By Ava Shaffer
On Feb. 11, the world stopped. (Well, at least for the dedicated ‘Swifties’ it did.) On this day, Taylor Swift announced that she will be re-recording one of her first and most successful albums, Fearless. That night, “Love Story (Taylor’s Version)” was released.
Although Taylor has expressed interest in wanting to re-record her first six albums in the past, this is the first time she has explicitly stated a date when re-recordings will be released.
Mark your calendars for April 9, because we will be doing nothing other than screaming the lyrics to “You Belong With Me” at the top of our lungs.
For people who grew up with Taylor’s music, this is a huge deal. Her strong and loyal fan base are ecstatic for the new takes on some of their favorite songs. With her matured voice, people are more excited than ever to hear Taylor go back to her country roots with a little twist.
Specifically on TikTok, creators are posting videos about how excited they are for her new music. Currently, the #taylorsversion hashtag has over 19.8 million views!
Some people may be wondering why Taylor is remaking an album from over 13 years ago, and it’s an accurate question.
The biggest reason for Taylor’s interest in re-recordings is stated on her Instagram post where she made this announcement.
She wrote, "Artists should own their own work for so many reasons, but the most screamingly obvious one is that the artist is the only one who really knows that body of work."
Let’s backtrack for a little background information. According to CNN Business, Taylor signed a contract with Big Machine Records, which was then sold to Scooter Braun for a 300 million dollar deal. In this contract, which Taylor signed at the young age of 15, states that although Taylor gets paid a percentage of the revenue from her recordings, the real creative power lays in Scooter Braun’s hands. And incapable and overly controlling hands they were.
For example, Taylor has expressed her annoyance throughout social media (most noticeably Tumblr and Instagram) with her previous record company for strictly regulating what can and can’t be put on her album. She was told there were too many sad songs, too many breakup songs. She was asked time and time again, do you really want to depress your listeners?
All of these constraints and limitations on her music proved to be aggravating for Taylor because, 13 years later, the songs she wrote and performed still do not belong to her.
In a Tumblr post from 2019, Taylor wrote, "This is what happens when you sign a deal at 15 to someone for whom the term 'loyalty' is clearly just a contractual concept...And when that man says 'music has value', he means its value is beholden to men who had no part in creating it."
Taylor was obviously upset, so she was determined to change the circumstances.
Now, she is re-recording these albums so she can regain her creative control and overall ownership for her songs. In these Taylor’s Version albums, Taylor has complete authority over what goes on the tracks. For example, she announced on her latest Instagram post that she is adding six never before released songs to the Fearless rerecording.
Although it is obvious that these re-recordings will earn her a ton of money, it’s deeper than that. Having the creative liberty to craft her albums into exactly what she always wanted is empowering for her as an artist and creator.