Stories abound as to who Taylor Swift is targeting with her new video "The Man." High on the list is Scooter Braun, who sold Big Machine to Ithaca with funding from The Carlyle Group, a private equity underwriter (PEU). The video shows the man urinating on a wall with Swift's record titles.
I added the men who did the selling and financing to the image below.
Carlyle Group co-founder and philanthropist David Rubenstein has been known to play tennis. I doubt that he behaves this badly on the court.
If Swift wanted to gig Carlyle she could have had the boorish male tennis player wear Golden Goose sneakers. She did not so I took the liberty of adding a star to the image below.
Swift stuck it to the man in her music video as financial markets imploded. It's been a tough week for the PEU boys. Carlyle's investment in Chesapeake Energy is less than 25 cents per share.
The Fall 2008 financial crisis had Carlyle make over $600 million in capital calls. That likely resulted in a tantrum or two.
Update 4-12-21: Swift re-released her Fearless album. Loyal fans are burying the old versions on Spotify.
Following Friday's midnight release of Fearless (Taylor's Version) — for which Swift re-recorded her music after failing to acquire the rights to her early albums two years ago — Swifties launched a campaign to bury the Big Machine version on Spotify.
Hopefully the unnamed investment firm can claw-back money from Ithaca and The Carlyle Group. Taylor Swift, like the City of Missoula with Mountain Water, tried many times to buy back the rights to her music.
Update 5-26-22: Justin Timberlake is the latest artist to sell his music to the greed and leverage boys.
Update 8-27-23: Scooter Braun is hemorrhaging clients.
