"Taylor Swift Effect" on Record Deals, J. Cole's Top 3 Rappers, and Blink 182

It is what it is, but what is it? The labels say my budget too expensive. Do you know the lyrics? But fuck it. No, I get it. It doesn't rhyme. Okay. Welcome back to another episode of the One More Time Show. Epic fucking fail, Henry. I should have written the lyrics. Yeah, okay. Uh on today's episode, we are going to unpack um the Taylor Swift method. The Taylor Swift approach. The Taylor Swift, I don't know. Uh basically talking about um people who are re-recording their masters and uh the recent craze that the labels are basically trying to uh correct the artist agreements to prevent such actions from their artists. Uh then we're gonna move into our Drake, J. Cole, and Kendrick top three rappers right now. And that's coming off of first-person shooter uh lyric from J. Cole that alludes to that being the case. I'll read the bar out myself. I think you should. Stay tuned.

Uh and then as always, we're gonna wrap it up with uh with some bullshit. As always, so let's get into it, man. So for I I think it's very important for us to set the stage about this whole like re-recording masters and why everyone's like you know up in arms about it, right? So for those that aren't, you know, super knowledgeable about the business. Um, and I think everyone here on our channel is like always trying to learn more, right? And so it took me a while to really wrap my head around this whole Even if you know like it's worth it to hear it several more times to really get it. Exactly, exactly. So when music is made, there are basically two copyrights that end up being produced uh as a result of a song being made, right? There's the master recording, which is the one that we're gonna kind of talk about, right? And then there's the composition, aka the publishing, right? So think of the composition and the publishing of all the ingredients that make the end product, right? It's uh it used to be back in the day, it was the sheet music. Sure. It's the actual like but our audience doesn't know what sheet music is. Sure they do.

Sure they do. Okay, it's the lyrics. They're not as old as you, bro. It's the lyrics, it's the notes, it's the arrangement, it's the order of the things. It's it's it's literally like I I I kind of am just coming up with this analogy, but it really is, or this metaphor. It really is like it's the cake's ingredients. Like quite literally, it's all the different things that make the cake what the cake is, right? You're doing a we're doing a cake thing. I'm doing are you hungry now? No. Questioning your metaphor. Don't try and eat my metaphor. Just continue, let's see how this goes. Okay, and then the cake, the end result, like that specific cake is the master recording. Like, how did all those ingredients result in the song, the cake? So Taylor lost control of the cake, but she still has got the flour, the eggs. Is that what you're saying? Exactly. The chocolate chips. Chocolate chip cake. What are you? Now you've lost me. Now I'm thinking of cookies. Can you get back into it? Okay, let's get back into it. So basically, um, Taylor Swift was in a record deal um with Big Machine Records, right?

Big Machine. Big Machine Records. And she essentially had done six studio albums with Big Machine. Okay, her contract um was was, you know, expiring, right? Her artist agreement was expiring. She had she had met her commitment. And so uh in the midst of all that, her uh sorry, Big Machine got sold to Scooter Braun. Scooter. Okay, so Big Machine was sold to Scooter Braun. Scooter raised 300 M's. Yeah, 300 plus million dollars to buy big machine, which half of that revenue or half of that value was basically comprised of 140 million, I think was Taylor's discography. Taylor's discography. okay. So basically, Scooter Braun acquired the the rights to the master recordings because once again, record labels are the ones that typically own the master recording, or they own some percentage of the stake of the master recording, or obviously if the artist has hella leverage, then maybe they don't own the master at all, right? But Ben, Nipsey told me that I need to own my own masters. Okay, so we're not gonna get into that just yet.

Let's at least just set the stage here a little more. Okay. So essentially, um, in the midst of that that sale, Taylor Swift apparently declined the offer for her to buy the rights to her master recordings. Well, there were some crazy stipulations because I'm just gonna okay. There was beef, and they wanted her to not talk about them anymore, and like, you know, devalue the brand of you know, there were there were some weird things they were asking her to do. Sure. It's not like she just said no. But it's almost irrelevant, right? She didn't she didn't make an offer or she didn't make a successful offer, the shit got sold. Yeah. So basically, her response to that was hey, fuck this. I still own the flour and the eggs. I oh I own the flour, the eggs, and the chocolate chips. I'll make another cake. And so I'm gonna basically bake another cake. Yeah, it's gonna have all the same pieces of the of the cake. I was about to say pie.

