How Taylor Swift Is Resisting the Algorithm and Owning Her Music

Essay Question: “In the near future, all media will be streaming media.” Critically evaluate this assertion in relation to one of the media platforms covered in topics 1.1 to 1.4 (ie music, games, photograph, television, or film, with reference to the unit themes of digitisation, convergence and discoverability.

With the popularity of streaming growing in the music industry, this paper will examine the idea in the near future, all media will be streaming media. Taylor Swift's re-recorded album 1989 and the concept of artist empowerment will be discussed to argue that in the future, non-streaming media types will remain a part of the music landscape in the context of digitisation, convergence, and discoverability and in the future all media, will not be streaming media.
The digitalisation of music has considerably revolutionised the business of music, gradually eliminating the album format and altering the main economic flow from ownership to access, which allowed streaming services to thrive (Tilghman, 2022). Thus, although the establishment of a few major streaming platforms has concentrated their power, this change unfolds in the continuum of a media convergence in which music links with other platforms (Burgess, 2017).
These platforms use sophisticated algorithms ready to control the development of music, potentially restricting the artist's online reach and activity. Taylor Swift's purposeful re-recording and release of 1989 (Taylor's Version) shows how this environment has inspired artists like Swift to seek more control over the legacy of their music. Taylor Swift embodies using direct access to fans to combat algorithmic noise and boost visibility in a centralised online environment (Zhang, 2022). However, if we are living in a world where streamed music is the dominant form of interaction, engaging with the digitisation of music in a non-streaming way will still be relevant as we will not be able to compensate for, control or place a value on all the different ways one can engage with an artist in a streaming world (Marshall, 2015).

The digitisation of music has revolutionised the music industry, paving the way for streaming services to become the most common mode of consumption (Marshall, 2015). It heralded the most profound change from physical formats like records and compact discs to digital files and helped shift the prevailing economic exchange away from ownership and toward access as tracks separated from albums. With more choices on how, when, and where to access and consume music content, the internet helped to enable this change (Lotz, 201). The recorded music business responded by first offering downloads and licensing recordings to streaming music companies like Spotify and Apple Music (Marshall, 2015). This transition culminated in a paradigm shift where, for the first time in 2014, global digital music sales outperformed physical sales, indicating the profound impact of digitisation on consumption patterns. Countries like Sweden, Norway, and China emerged as leaders in the digitised music market, with the United States closely following, demonstrating the widespread adoption of digital music (DeFillippi, 2016). Therefore, the digitisation of music, driven by the internet and leading to the ascendance of streaming platforms, has fundamentally reshaped how music is consumed, setting the stage for examining media convergence and the resulting centralisation of power within the music streaming industry.

The convergence of media, in which music becomes progressively more integrated into different digital platforms and technologies, is matched by a tendency towards centralisation within the music streaming business, a process that Taylor Swift’s re-recording project is actively and directly counteracting. Music digitisation has expanded from a stand-alone system to a key piece in a combined audio visual, social media and online interaction system. This convergence is also representative in such artists as Taylor Swift, who have found a way to use her social media presence to promote her music and engage with her fans. However, this convergence has been associated with a high level of control centralisation within a few major streaming platforms, such as Spotify and Apple Music (Marshall, 2015). Artists have seen new paths to markets outside of traditional labels via content aggregators enabled by digitisation (DeFillippi, 2016). Instead, these global streaming platforms have become powerful new intermediaries, controlling how music is distributed, discovered, and monetised (Marshall, 2015). Considering this, the public ordeal surrounding Taylor Swift’s master recordings and her subsequent decision to re-record them appears as a specific challenge to the centralisation of artistic control, symbolising her quest for ownership in a converged media environment (Tilghman, 2022). Adding to this, the possibility of further centralisation through distributor acquisitions highlights the struggle for artists to retain autonomy in this industry. Whilst convergence has created new channels of accessibility and interaction with music, the rising centralisation of power produced by streaming raises crucial questions around artist independence and the evolving diversity of the music ecosystem, questions that Taylor Swift’s decisions actively point to and mark a path to navigate. Whilst the convergence has ushered in new modes for accessibility and interaction about music, the escalating centralisation of power in streaming gives rise to critical questions around the independence of artists and their ability to make their own decisions relating to their work. These actions directly impact the results of artists like Taylor Swift enabling an opportunity to leverage strategies affecting their discoverability and how their music is discovered and consumed, which will be further explored.

