It’s the month Swifties have been waiting for. With the arrival of November 2020, Taylor Swift is now free to re-record her back catalog of albums, and her fans took to social media to celebrate the moment with the hashtag #TaylorIsFree.
“NOVEMBER IS HERE! This is the month I’ve been most looking forward to since like July/August last year and I’m so excited!!! Taylor can re-record #TaylorIsFree TAYLOR IS FREE,” one fan wrote, showing off the day marked on her Reputation-inspired calendar.
“The whole year felt like a whirlwind and now finally TAYLOR IS FREE. We all will be deleting all of her old music from our playlists and apps and will only be streaming Taylor’s art owned by Taylor. That’s it,” another tweeted, while a third referenced the lyrics of 1989 single “New Romantics” with a tweet that simply read, “THE BEST PEOPLE IN LIFE ARE FREE #TaylorIsFree.”
Swift herself first revealed the new recording deadline for her first five LPS — 2006’s Taylor Swift through 2014’s 1989 — back in August 2019 following her highly public feud with Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta over control of her masters. (In July 2019, Braun bought Swift’s former label, Big Machine Records, in a landmark $300 million deal through his company Ithaca Holdings, effectively giving him ownership of the star’s entire pre-Lover catalog of work. (Billboard estimates Swift’s catalog was worth about half the overall deal.) At the time, Swift called the move her “worst case scenario.”
“Yeah, that’s true and it’s something that I’m very excited about doing because my contract says that starting November 2020, so next year, I can record albums one through five all over again,” she told Good Morning America‘s Robin Roberts at the time. “I’m very excited about it. I just think that artists deserve to own their own work. I just feel very passionately about that.”
Meanwhile, Swift’s latest album — 2020’s Folklore — has spent a record eight nonconsecutive weeks atop the Billboard 200 this year, becoming the only album to sell more than one million copies in 2020. (For those keeping score at home, the last major release to achieve the million-unit mark also happens to be her 2019 LP, Lover.)
Check out some of the best #TaylorIsFree fan reactions below.
NOVEMBER IS HERE! This is the month I’ve been most looking forward to since like July/August last year and I’m so excited!!! Taylor can re-record 🥺 #TaylorIsFree TAYLOR IS FREE pic.twitter.com/Hb6RLyPPto
— izzie (taylor’s version)🧣 (@ownedbyswift13) November 1, 2020
https://twitter.com/selg_stan/status/1322767935031554048
THE BEST PEOPLE IN LIFE ARE FREE #TaylorIsFree pic.twitter.com/RmAmgR54fd
— ρꪖꪊ 🧣 (@daylightears) November 1, 2020
Finally, it’s November 2020.#TaylorIsFree #TaylorSwift pic.twitter.com/p9u4YUGrZU
— aytakin🧣REDTV (@art_a_kin) November 1, 2020
The whole world was waiting for this moment #TaylorIsFree ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/BT8GtrfNMn
— Dana (@Dana70657411) November 1, 2020
“and when you can’t sleep at night, you hear my stolen lullabies”#TaylorIsFree pic.twitter.com/22yB2cjErx
— haley🌼 (@taysdaisyy) November 1, 2020
owned by Taylor Swift #TaylorIsFree pic.twitter.com/sQ0u7Uxkp5
— jonas ᱬ mostly ia (@ioveblondie) November 1, 2020
Taylor on the way to re-record HER albums @taylorswift13 ♥️ #TaylorIsFree pic.twitter.com/xLfq0IW9Jz
— Duda (@sneakininurbed) November 1, 2020
Artists DO deserve to own their work, and now Taylor will too, not only her work but also her stories, experiences, growth #TaylorIsFree pic.twitter.com/g3Uq9k6W7O
— SPEAK NOWWW (@soleheartstay) November 1, 2020