Now We Begin Again...The Story of Red (Taylor's Version)
By Leslie Urena ('24)
The day before the release of her fourth album, twenty-two-year-old Taylor Swift tweeted a picture of her standing in the woods with autumn’s orange trees surrounding her. “Tonight is the last night of my life before #RED. Midnight. Tonight.” is what the tweet read. Little did she know that nearly a decade later she would tweet nearly the same thing, declaring the release of a re-recorded Red in its original entirety. A version that she, and only she would own. She tweeted out on the day of Red (Taylor’s Version): “Red is about to become mine again, but it has always been ours. Now we begin again. Red (my version) is out.” But what exactly does this mean? Why is Swift re-recording her old music? What is (Taylor’s Version)?
To understand why all this is happening now, we must go back to the beginning. Back in 2005, when fifteen-year-old Taylor Swift signed with Big Machine Records. This contract gave Big Machine the masters to Swift’s original recordings of the albums Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989, and Reputation. Owning the masters to these albums gave Big Machine the right to do whatever they pleased with these albums. For example, giving TV shows and movies the green light to put songs on soundtracks or allowing other artists to sample the music. Swift’s contract lasted up to 2018. When the contract expired, she chose to sign with Universal’s Republic Records. When talking about the breakaway from Big Machine and its president and CEO Scott Borchetta, Swift took to Tumblr and wrote the following: “For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work. Instead, I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in. I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future. I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past.”
Scott Borchetta and Taylor Swift.
Photo courtesy of The Boot.
Fearless (Taylor's Version)
Photo courtesy of Amazon.
In the same post, Swift explained that when this happened, she had made peace with the fact that eventually her music would be sold. Borchetta fulfilled these expectations, and Big Machine sold the masters of her six albums to Ithaca Holdings. This put her masters in the hands of Scooter Braun, a man that Swift previously discussed her disdain for with Borchetta. Braun then sold her masters to Shamrock Holdings for $300 million. This meant that any album released before Lover in 2019 would put money in the hands of Scooter Braun. Taylor Swift does not own all of her music. So she made a promise to herself and her fans. She will not be denied the right to her art. She will re-record all six albums, and she will own all of them.
On February 11th, 2020, Swift took to social media to announce that the first album she will be re-recording is her Fearless album. Fearless (Taylor’s Version) would come out April 9, 2021, including its twenty-six original tracks, as well as six unreleased songs. When it came to the unreleased songs, Swift would post a video of a vault opening and out came scrambled song titles for her fans to put back together. This became known as “opening the vault” and after a little while, Swift would release an official tracklist. Singles released in anticipation were “Love Story (Taylor’s Version)”, “You All Over Me (feat. Marren Morris) (From The Vault) (Taylor’s Version)”, and fan-favorite “Mr. Perfectly Fine (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault).” That’s a lot of parentheses! Before this, the only albums in her possession were Lover, Folklore, and Evermore.
It didn’t take long for the next re-recording to come, with Red (Taylor’s Version) being announced on April 5, 2021. The vault was opened on August 5th and the tracklist was released a day later. The album would have a total of thirty songs, with eight vault tracks. The interesting thing is that in the months of waiting between June and the official release date in November, Swift did not put out any singles from the album itself. However, the original version of “The Lakes” was released for the anniversary of Folklore, and “Wildest Dreams (Taylor’s Version)” from 1989 due to a trend on the platform TikTok. This started fan theories that 1989 would be the next re-recording.
While everyone can’t wait to see what the next re-recording will be, I think it’s safe to say that it’s not because Red was at all a letdown. This album was Swift’s tenth to hit number one on the Billboard charts, and multiple songs dominated Spotify’s Top 50 in the US. The most surprising of these songs was “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)(Taylor’s Version)(From The Vault)”, and it was number one on Spotify! The song even has its very own short film starring Sadie Sink, Dylan O’Brien, and Swift herself with 52 million views. Another vault track titled “I Bet You Think About Me (feat. Chris Stapleton) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)” has its own music video directed by actress Blake Lively. The album and short film had their own merch collection with a variety of different garments, trinkets, and accessories that referenced songs and lyrics. I believe I speak for everyone, fans, and non-fans alike when I say that this is a release that will forever be remembered all too well.
Cover photo courtesy of RTTNews.