After the masters for her first six albums were sold without her consent, Taylor Swift announced to the world that she would re-record her first six studio albums: “Taylor Swift,” “Fearless,” “Speak Now,” “Red,” “1989,” and “reputation.”
(Taylor Swift)
She has since stuck to her word, starting with the release of “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” in April 2021 and “Red (Taylor’s Version)” in November of that same year. After a quick break from the re-releases with her tenth studio album “Midnights,” she released her third re-recording of her third studio album, “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).”
The release of “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” marks her fourth re-recording, and similarly to the past re-releases, it is a perfect re-rendition of her fifth album along with bonus “From the Vault” tracks, songs that were scrapped from the original album that now get to see the light of day.
The album contains the thirteen tracks that made up the original “1989” and the three extra tracks that were featured on the deluxe edition. The production and vocals sound very similar to the original versions of each song, with slightly modernized and improved production to songs like “Style” and “Wonderland.” Personally, I had no issues with any small changes made to any of the original tracks, they all sound the same if not better to me.
The vault tracks were the gold of the album. There were five new songs, called “ ‘Slut!’ ”, “Say Don’t Go,” “Now That We Don’t Talk,” “Suburban Legends,” and “Is It Over Now?”. Each song was very different and added unique perspectives to Swift’s life while creating the original 1989 album.
The song “ ‘Slut!’ ” ended up being the only love song out of the vault tracks, which many fans were not expecting. It was about crushing on someone and how if the public called Swift a “slut” for being in love with another person, it would be worth it because of how powerful their love is. It was very beautiful and I was not expecting it to be so romantic.
My personal favorite was “Is It Over Now?”. It was about not knowing if a relationship has fully faded away, and the beat had me hooked from the very beginning. Many fans speculate if the song is about Swift’s relationship with Harry Styles. If it is, she did a good job respectfully slandering him with a good beat to dance to. I also liked the detail of seagulls making noises in the background, since seagulls have been featured on both of the 1989 album covers.
Overall, Taylor Swift did an amazing job not only recreating the original 1989 with the same energy, but capturing new energy with the previously unreleased songs. I cannot wait to see what the re-recordings of “reputation” and her self-titled album look like.
