Taylor Swift already knows who she’ll be at the Grammys table with, and fans go wild
She might be set to pair up with another popular singer
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Taylor Swift will sit next to Lana del Rey at the upcoming Grammys, which will take place at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, marking the 66th year of the competition, in what could be an act of unity and defiance.
The pair are in the midst of dispute between Universal Music Group (UMG) and the Chinese social media platform, TikTok, over the rights to the music produced by the pair as the contract between UMG and TikTok expired on January 31, 2024.
So, they will be seated together at the musical awards show that many expect Swift to dominate in the wake of her record-breaking Eras Tour and her record-breaking movie of that same tour which grossed close to $250m at the box office.
CBS revealed that the pair will sit next to each other via Instagram with two cards bearing their names and faces bound to two parallel chairs and retained by a piece of blue elastic/string. The pair are long-time friends, meeting in 2012, and they are both represented by UMG.
Their seating could be a message and power play by the pair and their representative, UMG, to show TikTok the kind of artists they’re separating themselves from and the kind of following and attention they will attract.
UMG’s open letter about TikTok
The letter released by the organization pointed out that UMG are seeking for fair compensation for artists, control of artificially generated content that can replicate artists’ voices and online safety for the users of the social media site.
It declared that TikTok are attempting to lowball them, are not taking action against AI content and are not appropriately addressing issues of hate crimes and other non-friendly speech between users, including preventing pornographic content.
When UMG pushed them on this, TikTok allegedly became hostile and tried to force the hand of UMG to accept a worse deal than before for confronting them.
“But when we proposed that TikTok takes similar steps as our other platform partners to try to address these issues,” UMG said in a statement. “It responded first with indifference, and then with intimidation.
“As our negotiations continued, TikTok attempted to bully us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous deal, far less than fair market value and not reflective of their exponential growth. How did it try to intimidate us? By selectively removing the music of certain of our developing artists, while keeping on the platform our audience-driving global stars.
“TikTok’s tactics are obvious: use its platform power to hurt vulnerable artists and try to intimidate us into conceding to a bad deal that undervalues music and shortchanges artists and songwriters as well as their fans.
“We will never do that. We will always fight for our artists and songwriters and stand up for the creative and commercial value of music.”
