by The Cowl Editor on November 4, 2021
Arts & Entertainment
Olivia Riportella ’25
Swifties: the time is near. Red (Taylor’s Version) will officially be out next week. For those who are not Swifties, do not worry: here is everything you need to know about Taylor Swift’s latest re-recorded album.
Swift is adamant that musicians own their own work, and acquiring such ownership has been an overlooked struggle which artists often face in the music industry. She has been busy re-recording six—that is right, six—of her nine studio albums recorded with Big Machine Records, since the rights to the master versions of them were sold to Scooter Braun. Braun proceeded to sell the masters to an investment group for payout. Swift claims that she was not given the opportunity to purchase them herself, and to make the best of this bad deal, she has decided to re-record these “stolen” works, carefully re-creating an astounding 25 to 30 songs per album.
Red, released in October 2012, is Swift’s fourth studio and features 16 tracks. Upon release, Red was a massive success, with smash-hit singles such as “22,” “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” and “I Knew You Were Trouble.” Notably, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” landed Swift her first career Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single. Red debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and remained on the chart for 171 weeks while also selling 1.21 million copies.
Red (Taylor’s Version) will feature a whopping 30 tracks with nine bonus songs from the vault. One of these tracks is “All Too Well (10 Minute Version),” which is the original demo of the heartbreaking album classic, “All Too Well.” Fans have been eager to hear this version for years, and they are finally getting it after many teasers and hints. Swift released the full album tracklist after testing her fans with a word search that contained the names of the new tracks’ titles. There are some big-name collaborations featured on these vault tracks, such as Phoebe Bridgers, Chris Stapleton, and longtime Swift collaborator Ed Sheeran.
This re-record will be the first out of the four albums Swift has released in the last year and a half that will be released on a vinyl format on the same day that it will be released in digital formats.
Red (Taylor’s Version) will be released on Nov. 12, 2021 This date is a full week earlier than the original one she set, Nov. 19, 2021. Fans have speculated that the change came because Swift learned that Adele planned to release her upcoming album, 30, on the 19th, although neither artist has confirmed these rumors.
In a June statement, Swift wrote, “I’ve always said that the world is a different place for the heartbroken. It moves on a different axis, at a different speed. Time skips backwards and forwards fleetingly. The heartbroken might go through thousands of micro-emotions a day, trying to figure out how to get through it without picking up the phone to hear that old familiar voice. In the land of heartbreak, moments of strength, independence, and devil-may-care rebellion are intricately woven together with grief, paralyzing vulnerability and hopelessness. Imagining your future might always take you on a detour back to the past. And this is all to say, the next album I’ll be releasing is my version of Red.”
Needless to say, fans should prepare to be taken on an emotional rollercoaster with Red (Taylor’s Version).