With Taylor Swift’s release of Red (Taylor’s Version) on November 12th, many people are again wondering about Taylor’s recordings of her old albums, so as your resident Swiftie, I’m here to explain all your burning questions about Red (Taylor’s Version).
Why the rerecordings?
Like many people, you probably know that Taylor Swift is rereleasing her old albums, but you may not be familiar with why. It all started around the beginning of her career, in 2005 when she signed with Big Machine Records. With this contract, Big Machine Records and its CEO, Scooter Braun gained full ownership of the masters (or originals) of Taylor’s first six studio albums. The contract ended in 2018, so she still has ownership of her albums Lover, Folklore , and Evermore and as such, these albums won’t be rerecorded. However, her albums 1989, Reputation, Speak Now, and her self titled first album Taylor Swift (often referred to as “Debut”) will be rerecorded in the future, with Fearless (Taylor’s Version) having been released in April of 2021, and Red (Taylor’s Version) being released on November 12th of 2021.
So what’s the difference?
Now you might be asking, “So what’s the difference between the rerecordings and the originals?”. The short answer is: Nothing. And that’s the whole point. The goal of the rerecordings is to allow Taylor to own her original music, just as it was when she first released it. Yes, all the rerecorded songs are being released by her currently, so her voice my sound different in the rerecordings than it did when the songs were first released, but the songs themselves stay the same. There is some possibility for minute changes though. For example, in the song “You Belong With Me (Taylor’s Version)” one lyric was changed slightly from “I’m in the room” to “I’m in my room”, likely because “my” makes more sense, but the general idea is still there.
Additionally, while the songs might be the same, the overall albums will vary slightly with the presence of the vault tracks which are songs she had written around the time of each original album but she hadn’t released the first time around such as “Mr. Perfectly Fine (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)” on Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and “All To Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)” on Red (Taylor’s Version). If you hadn’t caught on, these newly released vault tracks can be identified by the “(From The Vault)” tags in their titles.
Then, What’s the big deal?
At this point you’re probably wondering what fans are so excited about if the songs are exactly the same? Well, besides the previously unreleased vault tracks, there’s a few reasons we’ve all been counting down the days to Red (Taylor’s Version), and every other rerecording there after.
Firstly, we love to see Taylor thriving! We’re all thrilled that she finally is getting the chance to own her own songs, her own words. Even songs like the recently released 1989 (Taylor’s Version) single, “Wildest Dreams (Taylor’s Version) include elements like Taylor’s own heartbeat in the backing track. So now that Taylor own’s “Wildest Dreams”, she essentially owns her own heartbeat in the song. So many of these songs are so personal to her and her life and it’s so amazing to see her own that part of herself.
We’re also so excited to see her grow as an artist. Taylor’s first album came out when she was only sixteen. In the fifteen years since then, her voice has developed and evolved so much. A sixteen year old’s voice is rarely fully developed, in fact, most people’s voices don’t stop changing until they’re around twenty or twenty-one, and Taylor is no exception to this rule. Though she’s always been talented, she has gotten a much more sophisticated handle on her sound and her voice over the years. It’s exciting to hear these older songs sung by thirty-one year old Taylor.
One more factor in our excitement is our nostalgia. Over the past fifteen years in her career, Taylor’s music has touched many of us at various points in our lives. It’s so exciting to relive the release of a specific album that meant something to us in the past as well as the present. Think about it, back in 2012, when Red initially came out, we were completely different people, but listening to the rerecorded versions of the album, we’re taken back to when we were nine years old, dancing around our room to “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”. And now, we get to experience the release in a whole new way. In 2012, we weren’t all over social media in the same way we are now. Now, we get to celebrate the rerelease of these iconic songs with Swifties around to world, just as we maybe would have when they first came out, if we’d had the opportunity. Even new Swifties, who fell in love with Taylor’s music sometime after these original albums came out, get to experience the rereleases as if they were fans back then too. The relreases help to build an overall sense of community amongst the fans.
What Does This Mean for me?
Now if you’re not a Swiftie (and you aren’t quite willing to let me convince you to be), you may be asking why you should even care or what you should do with this information. The key take away should be, listen to the rerecordings. And I don’t just mean stream Red (Taylor’s Version) or any of the other rerecordings, though I definitely recommend you do. But if you’re building a break-up playlist, add “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)” instead of “All Too Well”. This way, you’re supporting Taylor when you’re listening to her original music that she worked so hard to create.