Why is Taylor Swift re-recording her old music?

Taylor Swift just came out 1989 (Taylor version), the fourth re-recorded album from her extensive repertoire. In 2021, she released her first re-recorded album Fearless (Taylor Version)followed by Red (Taylor’s Version) and Speak Now (Taylor Version).

Those who haven’t followed the “Anti-Hero” singer’s career closely might be wondering why the 33-year-old singer is revisiting her back catalog like this.

In 2019, music label Big Machine Records, which Swift was signed to from 2006 to 2018, was sold to music mogul/manager Scooter Braun – best known for discovering Justin Bieber.

Along with ownership of the company, Brown also received master recording rights to all music created by Swift during her time at the label. This includes her first six albums: Taylor Swift (2006), Fearless (2008), Speak now (2010), red (2012), 1989 (2014) and Reputation (2017).

This meant that anyone who wanted to license one of Swift’s old songs for a movie or TV show had to get Brown’s permission and pay him a fee.

“For years I wanted, begged for a chance to own my work. Instead, I was given the opportunity to re-register with Big Machine Records and “earn” one album back, one for each new one I released. I left because I knew that after I signed that contract, Scott Borcetta [CEO of Big Machine Records] will sell the label thus selling me and my future,” Swift wrote on her Tumblr account in June 2019.

“I had to make the painful choice to leave my past behind. Music I wrote on my bedroom floor and videos I made and paid for with the money I made playing bars, then clubs, then arenas, then stadiums.

The “Cruel Summer” singer explained that she, too, only found out about her masters’ purchase from Brown when it was announced to the world. “All I could think about was the constant, manipulative abuse I had received at his hands for years,” she said.

“Now Scooter has robbed me of my life’s work that I wasn’t given the opportunity to buy. Basically, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to destroy it,” Swift said, calling it her “worst-case scenario.”

In August 2019, Swift revealed that she would re-record her first six studio albums in order to gain full control and ownership of her previous work.

Apart from the newly added “From The Vault” tracks – unreleased songs that did not make it onto the original albums – the reissued recordings are almost identical to the originals.

Earlier this year, Swift announced that her 2014 album 1989 will be Taylor’s next release, saying the record “changed my life in countless ways.”

“To be completely honest, this is my FAVORITE re-recording I’ve ever done,” she wrote on Instagram in August.

Until Adam White discovered this 1989 (Taylor Version)“lacks the yearning of those original outings,” in his three-star review for The Independenthe pointed out that “this reworking serves, at the very least, as a reminder of the album’s untouchable greatness”.

“It’s one of the best pop songs of the 21st century. Potentially some of the best pop songs ever made,” he added. “A few bits of middling production or slightly too-good vocals aren’t going to change that.”