98 Degrees: Taylor Swift Inspired Them to Rerecord Their Masters
’90s pop group 98 Degrees is crediting Taylor Swift for inspiring them to rerecord their masters. The boy band, comprised of Jeff Timmons, brothers Nick Lachey and Drew Lachey, and Justin Jeffre, recently told E! News that they have been in the studio working on a new project. The “True To Your Heart” singers reunited for their recently wrapped tour.
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Why Rerecord?
Lachey, 49, revealed the four of them will be rerecording “five of our classic hits in kind of the rerecord/get-your-masters-back move.” Then, the group will be releasing five new songs as well, “and a new single coming out at the top of the year.” Timmons, 50, noted that the group has been talking about doing it for some time because “there have been opportunities for our songs. And you know, you have these battles with the label.” He adds, “We thought it’d be natural for us to do this, you know, sort of rerecording of our masters.” Crediting Swift for bringing it to “the forefront” and seeing fans have embraced that, the group agreed, “‘OK, now’s the time to do it.'”
Swift will soon release her 1989 album, making only her debut album the last of her discography she needs to rerecord to own all her music. Swift made headlines in 2019 when she announced that she would own her masters by rerecording her previous albums after Scooter Braun acquired Big Machine Records and her catalog of master recordings. Since then, she has released three rerecorded albums so far, including Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version), and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version). 1989 (Taylor’s Version) releases later this month, on October 27.
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Drew, 47, said before Taylor did it, “It was kind of like, ‘I’ll just stick with the original’ kind of thing. When she did it and she was like, ‘No, this is my music. I want to take ownership of it again,’ people were like, ‘Yeah, Taylor!’ Now, everybody’s like, ‘I want to rerecord my masters and get it back out there.’ So, I feel like there’s an acceptance and almost an alliance between the artists and the fans now to support the rerecorded masters.” 98 Degrees released their self-titled debut album in 1997. The band went on a nearly ten-year hiatus from 2003 before later reuniting in 2012.