Sophisticated algorithms on digital music platforms can significantly enhance discoverability yet limit artists control and influence within the complex music ecosystem. We are currently witnessing the merger of music with online services and preeminent streaming services, such as Spotify and Apple Music, which are the leading intermediaries dominating music (Marshall, 2015). These platforms rely on sophisticated algorithms to perform curation of playlists and recommendations that exert a significant amount of power over the music that is available to listeners (Vonderau, 2019). Although these algorithmic processes can provide a route for new audiences to discover an artist, they also (by their very nature) centralise the means of discoverability into the operational logic of the platform, removing some direct agency from the artist (Lobato, 2016). For musicians like Taylor Swift, who had to fight over ownership of her master recordings during the second period of her music career, this algorithmic power meant that the description and presentation of the content behind her craft (her songs) to a degree being governed by the crowd-sourcing logic of actors who weren't her (Tilghman, 2022). However, this decision to embark on the historically all-encompassing re-recording of her first six albums should also be seen as a proactive and assertive move to retrieve agency within this algorithmic environment (Zhang, 2022). Swift's promotion of the "Taylor's Version" albums and encouragement for her dedicated fanbase to stream them, instead of the original music available, are strategic. Given that the serendipitous potential offered by algorithmic mediators that can easily lead consumers to explore her pre-Taylor's Version discography, which does not currently benefit Swift in terms of revenue, now can be channelled into streams of the current iteration of her recordings to generate revenue limiting possible access to her past works (Zhang, 2025).

This deliberate action against the centralised algorithmic power inherent in converged music streaming platforms highlights the continuous tension between the platform's influence on music consumption patterns and the artist's fundamental desire to maintain meaningful control over their creative output and discoverability. This dynamic will be further illuminated by examining Taylor Swift's 1989 (Taylor's Version) as a compelling case study in artist-driven strategies for asserting control within the contemporary streaming landscape. With Taylor Swift’s re-recording and re-release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) building on algorithmic discoverability and the centralisation of power within streaming platforms, it is a prime case study in how artists are attempting to create a greater degree of agency over their musical heritage and discoverability in the modern music landscape of digitisation and convergence.

Taylor Swift’s choice to re-record her early catalogue, including that of her album 1989, arose from the issue of ownership of her initial master recordings. This case revealed a crying lack of control exerted by the artist regarding what, how and where her foundational digitised work could be used (Tilghman, 2022). By creating near sound-alike versions of these songs that, given the right volume, would displace the originals in search results and by actively encouraging her vast and dedicated fanbase to stream only the “Taylor’s version” across converged digital platforms, including streaming services and social media, Swift directly addressed the problem of algorithmic prioritisation. Seeking to redirect streams and algorithmic weight more generally to recordings that Taylor Swift currently owns and controls, thereby influencing the discoverability of her preferred versions altogether (Zhang, 2022). It is a strategy to circumvent routes of discoverability that could potentially have favoured the original masters, rights to which were owned through a different party.

In addition, her ownership gives Swift greater freedom to license the new recordings for various uses, which may open up new revenue streams and creative considerations that weren't accessible in the early days of her career. Even with this confident step, perhaps 1989’s native version still lingers on streaming services, with its potential to be found in alternative algorithmic paths, revealing a continuing negotiation between artist control and platform power. Hence, the 1989 (Taylor’s Version) project works by the analogy to the kind of complex strategies that artists across the board, particularly ones as driven and savvy as Taylor Swift, are using to navigate the algorithmic terrain of centralised streaming and reclaim agency over their creative labour in the face of a digitised and converged media ecology. These factors resonate strongly yet beg a conversation over what opportunities and limiting factors a world built exclusively or even predominantly through streaming holds for music and music-making within an industry continuing to undergo a profound transformation.

