(Taylor’s Version)
I spent Thursday night (well, technically early morning) curled up in my bed with a preemptive pint of Ben & Jerry’s, excitedly sending Snapchats to all of my friends because “FEARLESS IS COMING” and I needed to do something to keep myself awake since midnight Eastern time is 5 am BST (thanks, Scottish time zones). I am happy to say the wait was well worth it because Ms. Swift has outdone herself once again.
Fearless (Taylor’s Version) is the perfect start to an impressive journey for Taylor to own all of her own music. For those of you who have been living under a rock for the last two years, here’s the skinny on why Taylor is re-releasing all of her old music. In 2019, Swift’s 13-year contract with her label Big Machine Records and her former boss Scott Borchetta expired, prompting her to sign to Republic Records for the release of Lover and subsequent albums. It’s important to note that her contract with Republic allowed her to own the masters for all of her music, starting with Lover. In June 2019, talent manager Scooter Braun (known for managing Kanye West at the time of “Famous”’s release, which prompted the infamous Kimye-Tay beef) and his company Ithaca Holdings bought out Big Machine, and with it came into ownership of all of Taylor’s masters from her first six albums. Taylor was understandably pissed, and came out with a statement saying that she’d been trying to buy her masters from her label for years but they wouldn’t sell unless she signed another long contract with them. She also said she knew Big Machine was up for sale, which was part of the reason why she wouldn’t sign, but she had no idea it was going to be bought out by Scooter, who she called an “incessant, manipulative [bully]”. Honestly? Queen shit.
Fast-forward through a bunch of celebs jumping into the fray and some BS and lies from men and we come to the 2020 sale of her masters. Last October, Scooter sold her masters, videos, and artwork to Shamrock Holdings for $300 million. He offered Taylor a chance to bid on them in exchange for signing an NDA re: everything she’d said about him in the past year, and she said no. After the sale, Shamrock Holdings offered to make her an equity partner, but she declined this offer as well because Braun would continue to profit off of her work. Starting in November 2020, her contract allowed her to re-record her first five albums (meaning we’ll have to wait a little for Reputation) and today’s release of Fearless (Taylor’s Version) marks her first record of her old music that she owns.
Now for the main event, the album itself. There’s something magical about listening to songs Taylor wrote at 18 when I’m 18, and the record carried that magic through every note. Swift’s vocals feel like a breath of fresh air as “Fearless” opens up the album, and “Hey Stephen” has all the charm it did the first time it was released. “Forever & Always” has always been my personal favorite from the album, and somehow I think I hate Joe Jonas even more this time around (plus it cracks me up that Sophie apparently loves Tay’s songs about her husband). I listened to the album at the same time as my Swiftie mom, and I texted her crying while I was listening to “The Best Day”, and this morning I got to reminisce about dancing around the house with my best friend in elementary school to “You Belong With Me”. So much of what makes this re-release special to me is all of the memories I have with Fearless, and now I get to make even more in a new phase of my life. After all, isn’t that what Taylor’s doing too?
As if it wasn’t gratifying enough to get to hear all of our old favorites from the heavenly vocal cords of a grown-up Taylor, the album includes 6 previously unreleased songs called the “From The Vault” tracks. The first From The Vault track released was “You All Over Me (feat. Marren Morris)” with vocals from Morris, who we all know as the vocals behind Zedd’s “The Middle”, you know, the one we could not get out of our heads all of 2018. Then we had the pleasure of hearing “Mr. Perfectly Fine” which rocked my world and prompted many check-in texts from my concerned friends. The From The Vault songs also include two features from Keith Urban, who had Taylor as his opening act during the first Fearless era.
The album is a masterpiece, and if it’s any indicator of the next five albums we have headed our way I think we’re going to spend the next year and a half falling in love with Taylor’s music all over again.
