Like most teenage girls across the country, I was anxiously awaiting Oct.27, AKA the day Taylor Swift’s rerecording of her 2014 synth-pop album “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” would be released.
Classic 2010’s pop meets “From the Vault” tracks that hint at her more recent alternative and dream pop genres. “Shake it Off” and “Welcome to New York” meet their match with five new songs that didn’t make the original cut of the album. It’s vulnerable yet edgy, wise yet relatable and a perfect match between 24-year-old and 33-year-old Swift.
The first 16 songs will sound familiar to any listener and are the same ones that played through an iPod Touch nearly ten years ago. They pack the same punch as they did earlier with highlights including “Bad Blood (featuring Kendrick Lamar)” and “Clean.”
“Watching @kendricklamar create and record his verses on the Bad Blood remix was one of the most inspiring experiences of my life,” Swift wrote in an Instagram post. “I still look back on this collaboration with so much pride and gratitude, for the ways Kendrick elevated the song and the way he treats everyone around him.”
While his verse is lyrically identical, it’s produced quite differently. On the rerecording Lamar’s vocals layer over each other creating the sense of a background singer with the same excellence as the vocal point.
“Clean,” despite months of TikTok speculation, did not feature Swift’s former boyfriend Harry Styles. Instead the track is one of the most improved from its original edition. Swift’s voice in this compared to the original contains maturity and poise that reflects the song’s message and makes it believable; that she is “finally clean” of this former lover whom she’s trying to separate herself from.
Now, the main event of this album is the five songs previously mentioned. “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” premiered last July with six new songs, but these five, at least in my opinion, trump the six in both lyrical complexity and relatability. The first one provocatively named “Slut!” is a tale of a young woman’s sexual adventures and the shame that inevitably follows them. The other four are classic Swift; tales of unhealthy past relationships that can’t seem to die.
Track 19 “Now That We Don’t Talk” is Swift’s shortest song but will easily be a fan favorite. It’s the tale of moving on from an ex and seeing the flaws you fought so hard to ignore. It even includes a cheeky hook reminding her mom for advice; “I miss the old ways / You didn’t have to change / But I guess I don’t have a say / Now that we don’t talk / I call my mom, she says that it was for the best.”
Yet again Taylor Swift has proved to the music industry that she is in fact the music industry. Yet again she can rerelease a nearly decade-old album and will top the charts and make millions off it. “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” was well worth the anticipation and will only add to the eagerness of Swiftie’s to get their hands on the final two albums to be rerecorded.