98 Degrees are re-recording a selection of their biggest hits in a bid to reclaim the masters.
The boy band – whose most successful releases include Give Me Just One Night (Una Noche), Because of You, The Hardest Thing and Thank God I Found You (with Mariah Carey and Joe) – are working on a new LP, featuring a combination of original tracks and re-recorded classics.
“We’re actually in the studio now working on a new project,” Nick Lachey told E! News. “We’re gonna re-record five of our classic hits in kind of the re-record/get-your-masters-back move. And then we’re also gonna have five new songs as well, and a new single coming out at the top of the year.”
Crediting Taylor for influencing their latest move, Jeff Timmons continued: “We’ve been talking about doing it for a while. Because, look, I mean obviously there have been opportunities for our songs. And you know, you have these battles with the label.”
He added: “So, we thought it’d be natural for us to do this, you know, sort of rerecording of our masters. Taylor Swift sort of brought it to the forefront. The fans have embraced that. And so we’re like, ‘OK, now’s the time to do it.'”
In the past, the idea of re-recording catalogue hits was frowned upon, but Drew Lachey says Taylor’s success with new versions of classic LPs ‘Fearless’, ‘Red’, ‘Speak Now’ and ‘1989’ – out this month – has changed the game.
“I feel like, almost before Taylor did it, it was like, ‘Oh, you’re re-recording the masters’,” he elaborates. “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 re-record 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 re-recorded masters.”
