Taylor Swift’s The 1989 World Tour doc to stream only on Apple Music

By Chris Leo Palermino Published December 14, 2015

Sounds like pop superstar Taylor Swift is continuing to cozy up with Apple Music. The Blank Space and Bad Blood singer has announced an exclusive deal to stream a concert film called The 1989 World Tour Live from her international, $240 million-grossing world tour promoting 1989, according to The New York Times.

The tour documentary will include an entire live set from a recent Australia show, backstage footage, and performances from some of the many musical guests she brought to the stage during her 85-date tour. Musical guests on The 1989 World Tour included Mick Jagger, Justin Timberlake, Mary J. Blige, The Weeknd, and Steven Tyler, among many others. Swedish director Jonas Akerlund, best known for the Grammy-winning video for Madonna’s 1998 single Ray of Light, worked on the film.

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The deal solidifies Swift’s strong trust in Apple Music, the sole music streamer to offer her album 1989, but that trust certainly did not come easy. In June, the singer crusaded against Apple Music in a blog post for not planning to pay artists during the service’s three-month free trial period. Just hours after her note, Apple senior exec Eddy Cue announced on Twitter that the company would reverse its decision and pay artists during the service’s trial period.

Swift announced the Apple Music-exclusive documentary on Sunday, which also happened to be her 26th birthday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Apple is surely hoping to attract more subscribers with this exclusive documentary. The music streamer has 6.5 million users paying $10 per month as of October 20. Spotify, the market-leading music streamer, has 20 million paying customers.

Beats 1, Apple’s live-streaming radio outlet, will air an interview with Taylor Swift on Monday. The 1989 World Tour Live documentary is set to hit Apple Music exclusively on December 20.

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Chris Leo Palermino

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Chris Leo Palermino is a music, tech, business, and culture journalist based between New York and Boston. He also contributes…

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