Taylor Swift is back at it again with a new rendition of her classic song “Love Story” and a brand new song from the Fearless vault “You All Over Me (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)” (feat. Maren Morris).
Fearless (Taylor’s Version) will include 20 rerecorded songs from her 2008 album Fearless as well as six unreleased songs that will be available April 9, according to announcements Swift made on social media.
Swift doesn’t have ownership over her first six studio albums that she released with Big Machine Records, as record executive and music manager Scooter Braun had taken control of her former label, Big Machine Label Group, and refused to sell her music to her. It gave him ownership of her music catalogue, including all her albums and masters, according to The Cut. This situation prevents Swift from doing things like performing her older songs at big events, and the money generated from her old music goes to Braun instead of her.
For Swift, having control over her earlier music would give her a bigger sense of autonomy and responsibility within the music industry, especially since she didn’t really know what she was getting into when she signed with Big Machine Records at 15 years old.
“Artists should own their own work for so many reasons … The artist is the only one who really knows that body of work,” Swift said on social media.
She is now a part of Universal Music Group.
Fearless (Taylor’s Version) is just the first of the five albums she plans to re-record — it’s unknown if and when Swift will be able to re-record Reputation. The six unreleased songs that will be added to the album are songs she had written for the original album back in 2008 but didn’t make the final tracklist.
As for Swift herself, the daunting task of re-recording old music doesn’t seem to faze her. She told Sounds Like Nashville, “It was an album about hope and lessons learned and the effervescence of teenage youth and all that, so what more fun than to go back and explore that.”
The other albums Swift will re-record in the future include Taylor Swift, Speak Now, Red and 1989.