As if Taylor Swift hasn’t been on a big enough roll lately with two big album releases only five months apart. On Friday, April 9th, 2021, Taylor blessed the world again with a re-recording of her entire album Fearless (Taylor’s Version), and needless to say, she did not disappoint.
Fearless was originally released in 2008 and quickly became one of her most popular and well-known albums. Many people, while thrilled, were also very confused as to why she decided to re-record an entire album that was 13 years old.
For those who don’t know, Taylor’s first six albums: Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989, and Reputation, were owned by Big Machine Records, who signed with Taylor back in 2004. Once her contract was up in 2019, instead of giving her the chance to own the rights to her music that was worth $300 million, it was sold to Scooter Braun, a popular celebrity manager who works with other big-name artists such as Justin Beiber and Ariana Grande. Taylor was not made aware of this deal, and Braun was knowingly not on her good side considering he promotes artists who have mistreated Taylor in the past, such as Kayne West, who publicly embarrassed her on stage at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, and dissed her in one of his songs.
All of Taylor’s songs were written by herself about her personal experiences from first love, heartbreak, and all of the good and bad parts of growing up. Having all of the rights to her music sold to someone else without her acknowledgment was a huge betrayal. Then, in 2020, Braun sold her music to an investment company, Shamrock Holdings. They offered Taylor a deal where she could co-own the music with them, as long as Braun gets a share of the money made from continuous streams and downloads of her six albums. Obviously, Taylor refused, and this is where she decided to re-record all of her old albums. Her hope is that people will stream and listen to her re-recorded songs instead of the old ones that other companies are profiting from.
She has complete ownership (as she should) over her two recent albums, Folklore, and Evermore, as well as her re-release of Fearless (Taylor’s Version). Although she is not re-releasing her old albums in chronological order of how they were originally released, Taylor always has some unique plans up her sleeve. She also has included some new songs in her re-recorded album that she calls “songs from the vault” which were not included in the original albums.
Fans are so excited to see Taylor taking back what is rightfully hers, and getting to enjoy her “throwback songs” in the midst of it. Her re-recording did not disappoint with it already having over 59 million streams. This was not only a smart business play on her end but shows her fans just how passionate she is about the music she has written.
The best part of these re-recorded albums has to be the nostalgic feeling of hearing songs that were originally released when we were kids. Now, the majority of her fan base are in their early to mid-twenties, have been through first loves, first heartbreaks, growing up, and can relate to the songs just a little bit more. 8-year-old me who was blasting these songs in the car with my mom will be doing just the same as a 20-year-old in college…and we will be enjoying it just as much, all over again.