🎥| Please do take the time to watch the FULL video of Steven Spielberg inducting Taylor into the Songwriters Hall of Fame! It’s nothing short of magnificent which comes as no surprise since he’s one of the best storytellers in history!
"A woman who has no fear when it comes to shattering records as a writer, singer, and storyteller," the director says of the youngest-ever female inductee.
More: https://t.co/sOvFFRoj9E
It’s a *Toy* Story 🤠
You knew it! My new original song “I Knew It, I Knew You” for Disney and @Pixar’s @toystory 5 will be yours on June 5th. I’ve always dreamed of getting to write for these characters who I’ve adored since I was a 5 year old kid watching the first Toy Story movie. I fell instantly in love with Toy Story 5 when I was lucky enough to see it in its early stages, and I wrote this song as soon as I got home from the screening. Sometimes you just know, right?
You can pre-order now exclusively at https://t.co/NoneI6kxdH and catch Toy Story 5 in theaters June 19th ☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️
🗞️ | Suki Waterhouse opened up to Variety about her friendship with Taylor Swift
“The coolest thing about her is she gives other artists these insane opportunities that really change people’s lives. Knowing her as a friend, she’s actually been through so much, andI think the thing I always see in her is how she pulls herself through every time, and how everything that’s ever happened to her becomes another piece of art that becomes part of the legacy. That’s so inspiring, that’s the artist that you want to be.”
#OffCampus, the new romantic drama series about college hockey players, is the third most-watched debut series in the history of Amazon Prime Video.
The only debut series to ever outperform it have been “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” and “Fallout.” That means “Off Campus” is tracking above heavyweights like “The Boys,” “Reacher,” “The Summer I Turned Pretty” and more.
https://t.co/jH73n5OlrV
🚨 Taylor Swift sent a letter and SIGNED guitars to an 8-year-old girl and her neighbor after she saw a video of the kid sending paper airplane to her neighbor, requesting that he play Taylor Swift song!
—The neighbor (Hayes) confirms that out of nowhere, he got a message from Swift's camp on TikTok.
“They're like, 'Hey, Taylor saw your video. We want to send you something. Don't tell anyone until it gets there,' I was expecting maybe a signed poster or something. And then she sent us guitars, which is insane.”
At the height of Beatlemania, the Fab Four seemed untouchable with a string of hits that left them “more popular than Jesus”.
Now, Sir Paul McCartney has finally named an artist he would rank alongside his former band – pop queen Taylor Swift 👇
https://t.co/KoHoxhnNOG
💬| Paul McCartney on whether he has any advice for Taylor Swift
"You do see the parallel, the amount of worldwide fame that Taylor has and we [The Beatles] had... I don't think she needs any advice to tell you the truth."
🚨 Taylor Swift will officially be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in just one month!
After becoming eligible for the first time this year, Taylor was immediately selected for induction, making her the youngest woman in history to receive the honor.
.@taylorswift13 has been so kind to me over the years. To hear her express how my songs affected her was a lovely surprise. Everything is connected. I feel fortunate to be a link in the chain.
Universal Music is selling $1.4 billion in Spotify shares. It paid nothing for them. Spotify handed the shares over in 2008 just for letting Spotify play music, and the deal was set up so almost none of that money would ever reach the artists who made the music. Taylor Swift's 2018 contract changed that.
Back in 2008, Spotify was a small Swedish startup that needed songs to play. The big record labels had the songs. They had no reason to hand them over cheap, so the two sides cut a deal. Spotify gave them shares. The labels gave Spotify the right to play their music. Universal walked away with 5%. That stake later grew to 7% when Universal bought EMI and rolled EMI's 2% into its own. Then it drifted back to 3% as Spotify took on more investors and shrank everyone's slice. At today's prices, 3% of Spotify is worth about $2.7 billion. Universal sat on those shares for 18 years and never sold a single one. Until yesterday.
Most artists never see royalty money. When a label signs you, it pays you an advance to live on while you make the album. It also covers your studio time, your music videos, your marketing, your tour. All of those costs go on a tab. The label keeps every dollar your music earns until you clear that tab. Berklee, the music school in Boston, says as many as 96% of major-label artists never earn enough to clear it. They stay in the red their entire careers.
Sony moved first in 2018. It sold half its Spotify shares for $768 million and paid $250 million directly to its artists in cash, no matter how much each one still owed. Warner followed a few months later. It sold all of its Spotify shares for $504 million and said $126 million would go to its artists too. Warner played it differently. Most of that money went to pay down what those artists already owed, instead of putting fresh cash in their pockets.
Taylor Swift was negotiating her own deal with Universal that same year. She refused to sign unless Universal put the Sony version of the rule in her contract. Cash to artists, no matter what they owed. She wrote at the time that the clause "meant more to me than any other deal point." Universal had said publicly in March 2018 it would share Spotify money with artists. But it had not put the cash-not-credit rule in writing. Swift's contract, signed eight months later, did.
Universal is finally selling. Hundreds of millions of dollars in cash are about to land in artists' bank accounts, including artists who have spent years or decades in the red and would otherwise get nothing from a sale like this.
Most of those artists have never met Taylor Swift. All of them benefit from a single line she insisted on eight years ago.
Name a more glamorous way to write song… ☁️ Watch the full @NYTmag interview honoring Taylor as one of the 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters at https://t.co/uxPRlBTnqo
Interview by: @joecoscarelli
🎥: Joshua Charow