilton, Miley Cyrus, Justin Timberlake, and Cher – among others.
On November 12, 2021, after a summer full of court testimonies, Spears’ conservatorship ended. Britney Spears now has all the legal rights of an adult American outlined in the U.S. Constitution.
Astutely, many activists have noted that if someone as well-known and beloved as Britney Spears can be trapped in an abusive conservatorship, then it can happen to anyone. On September 30, 2021, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that will ensure safer conservatorships by closing loopholes, and improving transparency within the entire process. The bill, often referred to as: “The #FreeBritney bill”, is a huge human rights victory and will go into effect in 2-3 years.
Quandra Prettyman Remembered
Quandra Erlyn Prettyman was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1933. Both of Quandra Prettyman’s parents were public school teachers, and her dad played the bass and French horn in a jazz band. Prettyman studied history at Antioch College in Ohio before getting her master’s in English at the University of Michigan. Prettyman moved to New York in 1957, where she worked in publishing, and taught literature at The New School.
Prettyman began teaching at Barnard College in 1970. She was the school’s first full-time Black faculty member. At first, Professor Prettyman taught introductory survey classes. In her second year she introduced a course on Black women writers. Later she introduced more classes on slave narratives, and the Harlem Renaissance. Throughout her career, Professor Prettyman embraced her role as a mentor to Black Barnard students. She was known to host end-of-term dinner parties, at which she offered friendship and sage advice.
While adored by students, Professor Prettyman experienced institutional obstacles. Many Barnard community members believed Prettyman was offered the job to improve the optics of Barnard faculty – “a diversity hire.” Two years before she started, Barnard students had joined student protests on Columbia’s campus. While these protests brought to light many issues, one of the largest was Columbia’s failure to hire Black faculty.
Professor Prettyman noted feeling tokenized. Whenever Black speakers came to campus, she was asked to introduce them. In the beginning of her career at Barnard, Prettyman participated in prospective student events, but later found herself questioning her role within them. In a 2014 interview, Prettyman said, “There was a time when I stopped going to parental events, so as to not give a false sign of Black presence.”
As a scholar herself, Prettyman was particularly devoted to Black women’s literature. In particular, Professor Prettyman delved into the world of southern cookbooks. Tucked around the instructional lines, these cookbooks were full of brilliant memoirs, offering intimate glances into Black families of the time. One of her favorites was, “The Taste of Country Cooking ” by Edna Lewis, who memorialized members of her family going back to the onset of sharecropping and Jim Crow laws.
Professor Prettyman was adamant that cookbooks can be used as sociological and cultural lenses through which one can study the populations whose narratives are so often disregarded: women, especially women of color. Professor Prettyman once wrote: “Taste may be apolitical, but it is not ahistorical.”
Quandra Prettyman passed away in October, 2021 at the age of 88. Although technically retired, Professor Prettyman taught occasional classes at Barnard until the day she died.
Olivia Rynberg-Going is a current junior at Smith College, double-majoring in Government and the Study of Women and Gender. On campus, she participated in Smith’s Student Government Association as both a senator and director of elections and appointments. Her favorite policy areas include reproductive rights, 20th century SCOTUS decisions, voting rights, elections, and most of all: campaigns. Outside of politics, Olivia has a deep love of true crime, geography, and farm animals.