All the all the ingredients of the cake, but obviously it's gonna probably be like very slightly different. Like she might be using a new oven to bake it, whatever the fuck, right? I actually saw um shout out Rick Beato, legend on YouTube. The and by the way, lives one minute away from me. Are you serious? We need to get Rick Beato's attention. I don't know about Rick. Listen, there's no way you're listening to it. Can't you just knock on his door? I mean, that would be weird, but we could yeah, he pointed out like Jehovah Witness status. He pointed out there are some differences. Like she, he thinks that she was singing better, sure, her voice is better. They use like a better snare, small upgrades, but it's the same music. Yeah, For sure. Because once again, like the takes are gonna be different because she's literally re-recording it. It is a new master recording. Okay. And so basically she did that. Um, she did that, she did all six studio albums, and this was part of her new record deal with with with with Republic. And so this was, I think her first studio album was like 2008 or something, right?

And then it was like 2021 when she ended up like first releasing, I think, these new versions that she's calling Taylor's versions, right? And so the record label is looking at this, right? Big Machine or Scooter Ron now, like owning the rights to this, you know, original catalog, and they're kind of like, fuck this. Because if you guys can, you know, understand where they're coming from, is like they want to protect their investment, right? Like they were the ones that invested money into the recording into the marketing and promoting of the records to basically help get them to the value that they ended up getting to, right? So she just said, fuck that, I'm re-recording it. And in every artist contract, there historically was I think it was what like five years uh from when after the release or two years after the expiration of the agreement. Okay, exactly. So there were there were there were you know before you're allowed to re-record your uh you know, your music in another form before you're allowed to make a new cake. Which, and it's funny because back in the day, you know, I I I was watching a lawyer talk about this.

Back in the day, that was a very like minuscule, like nothing part of the contract. That never really meant anything. You're not gonna make the same song again. Why? It's already out there. Um, but since Taylor has started to blow up, this has become like a very heated, like very crazy part of contracts in 2023 now. It's and 2022. I mean, since she started doing this a couple years ago, and it's like, you know, it used to be five years since then. Labels now are like, shit, I'm trying to block the artist from re-recording for 10 to 30 years now. And you want to know why? Because they were protecting their investments. Yeah, but you want to know why? I just actually thought of that as I'm sitting here talking to you right now. Okay. Bro, how many times have we talked about the power of catalog right now? It's huge. Old songs can blow the fuck up. 100%. And when old songs blow up, what do they do? They make money. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so like to your point, the reason why light labels didn't give a shit in the past, no old song was breaking five years later. It was done, it was dead.

No one was thinking about it. That was it. Like, yeah, they may be toured with it, but they weren't selling it. It wasn't streaming because this wasn't the streaming era when these like policies or like typical contracts were being negotiated. So I'm actually just thinking about it. Like, it's because catalog has been the game is different now. It's so different. An old song can blow the fuck up. If it if it you know it starts trending on TikTok, yeah, you know, if the right creator uses it as a sound, like it doesn't fucking matter. Like surround sound by Jid is two years old and it's re-trending again. Now it's like the number one uh sound on TikTok or something again, right? Which I love because I fucking love the song. I love that song, and so yeah, it's amazing, right? So, but that's the power of catalog, bro. Um, and so I think that's really why these labels are starting to understand, like, yo, we gotta cover our fucking ass now. Yeah, five years ain't shit. Like, we're seeing seven. I mean, Hey Mickey from you know, baby Tate was a seven-year-old song. It was it started to do a million streams a day, it hadn't even done a million streams in the last seven years before, you know, as it was released. And if that wasn't enough to scare the labels into, you know, like this, oh, this this can't work, there's no way it's gonna work.

Shout out Taylor selling 1.5 million in the first week of an album that everyone already heard. Dude, Taylor's version went the fuck up, yo. Oh my god. Literally insane, bro. So how do you feel about this? Do you think that are you understanding of the label's position here? Are you, you know, artist rights, artist rights? Like well, you know, where do you kind of sit in this? I'm always artist rights. I think I think writers and artists are always underappreciated. Fuck you. Okay. This guy is the reason that the sag went on strike and like writers guild. The way you blindly say, I'm always. Oh no, I wasn't done talking. I'm always artist rights. Benjamin. I wasn't done talking about it. Keep fucking going, James. Obviously, I always respect the artists. Like the writers are the people that are making this shit move. So yeah. Do I understand why labels are pushing back on the stipulations of the contract? Of course.

