Graham Reid | | 2 min read
As she told the Country Cousins host Dave 'The Voice' Pilger on WKRP in San Diego, “I saw that the British group King Crimson just released a 26 CD set of all the music they made in 1969, which was in fact just one official album, and I thought I should listen to it.
“When I did I couldn't believe what pretentious shit it was and I thought, 'c'mon I could do better than that'.
“And bigger, of course.”
Swift said rather than do Christmas or Hanukkah songs she would go back and record every US number single from the month she was born, December 1989, 30 years of hits and some really shitty stuff like the Macarena.
But during the course of recording the songs fairly faithfully, she also decided to record each one twice more, “once in that country music style I had when I was younger, and then again in that hip-hop influenced manner when I fell in with a bad crowd around the time of Lover.
“That was a strange but formative period in my musical growth when I realised that I could just sing really nasty bitch songs and because I was edging towards rap the lyrics didn't have to make much sense as long as they rhymed.”
So quickly the catalogue of music available for the box set grew and through file sharing she could engage 127 different producers (and 289 copyright lawyers) to speed up the process, all named in the extensive liner notes.
Late last month, she told Pilger at WKFM in San Bernardino, she presented the whole set to her Republic label bosses Abi and Mort Lippermann in a Zoom conference.
“It was a wonderful meeting. Their jaws just dropped when they saw the scope of what I had, as well as 10 more CDs of bonus material for the Deluxe Edition, all in a kind of leather-bound, Gucci-styled bag.
“They were in such admiration at what I had done that they didn't say a word, not even when I said I wanted it rush-released to be out on December 22.
“In fact it wasn't until I'd finished the presentation with the mock-up of the box, the artwork and some sample tracks that Mort suddenly shouted, 'Taylor, just fuckin' drop it!'.
“And with that backing from them, that's exactly what I am going to do, on December 22. Or those guys will be hearing from my lawyers.
“Or perhaps Moose, Luigi and Mickey the Shiv, my trusted management team.”
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Taylor Swift's Big Box – in a limited edition of 120,000 copies – will be available at selected music stores before Christmas or at a heavily discounted price at car boot sales in the New Year.
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