Taylor Swift attends the 2020 Sundance Film Festival - "Miss Americana" Premiere at Eccles Center Theatre on January 23, 2020 in Park City, Utah.
Neilson Barnard/Getty ImagesOn Thursday, the Democratic Party of Virginia posted and then pulled down "Swifties Against Youngkin" merchandise from their web store.
The move follows Terry McAuliffe -- the Democratic candidate for Virginia governor -- running ads across Facebook, Instagram and Google starting Tuesday that highlighted his Republican opponent Glenn Youngkin's connection to the sale of Taylor Swift's masters back in June 2019. Youngkin was the co-CEO of the Carlyle Group, which helped back Scooter Braun's infamous purchase of Swift's Big Machine master recordings. The digital ads included photos of Swift and the hashtag #WeStandWithTaylor.
"Did you know that Republican candidate for Governor, Glenn Youngkin, helped buy Taylor Swift's masters out from under her when he was co-CEO of Carlyle Group?" one of the targeted ads states.
Piggybacking off the ads, the Democratic Party of Virginia started selling hats, mugs and buttons with the phrase "Swifties Against Youngkin" emblazoned on them in magenta writing, as reported by Washingtonian magazine on Thursday. A screenshot of the merch was tweeted Friday (Oct. 8) by Mediate reporter Katherine Higgins.
There's no word yet why the merch was pulled, but back in February 2017, Swift filed a series of trademarks for the word "Swifties" -- the nickname for her fanbase.
Swift's spokeswoman has not responded to requests to comment about the singer/songwriter's unwitting involvement in the Virginia gubernatorial race.
In a statement to Billboard about McAuliffe's Swiftie-targeting ad campaign, Democratic Party of Virginia spokesman Manuel Bonder said: "No matter the industry, Youngkin has shown he would rip off anyone for a profit. What happened here is a continuation of Glenn Youngkin’s abhorrent track record of shipping jobs overseas, raising rents on seniors, and harming working families across our country. When it comes to Taylor Swift's music: What did Glenn know and when did he know it? Virginians deserve answers."
For his part, Youngkin rep Christian Martinez responded: “Terry McAuliffe has reached the stage of desperation in his campaign where he’s rolling out the most baseless attacks to see what sticks. It’s a pathetic fall that could only be achieved by a 43-year political hack.”
Swift is now re-recording her first six records as a response to the sale of her master recordings, beginning with the April release of Fearless (Taylor's Version) and continuing Nov. 12 with Red (Taylor's Version).
Reneé Rapp is seen as a “huge inspiration” by SZA.
The 25-year-old artist performed SZA’s Good Days in the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge, accompanied by two acoustic guitarists and a harp player. SZA, 35, was deeply moved by the rendition.
She posted a short video of the moment on Instagram Stories and wrote: “Renee is a HUGE inspiration, energy, voice spirit.”
During her chat with the BBC, Renee shared her thoughts about the track. She said: “I mean, I love SZA. I mean, she was one of my favorite artists in high school. And she's remained one of my favorite artists to this day. I think she's amazing. She's also, I mean, she's an incredible songwriter, but I think because she has so much swag. People don't realize how good of a singer she is. She's a fantastic vocalist and is really, really, really articulate. And I don't cover a lot of songs anymore. So I wanted to cover something that was, like, slightly challenging and also really vocally impressive, and frankly, hard for me to do.”
Renee is currently in the middle of promoting her second album, Bite Me, and opened up about how much more enjoyable it was to create compared to her first project.
She explained: “I mean, I feel like everything was incredibly different. I stopped listening to people that don't make music, because if you don't make music, then why the hell am I listening to you. And I also think the biggest difference, I think I just got a lot better. I think I have just become a better songwriter. I think I understand how to make pop music now in a way that I didn't really before. And I was very sure about what this album was and thematically, what it needed.
“So I felt like I was quite like, headstrong in like, what was gonna work and what wasn't. Because, nobody knows something better than yourself. I think a lot of things were different. I also just, like, had a lot of fun making it, like, I made it with like, three people, mostly, like, it was always like, four of us in the studio all the time, and we got so close, and some of us were already so close. So it was also just like a mess. It was such a mess, like we were just tweaking every day. It was so fun. And I don't think I enjoyed making the first one as much.”