Like, if I'm if I run a business and I and my shit's being threatened like that, where this product that I have that is producing and you know, making money for me is all of a sudden at risk of making nothing. That's a big deal, of course. So yeah, I understand why that's happening. But I think it is, you know, it's interesting what she did. I I love honestly that she found this kind of way to, you know, re just take back her music. It's her music at the end of the day. She should be making money from it. And, you know, and I think we're gonna look back at this time as like the pre-Taylor Swift and the post-Taylor Swift era, you know, in a hundred years. Yeah, so in it in an artist rights scenario, what what are the artists just advocating for like fuck that? I should be able to record a new version the day, you know what I mean? Like, do you know much about like what the like super pro, like let's call them the should we call them left wing or right wing here? Artists right I think the artists are probably left. Left wing, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Let's call it left wing artist rights people. I love this. this. Okay, I love it. Um sorry. So um, you know, let's just say on that side of the spectrum, whichever direction we're going, um, what do you know the argument? Do you know what they're like advocating for? In are they just advocating for like the same as it was, maybe? Did they like you know, was there ever an issue with what it was? Like three, three or you know, two years after the contract expires or five after the song comes out. Do you know what they're like wanting? If not, what do you think you they should want? Like what's actually fair, right? I think you wrote the shit. So yeah, you should be able to do what you want with what you wrote because you wrote it. Well, you can publishing. You wrote it. Well, not necessarily if the contract says you can't. Well, with the recording, that's where it comes back to those ingredients. The the the pot, the cake.

I think if I make if I if I own the ingredients and I'm the farmer, right? Do we farm ingredients? I guess so. Yeah, these are my chickens laying my eggs. Okay, yeah. And I my sugar cane. And I made you a cake, and uh, and it's your job to sell the cake, and you're doing a shitty job at selling the cake, or you're trying to take advantage of me and make take all the money from the cake that was made with my ingredients, then I should have the right to fucking go make a cake with someone else that wants to sell my cake. I I think it maybe comes back to the uh the master ownership. I I don't think we should be playing this game of re-recording necessarily, right? Because I mean, my biggest question is is like, are the original Taylor Swift? I'm assuming those original albums are out, right? Still on stream. I believe they're still. out. Yeah, they are. And they have to be on her profile. She has to let them be on her profile, I assume, right? That's crazy. It's Just to even think about. Yeah, I was just looking at it. So what comes up first when you search the name of the album? Uh yeah, it's a great question. You talk for a second. I'm gonna Spotify. Yeah, no, no, go ahead.

yeah, for sure. So I mean, my my biggest question is like, A, how does that work, right? Um, because clearly, can the label keep pushing, you know. I mean, shit, when it comes to like yeah, yeah, when it comes to like sync licensing, even too, like trying to get a version in a movie and shit, like so it goes. I I just typed in 1989 on Spotify. Which is Taylor Swift's most recent release that is her version of 1.5 million in sales in the first week. Crazy unbelievable number one album, and literally everyone knows what it sounds like. Insane. Insane. It goes 1989 Taylor's version, 1989 Taylor's version deluxe, and then it goes 1989 deluxe. Well, that's also because it's it's newer, trendy, yeah. And it did 1.5 million, might be skewed. But if I were to guess, the Swifties are riding for Taylor's version. Of course. I mean, dude, who doesn't want to support that? No one, no one's like, I love Republic, I love Scooter, I love Big Machine. Like, no one gives a fuck about that. Yeah, yeah. But they do love Republic, because shout out Republic. That's who that's who released these Taylor versions.

Right. They got no, they're, they got the good end of the deal. So I don't know, actually. The other the other end sounded good too. Um but but yeah, man. So I just think it's an interesting debate going on right now. I'm interested to see where where it lands, right? Because I think that with this with this shift in catalog, labels do have to be a little bit more paranoid about their investment when it comes to old songs, right? Like, how long can we exploit this record? aka like how long can we monetize it? You know what I mean? Because I hate that that word is exploit. That's the word. It is. I didn't make the word. No, I know. But I'm pointing out how crazy that word is. To say it, it has the worst like negative connotation. And it is negative. I mean, it kind of is, but that is the business that the labels are in. So, like, I mean, I guess I get it, but I don't know. At the same time, like, shit's just changing in 2023. It definitely is, man. So, like, artists, if you are signing deals, that is something to be looking out for because you know, this is a thing, right? Like, your your old songs can blow up, and you know, you want to try and negotiate, obviously, like the least amount of time before you can either re-record a version or obviously you retain some percentage ownership or all ownership or whatever.