The digitisation and convergence of media have helped to elevate streaming to the forefront of contemporary music consumption. The case of Taylor Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is a clear example of an artist trying to assert agency within the context of a predominantly streaming-based future. Demonstrating many of the limitations inherent in a future which is solely defined by streaming, popular music has invariably operated in the commercial digital economy, and the issues of artist royalty payments on streaming services (Marshall, 2015). With the centralising pressure of platform algorithms on discoverability, further reveals an ecology in which artists, especially those who do not possess Swift’s brand power, might contend for value and reach. A future where streaming is the only option for listening to music could amplify these problems, resulting in the devaluation of music and the precarious situation for many creators (Vonderau, 2019). Swift’s struggle to secure ownership of her masters followed by her re-recording project illustrates the importance of ownership and also the desire for artists to be in direct control of their work and its exploitation, both of which a purely licenced streaming model will always limit. In addition, a future fully dominated by streaming may reduce the importance of alternative music consumption, including the ownership of music, which are often associated with even stronger bonds between listeners and artists (Neal, 2023). The immediate challenge is balancing consumers rights to freely access, enjoy and be entertained by music through streaming with artists rights to creative control, confidentiality, and long-term career sustainability. As physical products fade, a streaming future threatens to make diversity and economic viability impossible in music. Ultimately, the challenge is finding a balance between online accessibility and artistry ownership.

In conclusion, although streaming has established itself as a dominant force in music discoverability thanks to processes of digitisation and convergence, the assertion that it will wholly replace all other forms of music media in future is somewhat tenuous. The overwhelming rise of streaming platforms coupled with algorithmic discoverability are both major factors (Tilghman, 2022). Yet Taylor Swift's calculated re-recordings assert the value of creative control and ownership, challenging a purely licensed streaming paradigm (Zhang, 2022). When considering the broader context, notably artist payments and the organic, long-term significance of physical formats, it's clear that a merely streaming future will not arrive, instead, diverse avenues of music engagement will persist and relate alongside streaming in complex and contradictory ways, touched by both technological and aesthetic logics (Vonderau, 2019). As such, the future of music consumption will instead continue to be shaped by a complex interplay between on-demand access versus tangible experiences, ownership for music lovers, and convenience as well as sustainability for artists.

References:

Burgess, J. (2017). Convergence. In L. Ouellette & J. Gray (Eds.), Keywords for media studies (pp. 47–49). New York University Press.

DeFillippi, B. (2016). Business innovation and disruption in the music industry. Edward Elgar Publishing.Lotz, A. D. (2021). Media disrupted: Surviving pirates, cannibals, and streaming wars. MIT Press.

Marshall, L. (2015). ‘Let’s keep music special. F—Spotify’: On-demand streaming and the controversy over artist royalties. Creative Industries Journal, 8(2), 177–189. https://doi.org/10.1080/17510694.2015.1096618 

Neal, J. R. (2023). That’s why you have to stream the re-records: Copyright, messaging, and fan engagement in Taylor Swift’s re-recording project. In A. Bennett & S. Wrench (Eds.), Taylor Swift: The star, the songs, the fans (pp. 81–94). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003299646-7

Tilghman, J. (2022). Exposing the "folklore" of re-recording clauses (Taylor's version). Journal of Intellectual Property Law, 29(2), 402–417.

Vonderau, P. (2019). The Spotify effect: Digital distribution and financial growth. Television & New Media, 20(1), 3–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476417741200 

Zhang, Z. (2022). Research on music album sales and commercial economic value: Taking Taylor Swift as evidence. In Y. Jiang et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2022 International Conference on Economic Development and Business Culture (ICEDBC 2022) (pp. 3–8). Atlantis Press. https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-036-7_2