Jack Antonoff
Producer extraordinaire and Bleachers frontman Jack Antonoff has signed an exclusive, global publishing agreement with Universal Music Publishing Group. The move follows his weekend wedding and reunites him with UMPG executive vp Jennifer Knoepfle, his longtime publishing A&R during the songwriter’s lengthy — and fruitful — stay at Sony Music Publishing.
“Jack is honestly one of one,” noted Knoepfle. “To continue being his publisher is an honor we don’t take for granted. He’s even more creative and prolific than when I first met him over a decade ago – and that’s saying a lot! I look forward to this next chapter for him with UMPG by his side.”
That hard-working ethos has gotten Antonoff far over the years, having collaborated extensively with Lana Del Rey, Lorde, Sia, Florence + The Machine, Tegan and Sara, St. Vincent, The Chicks, Carly Rae Jepsen, Pink, Olivia Rodrigo, FKA Twigs, Spoon, Zayn, Cam, Clairo, The 1975, Kevin Abstract and Sara Bareilles, among many others.
Then there’s Taylor Swift, whom Antonoff calls “the first person who recognized me as a producer.” They first collaborated in 2013 on “Sweeter Than Fiction” from the film One Chance, and have since gone on to produce Billboard 200-topping records 1989 (2014), Reputation (2017), Lover (2019), Folklore (2020), Evermore (2020), Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (2021), Red (Taylor’s Version) (2021), Midnights (2022) and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) (2023).
Antonoff has been rewarded with eight Grammy Awards, including back-to-back producer of the year nods in 2022-2023.
As a performing artist, Antonoff rose to prominence in the early 2010s as the guitarist and multi-instrumentalist in Fun., who scored hits with “We Are Young,” “Carry On” and the title cut off the band’s second album, Some Nights. He later formed Bleachers, whose hits include “I Wanna Get Better” and “Don’t Take the Money,” among others.
Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff took their history of musical collaboration to a new level on Monday (Nov. 7) when they unveiled a new version of the Midnights track “Anti-Hero,” featuring Antonoff’s solo project Bleachers.
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In the new version, Antonoff takes over the second verse, changing the viral “sexy baby” lyric to “art bro.” He sings, “Sometimes I feel like everybody is an art bro lately / And I just judge them on the hill / To hard to hang out talking s— about your famous baby / Pierce through the heart of 90s guilt.”
A sweet moment in the pre-chorus finds Swift singing, “Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism / Like some kind of congressman,” before Antonoff assures her, “Taylor, you’ll be fine.”
In a post shared to Instagram announcing the new collaboration, Swift captioned a photo of the Grammy winning duo, “Jack’s version of ‘sexy baby’ is ‘art bro’ and we sincerely hope it confuses just as many people.”
Antonoff is credited with co-writing 11 of the 13 songs on the traditional version of Swift’s freshly released 10th studio album, Midnights, including the original version of “Anti-Hero.” In an Instagram post, Swift elaborated on the duo working on the project. “We’d been toying with ideas and had written a few things we loved, but Midnights actually really coalesced and flowed out of us when our partners (both actors) did a film together in Panama,” she wrote. “Jack and I found ourselves back in New York, alone, recording every night, staying up late and exploring old memories and midnights past.”
See Swift’s “Anti-Hero (featuring Bleachers)” announcement below.
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