That's why this is a big deal. Um, so you know, and the most leverage that you can have, aka the most community that you can have built on your own translates into the best deal that you can sign for sure, for sure. And this is not legal advice, just disclaimer. This is not all right, moving on, moving on. Moving on to the take. We are gonna discuss uh, J. Cole's rear, uh J. Cole's recent lyric on first person shooter, where he basically calls out, you know, the fact that him, Drake, and Kendrick are the top three in the game right now. Actually, what he said was what did he say? What did he say? Love when they argue the hardest MC. Is it K Dot? Is it Aubrey or me? We the big three, like we started a league, but right now I feel like Muhammad Ali. Oh, wow. Just to really put it there. Okay, so there's the big payoff from what I said at the beginning of the episode when I said I would say it. Everyone's so happy right now. I'm thrilled. I mean, I'm I'm pumped. I have goosebumps. Yeah, I mean, you can't see it under my hoodie, but like I've got them. Um, so I just initial thoughts.

Like, are they the top three in the game right now? Initial thoughts are what the fuck is top three mean, bro? Okay, what what are the options for what it can mean? Most popular, highest streaming, like least hated on, like what what Reddit likes them the most? What are we what is top three? Well, what are your, you know? I mean, we've done this before about like best rapper criteria. Greatest rapper of all time criteria. What what are your criteria for like current top rappers? Greatest rapper criteria for me is just a few. Don't hit the mic, That's what I think. Oh my god. Jesus, everyone's having a seizure now. Y'all like that? That's terrible. This is an audio-only experience, too. Thank, thank God. Yeah. Those instances were my opinion. Top three doesn't sound like my opinion. That sounds like most popular, maybe right now. In which case, I'm putting Ice spice number one. So, like, what you know, what are we talking about here? Like, that's my whole point. Is what is top three?

Like, how what what's the span of hot? Hottest in the last month, hottest in the last year, hottest in the last five years. Do you think Ice spice is hotter than any of those three? Yeah, hotter than J. Cole in the last year. Are you dumb? Easily hotter than J. Cole. Are you dumb? No, I don't think so. I mean, I'll I'll do a test. I mean, you should. Yeah, I spice is way hotter than J. Cole. That's ridiculous. Bro, you're ridiculous. What do you mean? Bro, check numbers right now. So it is numbers. That's why I'm saying, what's the criteria? Is that not hot? Now you're looking at numbers. Is that not hot still? Most talked about. Still J. Cole. Who has the most no jumper articles? Oh shit. She might actually hold on. No shit. Hold on, bro. Okay, let's check the number. No, no, he shits on her, bro. 48 million monthlies on Spotify. She's got 29. Fuck you. That's double, bro. Fuck, fuck you, bro. You just said that. I Spice is not hotter than J. Cole in any stretch of the fucking imagination, bro. Yes, by some stretch, not by every stretch. Dude.

She's more popular right now. No, she's not. If you look at this moment in time. Bro, J. Cole just came off of one of his, once again, feature killer. No, she's not. Yeah, he did a song. She's dropping crazy. Like, oh my god. Okay, that's not what this was meant to be. That's why I didn't. like this in the beginning. I don't know what top three means. Okay. Do I think she's one of the greatest ever? No, not yet. Probably not. Obviously not. Okay, but I need some criteria. What is the criteria in here? I don't know how to help you in this case. This is why this is why our takes are. I don't know about our takes. This is ridiculous at this point. So, okay, what's your fucking opinion? Go ahead. I mean, I think the bar is meant to be like they're prolific. They're still in the conversation. They are doing numbers. I think these are all the obvious criteria of what top three means. Like, I just don't, I don't know how else to put it. Like, she's brand new.

I think longevity is a is a factor. So, yes, they've all been doing it 10 years almost or plus. Right? Which is a long time. Yeah, 10 plus, long time. They're still headlining festivals. Kendrick just headlined one music fest in fucking Atlanta. Huge festival. Yeah. Right? All right. Well, in that case, it's a pretty good top three. I might throw Kanye in there. Okay. Ooh. Still riding for Yay. No, right. This isn't my opinion. Top artist. By your criteria. Okay. Not riding for any, I mean, uh, I mean. No, I'm not gonna. I was about to walk off the set, bro. No, I still ride for Kanye, and I'm Jewish. Yeah. I mean, I'm like barely Jewish, y'all. Like, like chill. But like, I mean, it makes sense. I'm in the trash bin for being a dirty dude in the comedy. God. Anyways. Uh no, man. I mean, I I I think I think he I think he's got it right. Kanye's not, he's not in that conversation right now, man.

