Taylor Swift Claps Back at Album Backlash

Taylor Swift has lashed out at people who criticized her over her new album due out on April 19.

Swift announced her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, in an acceptance speech during Sunday's Grammy Awards.

"I know that the way the Recording Academy voted is a direct reflection of the passion from the fans. So I want to say thank you to the fans by telling you a secret that I have been keeping from you for the last two years," Swift said before revealing she would post the cover on social media once she got backstage.

But apparently Swift received criticism for releasing another album just 18 months after her Grammy winning Midnights album.

The singer addressed that criticism while performing on stage in Tokyo in a moment captured on social media.

"Everyone's like, 'why do you make so many albums?'," Swift said to the crowd, before telling them, "I'm like, 'man, because I love it!'"

She added: "I love it so much. I'm having fun, leave me alone.

Along with releasing 10 studio albums, four live albums and five extended play albums, Swift is also rerecording much of her back catalogue due to a rights dispute.

In 2019, music manager Scooter Braun bought the record label Swift was signed to from 2006 to 2018, Big Machine Records. It had owned the rights to her music recorded in that period, which eventually fell into Braun's hands and meant he earned the authority to license her music any way he saw fit and make money from it in the process.

She released six albums during that time, including Taylor Swift (2006), Fearless (2008), Speak Now (2010), Red (2012), 1989 (2014) and Reputation (2017). So far, she has rerecorded five of the albums in chronological order, with fans waiting for "Reputation: Taylor's Version" to be released.

"For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work. Instead I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and 'earn' one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in," Swift wrote on her Tumblr account in June 2019.

Swift revealed she only learned of Braun's purchase of the label when it was announced to the world. "I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta [CEO of Big Machine Records] would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future.

"I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past. Music I wrote on my bedroom floor and videos I dreamed up and paid for from the money I earned playing in bars, then clubs, then arenas, then stadiums."

She added of Braun: "All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I've received at his hands for years.

"Now Scooter has stripped me of my life's work, that I wasn't given an opportunity to buy. Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it," and described it as her "worst-case scenario."

Update 02/07/2024, 7:52 a.m. ET. This article was updated to include additional information.