On April 9th, the world was blessed by the release of Fearless (Taylor’s Version). This re-recording comes mere months after Swift released her second album of 2020, Evermore.
To people who aren’t Swifties, you may not know why Taylor is choosing to re-record some of her earlier work after such a long time. Well, it’s a long story but I’ll try to condense it.
Taylor had been fighting for years and years to manage the means, production and distribution of all of her music. Her new goal is to make sure all of her music remains in her control, that she gets to choose how it’s produced, marketed and distributed.
Taylor signed to Big Machine Records in 2005 but her contract expired in 2018. She then switched to Republic Records but not without some fall out. Big Machine owns the masters of her first six albums which is typical for many record deals.
Her biggest moves began when Big Machine sold her masters to a private equity, Ithaca Holdings, which is owned by the infamous Scooter Braun. Braun decided to then sell the masters to Shamrock Holdings for $300 million in 2019. Taylor claims that Braun repeatedly bullied her and made it her business to re-record her first six albums, with the recordings under her control.
Her plan is to re-release six of her albums, Debut, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989, and Reputation. Fearless is the first of those six to be re-released with six new songs that didn’t make the cut the first time around labelled ‘(From The Vault)’.
So, what’s different about the album this time around? The short answer, not much. The biggest differences are mainly the fact that Taylor owns these masters and the new songs that she released. Other than a few lyric changes, new beats and maybe new instrumentation, Fearless (Taylor’s Version) is not much different from its original.
The ‘newest’ thing about Taylor’s re-release is the intention behind it, the reason for its making. Taylor Swift is one of the best-selling musicians of all time, which means she brings in some serious cash to record labels. But as she grew, she didn’t get her fair share of her earnings, the record labels did. This was one of her main motivations to leave Scooter Braun and Big Machine Records behind, she had no control and wanted to reclaim it.
All in all, no matter your opinion of the woman that reinvented the music industry, Taylor Swift has taken this quarantine and made it her own. She released two albums last year, one re-release this year alone with rumours of her 2014 pop album 1989 dropping next. Miss Swift never stops and is an inspiration to people everywhere.
Reclaiming her stolen melodies and reclaiming her rightful throne as that b1tch.