He's really not. I think he's in the definitely in the conversation. You know who you know what's sad, who's just not even ever in the conversation anymore? Eminem. He really Oh no, he's been past his prime. Like For sure. I mean, sad to say, but I think relapse was his last great album. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, we're not gonna open that door. All right, all right, bullshit. Um so speaking of one more time, we are here on the one more time podcast, as all of you lovely listeners know. Blink 182, shout out. Watched our podcast, decided to dedicate an entire album. An entire tour tour. To us. And I mean, they asked us like, do y'all want any money to license the name? I was like, Tom, Tom, it's all good. And I said, Well, we need to call Daft Punk and see if they have any issues with it. Yeah, because we licensed one. We're partnered with Daft Punk. So there's a thing, you know, but we can work out an agreement. Yeah, uh-huh. So we let them ride with it. Yeah, and they're doing great. Yeah. I mean, I I hope they get they they talked about getting us passes to the Atlanta show. Oh, they want us on stage.

Oh, well, have they said that? I've actually been texting Travis Barker on the side. Trav, yeah, yeah. I knew you and Trav were close. Me and Trav are tight. But yeah, I thought that was cool. Anytime I anytime I see one more time, I can't hear one more time. Just in normal speech. And not know and not just be annoying like in my own brain. But it's the name of the album and they have a title track. We were talking about title tracks recently, which is cool. So, yeah, they have a very fun uh title track also called One More Time. So Did you listen to the album yet? Or should we listen to the album? I listened to the title track. Okay. Title Track is good. Was it good? I think so. Alright, for sure. Yeah. I mean, you know, were you like a were you a blink fan back in the day? I think, I think everyone our age had a little bit of blink in their life. Enema of the state, you know, with the with the nurse, uh the hot nurse on the cover. I was I mean, that was major. It was a moment. pop punk for me didn't really ever have a huge um wave, right? So I was Did you listen to rock? I more was into the uh slightly like um metal rock, yeah. Kind of more like system of a down and those those types of groups, right?

Uh disturbed, like slayer, whatever, like just shit like that. Metallica was my first concert. Exactly. So I I had those phases, and then I also had like the Jack Johnsons and like kind of the banana pancake vibes, the sublimes, the um chili peppers. Uh exactly, yep, yep. So, like that. For sure. Those were my vibes. But I I If your range is Jack Johnson to Metallica, then I feel like Blink should fall in that window. They fell. Okay. They fell just for a second. Okay. Just not very long. Fair enough. But yeah, so what's been going on with you? What have you been thinking about? Um, all right. Well, we're gonna lose a lot of people right here, but let's lose them. Um, you know, I I've been paying attention to cryptocurrency for about eight years. Everyone, stay on. For about eight, ten years. Just to hear the rest of this. And uh yeah, we we're in the middle of an interesting, you know, it's these things go in phases. Oh uh, you know, they hit the mic, they'll they'll they're quiet for two to three years and then they go crazy for a year and everyone talks about it. And it's those it's those two or three years that are interesting to me because you know, that's where he can't even talk about this with like out being awkward. Like you, you really know this is Am I being awkward?

You're just like embarrassed. I'm not a little listen. I'm a heavy speak confidently in this shit, man. I'm a holder. Mostly, mostly just Bitcoin, Ethereum. The altcoins aren't doing much right now. But we're seeing a fun little run on Bitcoin, mostly due to the spot ETF getting ready to be approved by BlackRock, the Illuminati overlords. Bow down to BlackRock. Bro, you made me buy a fucking altcoin one time, I remember. Like a lot of it. Really? I think so. You maybe maybe I think you made me buy Doge or something else. But you did. Maybe we'll talk about that later. Yeah, okay. No, it's just it's interesting to see, man. Um, I'm I'm paying attention to it. I I truly believe in the theory of the cryptocurrency. It's just everything is so digital now. Why are we putting, you know, why do we have physical cash? Do you carry cash, Ben? Never. Okay. Not at all. So, what do you think we're doing here? Like, what do you think?

It's just we're just trading numbers on a digital log. So, why wouldn't it go to this? So, I am admitting here on the One More Time podcast, on the One More Time show, in the bullshit section, that uh yeah, I'm a big holder of Bitcoin and Ethereum right now. I like that the recent spike. And um, I think when this Bitcoin spot ETF gets approved, we're gonna see some crazy uh action. Wow, yeah. That's that, folks. As always, we appreciate y'all tuning in. This has been another episode of the One More Time show. Woo! Uh, leave us a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever it is that you listen to your podcast, because this is an audio only exclusive experience. We love you, listeners. We love you guys for tuning in week in and week out. Until next time. We're sucking dicks. Whoa. Goodbye. That last shot brought that last line. Yeah.