TRENDING

*cues every song from Fearless* 

Last fall, Taylor Swift announced that she would be recording and releasing her first six studio albums (Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989 and reputation) again. And more recently, we got the first taste of these rerecordings, with "Love Story (Taylor's Version)". Let's take a dive into what we know about the re-releases, and why Taylor's recording them again. 

The "why": 

It's clear that Taylor has poured her heart out into her albums (Hello, "All Too Well"!) so it would make sense that she would want to have artistic and financial control over her material. However, this isn't the case. The music label that signed Taylor back in 2006, Big Machine Records, sold her masters to another group in a deal that was worth 300 *million*. BTW, "masters" for an artist basically refers to the original sound that was released, so every song that Taylor released before her 2019 album Lover, she doesn't own the original sound to.

This is a big deal for Taylor, especially because she wasn't included in the sale, even though she's made it clear that she has always wanted to be a part of any business that has to do with her music. In a 2019 blog post, she wrote: "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 had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past." 

What's coming next:

In case you're wondering if the new recordings will sound like brand new songs, they're most likely not. Taylor's goal isn't to make brand new albums, but simply release new versions of the same songs that she doesn't have her masters of. That's why the 2020 version of Love Story sounds super similar to the 2008 version—that's what it's meant to do.

However, that doesn't mean that we aren't being blessed with *anything* new. At least with Fearless, the first rerecorded release that Taylor has announced, we're getting some new songs (6!!!!) from "the vault". All of these songs were ones written before the release of Fearless in 2008, and we'll probably see more songs being released with each new album rerecording. With six albums to be released, and probably dozens of songs that weren't released on each album, we're in for a very exciting 2021!

Fan speculation: 

Ever since Taylor announced the release date for Fearless (Taylor's Version), there's been *tons* of fan speculation on when we'll see the next rerecorded song or album. One Twitter user thinks that Speak Now, Taylor's third album, will be released on July 9th, the date referenced in the song "Last Kiss", which is on Speak Now. 

i’m convinced speak now is coming on july 9th, hear me out:

on this weird tweet gma posted there’s 91 dots, 13 weeks and 91 days from april 9, is july 9!!

as we know last kiss day is july 9th so it would make sense to release it on that day. pic.twitter.com/lIr5wpD33X

— andreaᴴ◟̽◞̽ christopher columbus feud era (@H0PEINEVERLOSE) February 12, 2021

Another Twitter user poses a theory about if we're gonna get another rerecorded single before Fearless (Taylor's Edition) drops. They noticed that in one of the videos linked to her Spotify, there's a sticky note that cleverly covers March 5th. Even more, the numbers that make up 3/5/2021 add up to 13, a number that Taylor *always* uses as part of her Easter eggs, so they hypothesized that March 5th would be the release date for the next single, You Belong With Me. 

😱 Taylor Swift could release the second single re-recorded "You Belong With Me" on Friday March 5th. She mentioned the number '18' in her last tweet and liked 18 tweets today. 18 days from now is March 4th which is covered on the Spotify video. The day after: 5+3+2+2+1=13 pic.twitter.com/8cLfWJoqqL

— Taylor Swift World 💛💛 (@TSWorId) February 14, 2021

As for the rest of the songs and albums, not much is known about them yet, so not speculation surrounds them at this point. We'll just have to wait until the next time we get a surprise announcement from the queen of surprises herself. Honestly, we should have gotten used to this after both folklore and evermore dropped with like zero warning. 

All GIFs via GIPHY | Slider image: @sofiajain

by Serena Sherwood | 2/18/2021