Catch the #freetaylor video on YouTube: The Problem with Taylor
It’s up to you Taylor,
you’re our only hope.
Taylor Swift is the most powerful figure in the world under 75. As Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, we could use a bit more LEADERSHIP and a lot less high school breakup revenge songs. See TaylorsVersion.ai for more.
Here’s Taylor’s next album LEAKED on Soundcloud.
Watch the YouTube announcement. And then help it go viral.
REDRADIO could save us all.
Here’s the idea. Like Neil Young before her, Taylor can pull all of her versions of her music off Spotify and Apple Music. Give the streaming ripoff purveyors a hit in the wallet.
Here are a few facts to look into. (from my Perplexity search: Taylor Streaming
According to calculations based on her leading number of streams for the year, she was expected to earn more than $100 million from Spotify 2023.
So that’s what Taylor gets in ONE YEAR from SPOTIFY. This is part of the problem. Let me illustrate further.
And even Perplexity and the data sourced validated that a Taylor Power Move to take all of her music off streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, and create her own streaming service for fans could create the shift we need.
Since she made over $100 million from Spotify alone, last year, the two big boys would experience serious financial pain. That is the only leverage musicians have against the streaming ripoff.
If Taylor could hit them in the wallet we’d have a conversation. Congress might even take action (like the Ticketmaster fiasco the Taylor rage Congress took up and then did nothing to change) to reverse the DMCA that started this entire diversion of any artist’s recording revenue.

What does the streaming consumer need?
The consumer wants cheap access to all music. If she takes Taylor Swift music off the major platforms, the consumer is going to follow her music to her streaming service. Taylor’s RED RADIO. This could benefit other artists, as Taylor’s streaming platform enables artists to own their streams and get paid on every single stream, and not algorithmically filter all the money to the businesses or top artists. Small musicians and bands would have an incentive to record music, as there could be a financial benefit to releasing music on their own channel rather than Spotify/Apple Music.
What does the streaming artist need?
Give musicians a chance to earn a living from their recorded music. Today musicians (as we saw in the pandemic crisis) make 90% of their money from playing live. Most of them don’t have dads with a 20 million dollar budget to produce and distribute a movie of their live shows. Sure, they can sell “merch” at their live gigs. They can beg people to buy their music on Bandcamp. And then go back into the studio or rehearsal space to make new music. Today, the incentive for a musician to release recorded music, financially is very low. Sure, they can build reach and followings from Spotify, but they cannot pay rent, or health care benefits, with reach and goodwill. Musicians need money to survive. Why should the streaming services ALONE get to profit from the recorded part of their efforts?
What does the streaming business need?
A number of years ago I started a campaign for either Spotify or Apple to begin a FAIR PLAY 4 FAIR PAY policy. Would more people go to a streaming service that actually supports the artists they listen to and love? For the streamers still attached to their parent’s CC and homes, the answer is no. And why would parents want to pay more for service RED if everything is available on service CORP? They won’t. Thus, there is no demand for musicians to be paid fairly for their recorded music. None. Well, Neil Young sure, but where are U2, Pearl Jam, Beyonce, Cher, Madonna, and Justin Timberlake on this issue?
If a musician’s strike were to take place like the Hollywood strike of 2023, it would have the potential to reset the system today that pays Taylor Swift even more millions, yet fails to pay your favorite local artist anything. For most of us, sub 100,000 streams a month, MUSICIANS ARE PAYING TO HAVE OUR MUSIC AVAILABLE FOR STREAMING.
Business needs a kick in the ass, and Taylor Swift is just the person to take a stand, pull her $100 million in streaming royalties from 2023 and use 50 million of those royalties to fund her NEW STREAMING PLATFORM FOR ARTISTS TO OWN THEIR SONGS AGAIN.
Before you go, checkout TaylorsVersion.ai the new channel of demos from Taylor’s upcoming grammy-award-winning album: The Tortured Poets Department
DEAR TAYLOR SWIFT
You are amazing. You’ve dominated the Grammys, the Super Bowl, the box office, the ticketing process, and even the 2020 elections. THANK YOU. You have one more BIG GIFT you could give to your fellow musicians. More importantly, those young fans of yours, looking up at you on stage and imagining themselves having a career in music. You want that, right? Why wouldn’t you support a process that would allow musicians and artists to make fair royalties for their efforts? It would certainly give young people a new validation for becoming an artist instead of an accountant. And today, as AI is threatening even your music, we need to get the Spotify/Universal Music/Sony/Apple out of the financial lock on the music business.
More important than your next Album of the Year Grammy, Taylor, please consider the legacy of giving ALL MUSICIANS a reboot in the streaming music business. Oh, and thanks for your help in 2024 to prevent anarchy in the US.
Seriously, Taylor, you are as strong and powerful as you appear. You can change music for all of us. Most importantly, you can. change music for all the girls watching you dominate the streaming and performing airwaves. You too will be Madonna/Bono/Jagger aged at some point. Your most vital move, will not be a shelf of Grammys. Taylor Swift’s RED RADIO could change the music business forever.
It’s a big ask, I know. My partner asked, “Why wouldn’t Taylor do it?”
“At the moment she has ZERO INCENTIVE.”
I guess she’s got a tour to get back to, another Grammy-award-winning album to produce, and Travis…
Established with the publication of this article.
It’s up to you Taylor, you’re our only hope.
Let’s do this together.
John McElhenney — LinkedIn
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